Into the Darkness: Chapter Five - Previous Chapter
Chapter 6
The wind carried the scent of peat smoke and rain.
Damien stepped out of the shadows at the edge of a narrow road, his boots crunching against gravel slick with mist. The air was colder here—so sharp it felt alive. The mountains loomed in the distance, black teeth gnawing at a pale, shrouded sky.
Before him stretched a village, small and old enough to feel forgotten by the world. The houses crouched close together, their stone walls streaked with damp and ivy, their slate roofs slick with moss. A low fog hung between them, ghostly, whispering against the ground like a tide of smoke.
Yet what struck Damien most was the silence.
No voices. No footsteps. No dogs barking behind gates or cats slinking along walls. Even the crows were gone, their absence a wound in the air. Every window he passed had its curtains drawn tight—shadows pressed against glass, shutting him out.
The stillness felt constructed, deliberate, as though the whole village was holding its breath.
Damien walked on, the sound of his own footsteps too loud in the hush. His breath rose in faint plumes before fading into the fog. Occasionally, he caught the faintest flicker of movement behind the curtains—an outline, a shift of fabric—but whenever he turned to look, it was gone.
The silence wasn’t empty; it was listening.
He reached the village square, little more than a cracked fountain surrounded by shuttered shops. The paint on the old post office door had peeled to reveal grey wood beneath, and a sign swung loosely overhead, squealing on its hinges.
Damien paused beside the fountain. The basin was dry, its stone dark with moss, and carved along the rim were faint letters—worn by time but still visible: The water remembers.
He frowned. The air was thick with the metallic tang of old rain and something else beneath it—something faintly sweet, like decay.
Somewhere, far off, a door closed.
The sound echoed through the village like a gunshot.
Damien turned slowly, eyes scanning the row of silent houses. The mist swirled low, hugging the ground. For a fleeting moment, he could’ve sworn he saw something move between the buildings—a shadow, long and loping, gone before the mind could form its shape.
The tension in the air deepened.
Damien exhaled, his breath misting the cold air. “Right,” he muttered softly. “Let’s see what’s crawled out of the dark this time.”
Damien’s boots struck the cobblestones in slow, measured rhythm as he followed the main street out toward the edge of the village. The mist grew thicker here, swirling around him in long ribbons that clung to the ground like breath unwilling to leave.
He felt it before he saw it—an almost magnetic pull, something ancient and watchful drawing him forward.
The old tower rose from the earth like a wounded tooth, its stones blackened with centuries of rain. Wooden scaffolding hugged its sides, skeletal and shivering in the wind, a futile attempt to keep time from claiming what was left.
A single, narrow window broke the tower’s face. Its leaded panes caught the light weakly, glinting like the eye of something half-asleep. Damien squinted. Behind the glass, a shape moved—a silhouette, faint but unmistakable, standing motionless and watching him.
He blinked, and it was gone.
He turned away, his gaze catching on a weathered wooden board set beside the gate, half-buried in the overgrown grass. The writing, worn but still legible, had been carved with a patient hand long ago. Damien brushed the grime away and read aloud, his breath misting against the words.
Back in the days of old, the fourteenth century to be told,
There lived a lady fair and kind, by name of Mariota.
In love with a farmer was she, a love forbidden by her father,
Who sold her hand to a chieftain—for horses and for land.
The wedding done and gone, she was locked within this tower ye see,
Hidden from the eyes of her true love, kept cruel and lonely.
They say her cries were heard for weeks, till hunger and sorrow took her—
Her beauty withered, her heart blackened, and her soul turned foul with grief.
Upon the anniversary of her death she rose once more,
A maiden of shadow and wind, seeking her sleeping father.
Finding him, she kissed his lips—soft, sweet, deadly,
And with that kiss she drew out his life and left him still.
Then to her husband she went, the chieftain cruel and drunken,
And on his lips she laid a final kiss—drawing forth not love, but blood.
The last lines had been scratched deeper into the wood, as though someone’s hand had trembled with fear. The edges of the board were splintered and blackened, faint scorch marks biting into the grain.
Damien straightened, the mist curling around his coat. The tower loomed higher now, the fog gathering thick around its base, the air colder with each breath.
He glanced up once more at the narrow window.
A face stared back at him.
Pale. Still. Eyes like wet pearls gleaming faintly in the grey.
And then it was gone again, leaving only the faint ripple of movement behind the glass—like a curtain stirred by a sigh.
The silence broke like glass.
From somewhere behind the rows of shuttered houses came the sudden crash of furniture and a man’s voice shouting, raw and furious. Another shout followed, then the pounding of fists on wood. The sound tore through the still village, bouncing off the stone walls until it seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Damien turned, scanning the darkened windows. The mist that had lain still began to move—slow at first, then quickening, curling into narrow tendrils that wound between doorways and chimneys.
Then came the cold.
It didn’t roll in gradually—it struck, swift and sharp as a blade. The air hissed as its temperature dropped. The dry fountain in the square began to creak and groan; thin veins of frost spidered up its sides, converging at the lip where water had once flowed. In seconds, delicate icicles hung from its rim, glittering in the dull grey light.
Damien looked toward the tower.
Something shimmered at its threshold—a figure taking shape from mist and light. It had the faint form of a woman, but without detail: a silver silhouette, faceless and radiant, her edges rippling like heat haze.
For a moment she stood perfectly still, the air around her humming with a low, mournful tone that Damien felt in his bones. Then she moved.
She passed through the wooden door without sound or resistance.
And then—through him.
The sensation made his entire body seize. A cold like liquid mercury surged through his veins, burning and freezing at once. His vision blurred, the world tilting for an instant. When he caught his breath, she was already drifting past him, gliding toward the heart of the village.
