Ophelia Ashvale's POV
The priest was sweating.
Ophelia noticed it on the first morning of travel, when they stopped to change horses at a small inn. Father Matthias—that was his name—kept wiping his forehead with a cloth that was already soaked. His hands shook as he drank his tea. He wouldn't meet her eyes.
They traveled together in the second carriage, the one behind the guards. The priest had been sent by her father to "prepare her spiritually" for the wedding. What that meant, Ophelia didn't know. What it felt like was sitting across from a man who looked like he was attending a funeral.
"First time seeing the Duke's fortress?" she asked quietly, trying to fill the heavy silence.
The priest flinched like she'd hit him.
"Yes," he said, and his voice cracked on the single syllable. "Yes, I... I haven't been to Nocturne in seven years."
Seven years. Which meant he'd been there before. Which meant he knew something.
"How long was it between the last bride arriving and..." She couldn't finish the sentence. And dying.
Father Matthias looked out the window, his jaw working silently. "Seventeen days."
The carriage wheels clattered over stone. In the distance, Ophelia could hear the guards talking, laughing about something. Normal sounds. But inside the carriage, the air felt thick enough to choke on.
"The previous bride," the priest continued quietly, like the words were being pulled from him against his will, "was a kind girl. From a merchant family in the capital. She had no training for court, no understanding of protocol. But she was kind."
"What happened to her?"
"She died."
"How?"
He wouldn't answer. He just kept staring out the window, his fingers working the beads of a rosary over and over, prayer after prayer, like repetition could change history.
By the second day, the landscape had changed completely.
The rolling farmland of the lower provinces had given way to steep, rocky terrain. The roads narrowed. Trees grew twisted and dark, reaching toward the sky like dying fingers. The air grew cold—not autumn cold, but the kind of cold that came from high altitudes and dark places.
Father Matthias had stopped trying to hide his fear.
"You should know," he said, and his voice was very quiet, "what you're walking into. Your father... he didn't explain, did he?"
Ophelia's stomach twisted. "He told me I was being married to the Duke. He told me the Emperor had ordered it. He told me I would die."
The priest made a small, wounded sound.
"The Duke," Matthias said slowly, "is not an evil man. I need you to understand that. He's not... he's not a monster in his heart. But what was done to him..." The priest trailed off, staring at his hands. "The Emperor took everything from him. His family. His future. His face."
"His face?"
"When the Duke was sixteen, the Emperor's soldiers came to his family estate. They burned it. Burned it with his parents inside. His younger sister..." The priest's voice broke. "She was only twelve. The Duke tried to save her. The flames..." He pressed his hands over his face. "Half his face was destroyed. The burns never healed properly. Now he wears a silver mask. Always. No one has seen his face in thirteen years."
Ophelia's hands gripped the fabric of her gown so hard she thought she might tear it. "Why? Why would the Emperor do that?"
"Political loyalty testing. The Nocturnes weren't enthusiastic enough in their support when the Emperor took the throne. So he made an example of them." Matthias looked at her with ancient, exhausted eyes. "And then, a few years ago, he began ordering the Duke to marry. Six times, he's sent brides. Six times, he's commanded the Duke to marry and then execute them publicly to prove his continued loyalty."
"And he did?"
The priest didn't answer, which was answer enough.
The third day brought the mountains.
They loomed on all sides now, massive walls of stone that seemed to lean inward, pressing down, crushing the sky. The carriage moved slowly along narrow passes where falling rocks clattered beside them. Ophelia could hear nothing but the wind—a constant, mournful howl that sounded almost like voices.
Father Matthias hadn't spoken since morning. He'd just sat, staring, his lips moving in continuous prayer.
As the afternoon faded toward evening, mist rolled in from nowhere. Thick, white mist that swallowed the world. The guards ahead were only visible as dark shapes. The rocks beside the road disappeared into whiteness.
And then the carriage stopped.
"The fortress," Father Matthias whispered.
Ophelia leaned toward the window and saw nothing but mist. Then a shape began to emerge—first as a shadow, then as something darker, something wrong. Not a building. A monument to fear itself.
Nocturne Fortress rose from the mountainside like a black crown hewn from stone and suffering.
It wasn't beautiful. It was immense and terrible and ancient, with towers that reached toward the sky like accusing fingers. The walls were smooth and dark, almost black, and they seemed to swallow light rather than reflect it. Watchtowers stood at each corner, and even from this distance, Ophelia could see armed guards moving along the ramparts.
This was a fortress meant to hold prisoners, not welcome guests.
The gates—massive iron gates carved with symbols she didn't recognize—began to open with a sound like the earth screaming.
Ophelia's hands started to shake.
"You can do this," Father Matthias said, and she almost believed he meant it. "The Duke is cold, yes. He's distant. He doesn't speak more than necessary. But he's not... he won't..."
He trailed off, unable to finish.
The carriage moved forward, through the open gates, into darkness that seemed to have weight and substance.
The courtyard was enormous. Stone floors stretched in every direction, lit by torches that cast dancing shadows. Guards lined the walls—dozens of them, maybe hundreds. All standing at attention. All watching the carriage.
The guards didn't look like they were there to protect anything. They looked like they were there to prevent escape.
Father Matthias touched Ophelia's arm. "Whatever happens, remember—he's not evil. He's trapped, the same way you are. Just... don't give him reason to fear you."
Don't give him reason to fear her. As if he would fear a nineteen-year-old seamstress's daughter.
The carriage door opened. A guard extended his hand to help her down, and Ophelia stepped out on legs that didn't quite work.
The courtyard was silent except for the wind and the torches crackling. She stood alone on the stone, surrounded by guards and shadows and the weight of this terrible place.
Then he appeared.
A figure emerged from the darkness at the far end of the courtyard. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed entirely in black. And on his face—a silver mask that caught the torchlight and threw it back at her like a mirror reflecting her own terror.
He didn't walk toward her. He just stood there, perfectly still, and watched.
The mask showed no expression. But the eyes—the eyes were ice blue, and they were looking at her with an intensity that made her skin feel like it was crawling off her bones.
"Take her to the east tower," a voice said—deep and cold and somehow wrong, like it was coming from somewhere very far away. "Lock the door. She's not to leave until the wedding."
Guards moved toward her. Hands gripped her arms.
And the figure in the silver mask—the Duke—tilted his head slightly, studying her like a predator studying prey.
Ophelia tried to speak, tried to say something, anything. But her voice was gone.
The Duke took a single step forward, and she saw his hand move to his side where a sword hung at his belt.
"I am told you are my seventh bride," he said quietly, and the words seemed to suck all the air from the courtyard. "I wonder if you'll survive longer than the others."
Then he turned and walked back into the darkness, and Ophelia understood with absolute clarity that she was trapped.
Not just in the fortress.
With him.
And no one in the world was coming to save her.