Where her feet touched the ground, frost bloomed—a delicate, gleaming path of ice that cracked faintly under its own growth. Damien heard the crunch of invisible steps upon it, yet there were no footprints.
He followed, a few paces behind, drawn by instinct and the same magnetic chill that had led him to the tower.
The shouting grew louder, more desperate. A man’s voice barked incoherent words of rage, then a heavy thud shook the air. The silvery figure slipped through the door of one of the houses, and a flicker of light flared through the window—electric, stuttering.
Damien’s pulse quickened. He stepped closer just as the lights inside began to flicker wildly. Shadows flailed against the glass like frantic birds trapped in a cage.
Then—a scream.
A woman’s voice, torn from the depths of terror.
“Michael! What happened? Michael—wake up!”
Her words cut through the night like a knife, followed by sobbing and the dull crash of something falling to the floor.
The house fell silent. The village again held its breath.
Then the door creaked open.
The silver silhouette drifted out—slow, deliberate, and silent as snowfall. She paused at the threshold, her head tilting slightly, as though regarding something only she could see.
And then she turned.
Her gait was calm, unhurried, as she began her return to the tower, her glow faintly dimmer now, her form less defined—as though she had fed.
Frost spread in her wake, and the night swallowed the faint sound of her passage.
Damien followed at a distance, eyes narrowing. His breath misted in the air, forming ghosts of its own.
“So it’s you,” he murmured. “The Lady Mariota still walks.”
Damien didn’t move from the shadows. He stood across the narrow street, arms folded, his breath coiling into the cold air as the distant wail of sirens grew nearer. The silver figure was long gone—slipped back into the tower like mist drawn home—but the chill she left behind still clung to the stones.
Within minutes, red and blue lights bathed the village square in colour. Paramedics rushed into the small house, boots crunching over the frost that hadn’t yet melted. The door stood open; Damien could see the edge of a toppled chair, the glint of shattered glass, and a pale hand on the floor.
Voices rose, low and urgent. A defibrillator whined to life.
“Charging—clear!”
A sharp thud, then silence.
“Again! Clear!”
Another thud. Then nothing.
Damien’s jaw tightened. He’d seen this pattern before — the remnants of a death not fully human.
After a few more minutes, one of the paramedics straightened and shook his head.
“Time of death… 23:42.”
The words hung in the air like frostbite.
They covered the body with a sheet. The woman knelt beside it, hands trembling, mascara running down her cheeks. Her sobs filled the empty village, raw and hollow.
When the police arrived, the air shifted again — the practical bustle of procedure replacing the paramedics’ urgency. A young constable led the woman out onto the steps, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders.
Her voice cracked as she spoke.
“We were arguing,” she said, barely audible. “He—he didn’t want the baby. Said we couldn’t afford another. He started smashing things—plates, the lamp… he was so angry.”
She paused, rubbing her hands together as though still cold.
“And then the lights… they started flickering. I thought it was the power again, but then…”
Her eyes widened as if reliving it.
“Michael—he just—he lifted off the floor. Like something invisible was holding him up. His head tilted back, and… and he… pursed his lips, like he was kissing someone.”
A shudder ran through her.
“And then he dropped. Just—dropped. No sound, no warning. He wasn’t breathing. I thought he was having a seizure but… he was gone.”
The officer glanced toward the house uneasily.
“Did you see anyone else? Anything unusual before this happened?”
She shook her head fiercely.
“No one. Just him… and the lights.”
Damien, still unseen, turned his gaze toward the tower silhouetted against the horizon. Its narrow window gleamed faintly, as though catching light from some hidden source.
“Another kiss for the dead,” he murmured. “The Lady is taking the unworthy into judgment of her own...”
He stepped out of the shadows, his coat brushing the frost-dusted cobbles, and began walking toward the tower once more.
The ambulance pulled away from the silent village, sirens muted out of respect for the dead. Damien followed at a distance, his shadow trailing long behind him as he moved unseen through the narrow country roads. The night pressed close — damp, cold, thick with a silence that only deepened after death.
By the time the ambulance reached the small regional hospital, the frost had turned to mist. Damien lingered near the loading bay, his eyes catching the dim light spilling from the doors as Michael’s covered body was wheeled inside.
Inside the morgue, the fluorescent lights buzzed faintly. The air was sterile but heavy with that coppery ghost of mortality that never fully left such rooms. Damien stepped silently through the shadows, unseen, standing at the far corner as the pathologist, a weary man in his fifties, prepared his instruments.
The sheet was drawn back. Michael’s face was pale, lips slightly parted, as though still caught mid-breath. The doctor sighed, dictating into a recorder.
“Male, early thirties. No visible trauma apart from mild bruising on the wrists, possibly defensive. Pupils dilated. Skin pallor advanced but not consistent with standard cardiac arrest. Commencing examination.”
Steel met flesh with a practiced cut. The sound was quiet, almost reverent.
The doctor worked efficiently, but soon his brows furrowed. He paused, glancing toward the nurse beside him.
“Get me another set of vials.”
Minutes passed. Confusion crept in.
“Strange… there’s no pooling. No signs of internal bleeding, but…” He leaned closer. “There’s… nothing. No blood.”
The nurse frowned. “Maybe it drained during transport?”
The doctor shook his head sharply. “Impossible. The body was intact. There’s no incision, no puncture wound, nothing to indicate loss.”
He stood back, wiping his gloved hands on a cloth. His voice grew lower, almost hesitant.
“The tissue is oxygen-starved, but otherwise… this is a perfectly healthy man. No heart disease. No aneurysm. Organs pristine. It’s as if…”
He trailed off, staring at the open cavity.
“As if the blood was… taken.”
The nurse shifted uncomfortably. “You mean… drained?”
“No,” the doctor said quietly, his voice cracking under the weight of disbelief. “I mean… consumed.”
The fluorescent lights flickered once, twice. A gust of cold air swept through the room though the doors were closed. The sheet stirred faintly over Michael’s legs.
Damien’s eyes narrowed. He could feel the residue of that same silvery energy — the cold kiss of the revenant. He stepped closer, the shadows bending slightly toward him.
The doctor looked up suddenly, as if sensing something watching. The room seemed to pulse, the buzz of the lights rising to a strained hum.
Damien whispered, barely audible:
“Your hunger lingers, Mariota. But it ends tonight.”
And with that, he turned and vanished back into the shadowed corridor, the temperature rising back to normal as though nothing had ever been there.
By the time Damien reached the outskirts of the village again, the horizon had begun to blush with the first streaks of dawn. The mist hung low over the cobbled streets, soft and pale, coiling around his boots like reluctant smoke. The cold had lifted; the air was damp and smelled faintly of peat fires and brine.
The change was startling. Curtains once drawn tight were now open to the morning light. Doors creaked on their hinges as villagers emerged, sweeping thresholds, unlocking shops, and setting out crates of bread, fruit, and fish. Laughter — hesitant but real — trickled back into the air like the first notes of a forgotten song.
If the dead ruled the night, the living were quick to reclaim the morning.
Damien walked among them, blending easily in the shadow of a delivery lorry and the chatter of a few early risers. His dark coat hid the scars of the night — the faint residue of frost still clinging to the hem, the ghost of that silvery chill that had followed him from the tower.
His gaze lifted toward the looming silhouette of that same tower, its peak still wrapped in scaffolding that glinted weakly in the rising sun. It stood apart from the waking village, watchful and indifferent, as though it remembered things the rest of the world had chosen to forget.
But answers would not come from the stones. Not yet.
The pub sat at the far end of the square, its sign swinging lazily in the morning breeze — The Stag’s Rest. Warm light bled from the windows, and the smell of roasted coffee and stale ale drifted through the air. Inside, the fire crackled low in the hearth, and the barman was wiping down the counter with the slow, automatic rhythm of someone who’d done it a thousand mornings before.
A few locals sat scattered around, mugs in hand, eyes still heavy from sleep. They glanced up as Damien entered — a stranger always drew notice here — but quickly turned back to their quiet conversations.
The pub smelled of damp wood and the faint tang of whiskey soaked into the floorboards. Damien sat quietly at the bar, steam curling up from his untouched cup. The fire snapped and popped in the hearth, though the air still felt strangely cold.
The barman leaned across the counter, elbows resting on the scarred oak, his voice dropping to that half-whisper used by people who live with fear too long to name it aloud.
“You’re not from around here, are ye?”
“Passing through,” Damien replied. “But the dead don’t care where I’m from.”
The man gave a short, uneasy laugh, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Then you’ve picked a cursed time for your visit.”
Damien waited, patient. He’d learned long ago that silence was often more persuasive than questions.
The barman sighed, glancing toward the window. Beyond the fogged glass, the tower loomed in the distance — tall, skeletal with scaffolding, a wound on the horizon.
“They’ve been working up there these past few months,” he said. “Restoration, they call it. Fixing what shouldn’t be fixed, if you ask me. The old stones don’t like to be disturbed.”
He poured himself a shot of whisky, then didn’t drink it. “Thing is, when they got to the top room — the highest one — they found an old portrait. Been hanging there for centuries, frame near rotted through. They sent it off to be repaired. The very next week…” He trailed off, his voice thinning.
“The first death?” Damien asked softly.
The barman nodded. “Aye. Then another. Then another. Four in total now. Michael was the last.”
Damien’s gaze sharpened. “And the others?”
“Every one of them,” the barman said slowly, “had a temper. Wife-beaters, drunkards, cruel sorts. Folk said the Lady was taking her revenge — that she’s got no interest in the kind-hearted. Only those who hurt for pleasure.”
He rubbed his hands over his face, weariness etching deeper lines into his skin. “We used to tell the tale just to scare the bairns. But these deaths… they’re too clean. Too deliberate. Like someone’s picking them by hand.”
Damien leaned forward. “And the portrait?”
The barman’s gaze flicked to the window again, lowering his voice to barely a whisper. “Still gone, far as I know. They say the painting changed. The eyes, they say, were weeping when they found it. One of the workmen swore the tears were real.”
He hesitated, then added, “If you’re set on digging further, there’s a grave you might want to see. Out by the cemetery, right before the hill turns to heather. There’s a dead tree there, black as pitch. Her name’s carved on the stone beneath it.”
Damien rose from his stool, tossing a few coins on the bar. The metal clinked softly in the hush.
“Then that’s where I’ll start.”
The barman’s voice followed him as he reached the door, low and uncertain.
“Be careful, stranger. The Lady only kills the wicked—but she don’t seem too picky about when she decides who’s wicked.”
Damien turned slightly, one hand on the door.
“That’s fine,” he said. “I’ve been called worse.”
Outside, the mist had thickened again. The tower watched him from afar, its highest window catching the weak light of dawn — a single pale eye that refused to blink.
The road to the cemetery wound past the edge of the village, where the cobbles gave way to soil and the morning mist clung low over the ground. Damien walked in silence, the air thick with the scent of moss and rain-soaked heather. The sun had risen fully now, but its light was pale and uncertain, filtered through a veil of grey cloud.
He found the tree exactly as the barman had said. It stood gnarled and black against the stone wall, its bark split and weathered, every branch brittle as bone. Beneath it, the ground bulged slightly where the earth had been disturbed. At its foot lay a gravestone half-swallowed by ivy, the inscription just legible: Mariota of Clan Muir — May the heart find rest, if not forgiveness.
Two men stood before the grave, their breath fogging the air. One held a long bundle wrapped in an old canvas cloth, the shape unmistakable — a portrait, tall and heavy. The other man was striking a match that refused to catch in the damp.
Damien slowed his pace, watching from the shadow of the tree as they argued in low, anxious voices.
“It’s the only way,” one hissed. “You heard what happened to Michael. If we burn it, she can’t come back.”
“Burn it and you’ll damn us all,” Damien said, his voice cutting through the mist like the crack of distant thunder.
Both men spun around, startled. The matchstick fell from trembling fingers.
“Who the hell are you?” one of them barked, but there was no strength behind it.
Damien stepped forward, the fog curling away from his boots. “Someone who’s seen what happens when people meddle with the dead. You burn that portrait, and her rage won’t fade — it’ll spread. Fire feeds grief. It doesn’t cleanse it.”
The men exchanged wary glances. “You don’t understand,” the other said. “Since we moved that damned thing, people’ve been dying. She’s cursed this place already!”
“Then you put it back where it belongs,” Damien replied sharply. “Curses aren’t broken by destruction, but by restoration. The tower held her memory, her sorrow, her binding. Remove it, and you unbind everything.”
The first man shook his head. “We can’t risk it—”
Damien’s patience thinned. His eyes darkened, and the air seemed to pulse with a subtle vibration. Shadows gathered behind him like mist rising from the earth.
“I said,” he growled, “put it back.”
Before either man could respond, the shadows lunged forward — sleek, living tendrils coiling from the ground. They didn’t harm, merely took. The wrapped portrait lifted gently from the men’s hands, the cloth flapping as though caught in an unseen breeze.
Both men stumbled backward, screaming, and fled down the path, their footsteps fading into the distance.
The shadows receded, lowering the portrait carefully before the grave. Damien exhaled, the tension leaving his shoulders.
He stepped closer to the headstone, crouching beside it. The soil was rough, clawed at by desperate hands. He brushed the dirt smooth with a slow wave of his hand, and the earth settled, the air around it softening.
His voice was low when he spoke — steady, almost kind.
“I, Damien, wish to bring peace upon you, Mariota. To end the grief that binds you here. I lay this stone upon your grave with the kindness of my heart.”
He gestured again, and a flat stone — smooth and pale as bone — rose from the earth itself, settling atop the grave. The ground stilled. For the first time that morning, the wind ceased to move.
For a heartbeat, all was silent. Then a faint sigh passed through the branches above him — not a moan, not a wail, but something weary, almost grateful.
Damien stood, turned, and began walking back toward the village, the portrait held firmly under his arm. The tree behind him stood motionless, its shadow stretching long and dark across the graves.
The climb to the tower was long and silent. Damien’s footsteps echoed softly against the worn stone steps, the air growing colder the higher he went. Dust motes drifted in narrow beams of light filtering through the slitted windows, each one turning the air thick and dreamlike.
At last, he reached the highest room — the chamber that had once belonged to Lady Mariota.
He paused in the doorway. Time had stopped here.
The room bore the marks of centuries, yet nothing had decayed beyond recognition. The furniture — dark oak carved with intricate patterns — was worn but intact. A small table still held the ghost of a candle’s wax trail. The embroidered curtains, though threadbare, hung in place, their faded colour still hinting at old luxury. The air smelled faintly of rosewater and damp stone.
Damien stepped carefully inside, the wooden floor groaning softly beneath his boots. He set the wrapped portrait against the wall and looked around, his voice calm but firm.
“Lady Mariota,” he said quietly, “I’ve brought your likeness home. Show me where it belongs.”
For a long moment, there was only silence. The wind whispered faintly through the cracks in the window frame. Then the temperature dropped.
A faint shimmer appeared before him — at first like moonlight bending through water, then slowly taking shape. A silvery silhouette of a woman stood in the center of the room, her edges flickering, delicate as smoke.
Damien inclined his head slightly in respect.
“Show me, my lady.”
The figure lifted an arm, the gesture slow and graceful, and pointed toward a bare space on the far wall.
Damien turned to look. There, between two candle sconces, hung a lone iron hook — empty, waiting.
He nodded. “Thank you.”
Kneeling beside the portrait, he unwrapped the canvas, peeling away the canvas cloth with deliberate care. The fabric whispered as it fell away, revealing what lay beneath.
He froze.
The breath caught in his throat.
The woman in the painting was exquisite — not in the cold, painted way of nobility, but alive. She sat upon a wooden chair carved with thistles and vines, her cream-coloured gown falling in soft folds, the fabric shimmering faintly as if brushed by light. A necklace of green stones — emeralds, perhaps — rested at her throat, gleaming against her perfect porcelain skin. Her brown hair cascaded in loose curls, catching gold where the light struck it.
But it was her face that arrested him.
Her eyes were a soft, impossible blue — not icy, but luminous. They seemed to see beyond the frame, beyond time itself. And her smile — faint, serene, heartbreakingly human — made his pulse quicken in spite of himself.
She was beauty, devotion, and sorrow bound together in paint.
Damien swallowed hard, steadying his breath. He lifted the portrait and hung it gently on the waiting hook. It settled with a soft click.
The room seemed to exhale.
The air lightened. The scent of rosewater deepened, warm and faintly sweet. Behind him, the silver silhouette shimmered again — brighter now, the faint outline of her face clearer, the tilt of her head unmistakably grateful.
Damien turned to her slowly. “It’s done,” he said quietly.
The spirit lowered her hand, her form softening, fading like mist under sunlight. For a heartbeat, the room was empty again. Then, from the portrait, a subtle glow began to pulse — a living warmth that rippled across the painted fabric, as if the woman within had drawn her first breath in centuries.
Damien stared, spellbound. Her painted lips seemed to part just enough to form the shape of a whisper — one he couldn’t quite hear, but felt in the hollow of his chest.
Then the glow faded. The silence returned.
The tower stood silent beneath the dying light of day, its scaffolding casting long, fractured shadows across the courtyard. Damien lingered at the threshold of the highest room, the portrait of Lady Mariota safely returned. He inhaled slowly, letting the weight of centuries settle around him — the air thick with dust, the faint scent of rosewood and old stone, and something older still: sorrow.
He moved through the chamber with deliberate care, his hands brushing along the carved furniture, the walls, the cold floor. He stopped at the center of the room, kneeling before the portrait. He traced a finger along the frame, then produced a small pouch of chalk from his coat pocket. With measured strokes, he drew faint, looping sigils in the dust on the floor around the portrait — nothing overt, nothing magical in the common sense, but symbols shaped to suggest protection, marks that instinctively inspire awe and caution.
The lines glimmered faintly in the last light, shifting as though alive, guiding the eyes and the mind. Damien whispered softly, barely audible, “Rest here, Mariota. None shall disturb you again.”
He stepped back, surveying the room. The air pulsed subtly, the temperature dropping a degree, enough to make the shadows deepen without anyone outside noticing. The candlelight in the sconces flickered unnaturally, drawing shapes that seemed to bend the corners of the room. Even the smallest disturbance — the edge of a chair, the curl of the curtain — seemed purposeful, as if the chamber itself now refused intrusion.
Damien moved to the window. The village below was stirring in the evening haze, lights beginning to glow in kitchens and hearths. He opened the shutters, letting a breeze drift through, carrying the faint scent of heather from the hills. Then, with a subtle gesture, he let the shadows pool just beyond the treeline, thickening and quivering as if alive. They were not aggressive — just enough to obscure, to make the tower appear distant, dangerous, unreachable.
Next, he placed small stones around the base of the tower in deliberate patterns, arranging them to create natural obstacles: uneven footing, slippery moss, minor trip hazards. Nothing that would harm anyone, but enough to ensure instinctive caution. He whispered again, more firmly: “Let no one come here with malice in their heart.”
Finally, he stepped back to the portrait. The silver glow of Mariota’s painted eyes seemed to deepen, almost as if acknowledging the measures he had taken. Damien exhaled slowly, letting the tension leave his shoulders. He did not linger.
From the shadows of the courtyard, he melted silently into the mist, leaving the tower standing serene and foreboding. Behind him, the village lights shimmered, but the path to the tower seemed longer, steeper, and subtly treacherous to any who might seek it.
The night held its breath. The tower stood watch, and for the first time in centuries, Lady Mariota rested — unseen, untroubled, protected by the quiet hand of a guardian who moved like shadow and thought like memory.
Chapter 6
The wind carried the scent of peat smoke and rain.
Damien stepped out of the shadows at the edge of a narrow road, his boots crunching against gravel slick with mist. The air was colder here—so sharp it felt alive. The mountains loomed in the distance, black teeth gnawing at a pale, shrouded sky.
Before him stretched a village, small and old enough to feel forgotten by the world. The houses crouched close together, their stone walls streaked with damp and ivy, their slate roofs slick with moss. A low fog hung between them, ghostly, whispering against the ground like a tide of smoke.
Yet what struck Damien most was the silence.
No voices. No footsteps. No dogs barking behind gates or cats slinking along walls. Even the crows were gone, their absence a wound in the air. Every window he passed had its curtains drawn tight—shadows pressed against glass, shutting him out.
The stillness felt constructed, deliberate, as though the whole village was holding its breath.
Damien walked on, the sound of his own footsteps too loud in the hush. His breath rose in faint plumes before fading into the fog. Occasionally, he caught the faintest flicker of movement behind the curtains—an outline, a shift of fabric—but whenever he turned to look, it was gone.
The silence wasn’t empty; it was listening.
He reached the village square, little more than a cracked fountain surrounded by shuttered shops. The paint on the old post office door had peeled to reveal grey wood beneath, and a sign swung loosely overhead, squealing on its hinges.
Damien paused beside the fountain. The basin was dry, its stone dark with moss, and carved along the rim were faint letters—worn by time but still visible: The water remembers.
He frowned. The air was thick with the metallic tang of old rain and something else beneath it—something faintly sweet, like decay.
Somewhere, far off, a door closed.
The sound echoed through the village like a gunshot.
Damien turned slowly, eyes scanning the row of silent houses. The mist swirled low, hugging the ground. For a fleeting moment, he could’ve sworn he saw something move between the buildings—a shadow, long and loping, gone before the mind could form its shape.
The tension in the air deepened.
Damien exhaled, his breath misting the cold air. “Right,” he muttered softly. “Let’s see what’s crawled out of the dark this time.”
Damien’s boots struck the cobblestones in slow, measured rhythm as he followed the main street out toward the edge of the village. The mist grew thicker here, swirling around him in long ribbons that clung to the ground like breath unwilling to leave.
He felt it before he saw it—an almost magnetic pull, something ancient and watchful drawing him forward.
The old tower rose from the earth like a wounded tooth, its stones blackened with centuries of rain. Wooden scaffolding hugged its sides, skeletal and shivering in the wind, a futile attempt to keep time from claiming what was left.
A single, narrow window broke the tower’s face. Its leaded panes caught the light weakly, glinting like the eye of something half-asleep. Damien squinted. Behind the glass, a shape moved—a silhouette, faint but unmistakable, standing motionless and watching him.
He blinked, and it was gone.
He turned away, his gaze catching on a weathered wooden board set beside the gate, half-buried in the overgrown grass. The writing, worn but still legible, had been carved with a patient hand long ago. Damien brushed the grime away and read aloud, his breath misting against the words.
Back in the days of old, the fourteenth century to be told,
There lived a lady fair and kind, by name of Mariota.
In love with a farmer was she, a love forbidden by her father,
Who sold her hand to a chieftain—for horses and for land.
The wedding done and gone, she was locked within this tower ye see,
Hidden from the eyes of her true love, kept cruel and lonely.
They say her cries were heard for weeks, till hunger and sorrow took her—
Her beauty withered, her heart blackened, and her soul turned foul with grief.
Upon the anniversary of her death she rose once more,
A maiden of shadow and wind, seeking her sleeping father.
Finding him, she kissed his lips—soft, sweet, deadly,
And with that kiss she drew out his life and left him still.
Then to her husband she went, the chieftain cruel and drunken,
And on his lips she laid a final kiss—drawing forth not love, but blood.
The last lines had been scratched deeper into the wood, as though someone’s hand had trembled with fear. The edges of the board were splintered and blackened, faint scorch marks biting into the grain.
Damien straightened, the mist curling around his coat. The tower loomed higher now, the fog gathering thick around its base, the air colder with each breath.
He glanced up once more at the narrow window.
A face stared back at him.
Pale. Still. Eyes like wet pearls gleaming faintly in the grey.
And then it was gone again, leaving only the faint ripple of movement behind the glass—like a curtain stirred by a sigh.
The silence broke like glass.
From somewhere behind the rows of shuttered houses came the sudden crash of furniture and a man’s voice shouting, raw and furious. Another shout followed, then the pounding of fists on wood. The sound tore through the still village, bouncing off the stone walls until it seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Damien turned, scanning the darkened windows. The mist that had lain still began to move—slow at first, then quickening, curling into narrow tendrils that wound between doorways and chimneys.
Then came the cold.
It didn’t roll in gradually—it struck, swift and sharp as a blade. The air hissed as its temperature dropped. The dry fountain in the square began to creak and groan; thin veins of frost spidered up its sides, converging at the lip where water had once flowed. In seconds, delicate icicles hung from its rim, glittering in the dull grey light.
Damien looked toward the tower.
Something shimmered at its threshold—a figure taking shape from mist and light. It had the faint form of a woman, but without detail: a silver silhouette, faceless and radiant, her edges rippling like heat haze.
For a moment she stood perfectly still, the air around her humming with a low, mournful tone that Damien felt in his bones. Then she moved.
She passed through the wooden door without sound or resistance.
And then—through him.
The sensation made his entire body seize. A cold like liquid mercury surged through his veins, burning and freezing at once. His vision blurred, the world tilting for an instant. When he caught his breath, she was already drifting past him, gliding toward the heart of the village.
Where her feet touched the ground, frost bloomed—a delicate, gleaming path of ice that cracked faintly under its own growth. Damien heard the crunch of invisible steps upon it, yet there were no footprints.
He followed, a few paces behind, drawn by instinct and the same magnetic chill that had led him to the tower.
The shouting grew louder, more desperate. A man’s voice barked incoherent words of rage, then a heavy thud shook the air. The silvery figure slipped through the door of one of the houses, and a flicker of light flared through the window—electric, stuttering.
Damien’s pulse quickened. He stepped closer just as the lights inside began to flicker wildly. Shadows flailed against the glass like frantic birds trapped in a cage.
Then—a scream.
A woman’s voice, torn from the depths of terror.
“Michael! What happened? Michael—wake up!”
Her words cut through the night like a knife, followed by sobbing and the dull crash of something falling to the floor.
The house fell silent. The village again held its breath.
Then the door creaked open.
The silver silhouette drifted out—slow, deliberate, and silent as snowfall. She paused at the threshold, her head tilting slightly, as though regarding something only she could see.
And then she turned.
Her gait was calm, unhurried, as she began her return to the tower, her glow faintly dimmer now, her form less defined—as though she had fed.
Frost spread in her wake, and the night swallowed the faint sound of her passage.
Damien followed at a distance, eyes narrowing. His breath misted in the air, forming ghosts of its own.
“So it’s you,” he murmured. “The Lady Mariota still walks.”
Damien didn’t move from the shadows. He stood across the narrow street, arms folded, his breath coiling into the cold air as the distant wail of sirens grew nearer. The silver figure was long gone—slipped back into the tower like mist drawn home—but the chill she left behind still clung to the stones.
Within minutes, red and blue lights bathed the village square in colour. Paramedics rushed into the small house, boots crunching over the frost that hadn’t yet melted. The door stood open; Damien could see the edge of a toppled chair, the glint of shattered glass, and a pale hand on the floor.
Voices rose, low and urgent. A defibrillator whined to life.
“Charging—clear!”
A sharp thud, then silence.
“Again! Clear!”
Another thud. Then nothing.
Damien’s jaw tightened. He’d seen this pattern before — the remnants of a death not fully human.
After a few more minutes, one of the paramedics straightened and shook his head.
“Time of death… 23:42.”
The words hung in the air like frostbite.
They covered the body with a sheet. The woman knelt beside it, hands trembling, mascara running down her cheeks. Her sobs filled the empty village, raw and hollow.
When the police arrived, the air shifted again — the practical bustle of procedure replacing the paramedics’ urgency. A young constable led the woman out onto the steps, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders.
Her voice cracked as she spoke.
“We were arguing,” she said, barely audible. “He—he didn’t want the baby. Said we couldn’t afford another. He started smashing things—plates, the lamp… he was so angry.”
She paused, rubbing her hands together as though still cold.
“And then the lights… they started flickering. I thought it was the power again, but then…”
Her eyes widened as if reliving it.
“Michael—he just—he lifted off the floor. Like something invisible was holding him up. His head tilted back, and… and he… pursed his lips, like he was kissing someone.”
A shudder ran through her.
“And then he dropped. Just—dropped. No sound, no warning. He wasn’t breathing. I thought he was having a seizure but… he was gone.”
The officer glanced toward the house uneasily.
“Did you see anyone else? Anything unusual before this happened?”
She shook her head fiercely.
“No one. Just him… and the lights.”
Damien, still unseen, turned his gaze toward the tower silhouetted against the horizon. Its narrow window gleamed faintly, as though catching light from some hidden source.
“Another kiss for the dead,” he murmured. “The Lady is taking the unworthy into judgment of her own...”
He stepped out of the shadows, his coat brushing the frost-dusted cobbles, and began walking toward the tower once more.
The ambulance pulled away from the silent village, sirens muted out of respect for the dead. Damien followed at a distance, his shadow trailing long behind him as he moved unseen through the narrow country roads. The night pressed close — damp, cold, thick with a silence that only deepened after death.
By the time the ambulance reached the small regional hospital, the frost had turned to mist. Damien lingered near the loading bay, his eyes catching the dim light spilling from the doors as Michael’s covered body was wheeled inside.
Inside the morgue, the fluorescent lights buzzed faintly. The air was sterile but heavy with that coppery ghost of mortality that never fully left such rooms. Damien stepped silently through the shadows, unseen, standing at the far corner as the pathologist, a weary man in his fifties, prepared his instruments.
The sheet was drawn back. Michael’s face was pale, lips slightly parted, as though still caught mid-breath. The doctor sighed, dictating into a recorder.
“Male, early thirties. No visible trauma apart from mild bruising on the wrists, possibly defensive. Pupils dilated. Skin pallor advanced but not consistent with standard cardiac arrest. Commencing examination.”
Steel met flesh with a practiced cut. The sound was quiet, almost reverent.
The doctor worked efficiently, but soon his brows furrowed. He paused, glancing toward the nurse beside him.
“Get me another set of vials.”
Minutes passed. Confusion crept in.
“Strange… there’s no pooling. No signs of internal bleeding, but…” He leaned closer. “There’s… nothing. No blood.”
The nurse frowned. “Maybe it drained during transport?”
The doctor shook his head sharply. “Impossible. The body was intact. There’s no incision, no puncture wound, nothing to indicate loss.”
He stood back, wiping his gloved hands on a cloth. His voice grew lower, almost hesitant.
“The tissue is oxygen-starved, but otherwise… this is a perfectly healthy man. No heart disease. No aneurysm. Organs pristine. It’s as if…”
He trailed off, staring at the open cavity.
“As if the blood was… taken.”
The nurse shifted uncomfortably. “You mean… drained?”
“No,” the doctor said quietly, his voice cracking under the weight of disbelief. “I mean… consumed.”
The fluorescent lights flickered once, twice. A gust of cold air swept through the room though the doors were closed. The sheet stirred faintly over Michael’s legs.
Damien’s eyes narrowed. He could feel the residue of that same silvery energy — the cold kiss of the revenant. He stepped closer, the shadows bending slightly toward him.
The doctor looked up suddenly, as if sensing something watching. The room seemed to pulse, the buzz of the lights rising to a strained hum.
Damien whispered, barely audible:
“Your hunger lingers, Mariota. But it ends tonight.”
And with that, he turned and vanished back into the shadowed corridor, the temperature rising back to normal as though nothing had ever been there.
By the time Damien reached the outskirts of the village again, the horizon had begun to blush with the first streaks of dawn. The mist hung low over the cobbled streets, soft and pale, coiling around his boots like reluctant smoke. The cold had lifted; the air was damp and smelled faintly of peat fires and brine.
The change was startling. Curtains once drawn tight were now open to the morning light. Doors creaked on their hinges as villagers emerged, sweeping thresholds, unlocking shops, and setting out crates of bread, fruit, and fish. Laughter — hesitant but real — trickled back into the air like the first notes of a forgotten song.
If the dead ruled the night, the living were quick to reclaim the morning.
Damien walked among them, blending easily in the shadow of a delivery lorry and the chatter of a few early risers. His dark coat hid the scars of the night — the faint residue of frost still clinging to the hem, the ghost of that silvery chill that had followed him from the tower.
His gaze lifted toward the looming silhouette of that same tower, its peak still wrapped in scaffolding that glinted weakly in the rising sun. It stood apart from the waking village, watchful and indifferent, as though it remembered things the rest of the world had chosen to forget.
But answers would not come from the stones. Not yet.
The pub sat at the far end of the square, its sign swinging lazily in the morning breeze — The Stag’s Rest. Warm light bled from the windows, and the smell of roasted coffee and stale ale drifted through the air. Inside, the fire crackled low in the hearth, and the barman was wiping down the counter with the slow, automatic rhythm of someone who’d done it a thousand mornings before.
A few locals sat scattered around, mugs in hand, eyes still heavy from sleep. They glanced up as Damien entered — a stranger always drew notice here — but quickly turned back to their quiet conversations.
The pub smelled of damp wood and the faint tang of whiskey soaked into the floorboards. Damien sat quietly at the bar, steam curling up from his untouched cup. The fire snapped and popped in the hearth, though the air still felt strangely cold.
The barman leaned across the counter, elbows resting on the scarred oak, his voice dropping to that half-whisper used by people who live with fear too long to name it aloud.
“You’re not from around here, are ye?”
“Passing through,” Damien replied. “But the dead don’t care where I’m from.”
The man gave a short, uneasy laugh, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Then you’ve picked a cursed time for your visit.”
Damien waited, patient. He’d learned long ago that silence was often more persuasive than questions.
The barman sighed, glancing toward the window. Beyond the fogged glass, the tower loomed in the distance — tall, skeletal with scaffolding, a wound on the horizon.
“They’ve been working up there these past few months,” he said. “Restoration, they call it. Fixing what shouldn’t be fixed, if you ask me. The old stones don’t like to be disturbed.”
He poured himself a shot of whisky, then didn’t drink it. “Thing is, when they got to the top room — the highest one — they found an old portrait. Been hanging there for centuries, frame near rotted through. They sent it off to be repaired. The very next week…” He trailed off, his voice thinning.
“The first death?” Damien asked softly.
The barman nodded. “Aye. Then another. Then another. Four in total now. Michael was the last.”
Damien’s gaze sharpened. “And the others?”
“Every one of them,” the barman said slowly, “had a temper. Wife-beaters, drunkards, cruel sorts. Folk said the Lady was taking her revenge — that she’s got no interest in the kind-hearted. Only those who hurt for pleasure.”
He rubbed his hands over his face, weariness etching deeper lines into his skin. “We used to tell the tale just to scare the bairns. But these deaths… they’re too clean. Too deliberate. Like someone’s picking them by hand.”
Damien leaned forward. “And the portrait?”
The barman’s gaze flicked to the window again, lowering his voice to barely a whisper. “Still gone, far as I know. They say the painting changed. The eyes, they say, were weeping when they found it. One of the workmen swore the tears were real.”
He hesitated, then added, “If you’re set on digging further, there’s a grave you might want to see. Out by the cemetery, right before the hill turns to heather. There’s a dead tree there, black as pitch. Her name’s carved on the stone beneath it.”
Damien rose from his stool, tossing a few coins on the bar. The metal clinked softly in the hush.
“Then that’s where I’ll start.”
The barman’s voice followed him as he reached the door, low and uncertain.
“Be careful, stranger. The Lady only kills the wicked—but she don’t seem too picky about when she decides who’s wicked.”
Damien turned slightly, one hand on the door.
“That’s fine,” he said. “I’ve been called worse.”
Outside, the mist had thickened again. The tower watched him from afar, its highest window catching the weak light of dawn — a single pale eye that refused to blink.
The road to the cemetery wound past the edge of the village, where the cobbles gave way to soil and the morning mist clung low over the ground. Damien walked in silence, the air thick with the scent of moss and rain-soaked heather. The sun had risen fully now, but its light was pale and uncertain, filtered through a veil of grey cloud.
He found the tree exactly as the barman had said. It stood gnarled and black against the stone wall, its bark split and weathered, every branch brittle as bone. Beneath it, the ground bulged slightly where the earth had been disturbed. At its foot lay a gravestone half-swallowed by ivy, the inscription just legible: Mariota of Clan Muir — May the heart find rest, if not forgiveness.
Two men stood before the grave, their breath fogging the air. One held a long bundle wrapped in an old canvas cloth, the shape unmistakable — a portrait, tall and heavy. The other man was striking a match that refused to catch in the damp.
Damien slowed his pace, watching from the shadow of the tree as they argued in low, anxious voices.
“It’s the only way,” one hissed. “You heard what happened to Michael. If we burn it, she can’t come back.”
“Burn it and you’ll damn us all,” Damien said, his voice cutting through the mist like the crack of distant thunder.
Both men spun around, startled. The matchstick fell from trembling fingers.
“Who the hell are you?” one of them barked, but there was no strength behind it.
Damien stepped forward, the fog curling away from his boots. “Someone who’s seen what happens when people meddle with the dead. You burn that portrait, and her rage won’t fade — it’ll spread. Fire feeds grief. It doesn’t cleanse it.”
The men exchanged wary glances. “You don’t understand,” the other said. “Since we moved that damned thing, people’ve been dying. She’s cursed this place already!”
“Then you put it back where it belongs,” Damien replied sharply. “Curses aren’t broken by destruction, but by restoration. The tower held her memory, her sorrow, her binding. Remove it, and you unbind everything.”
The first man shook his head. “We can’t risk it—”
Damien’s patience thinned. His eyes darkened, and the air seemed to pulse with a subtle vibration. Shadows gathered behind him like mist rising from the earth.
“I said,” he growled, “put it back.”
Before either man could respond, the shadows lunged forward — sleek, living tendrils coiling from the ground. They didn’t harm, merely took. The wrapped portrait lifted gently from the men’s hands, the cloth flapping as though caught in an unseen breeze.
Both men stumbled backward, screaming, and fled down the path, their footsteps fading into the distance.
The shadows receded, lowering the portrait carefully before the grave. Damien exhaled, the tension leaving his shoulders.
He stepped closer to the headstone, crouching beside it. The soil was rough, clawed at by desperate hands. He brushed the dirt smooth with a slow wave of his hand, and the earth settled, the air around it softening.
His voice was low when he spoke — steady, almost kind.
“I, Damien, wish to bring peace upon you, Mariota. To end the grief that binds you here. I lay this stone upon your grave with the kindness of my heart.”
He gestured again, and a flat stone — smooth and pale as bone — rose from the earth itself, settling atop the grave. The ground stilled. For the first time that morning, the wind ceased to move.
For a heartbeat, all was silent. Then a faint sigh passed through the branches above him — not a moan, not a wail, but something weary, almost grateful.
Damien stood, turned, and began walking back toward the village, the portrait held firmly under his arm. The tree behind him stood motionless, its shadow stretching long and dark across the graves.
The climb to the tower was long and silent. Damien’s footsteps echoed softly against the worn stone steps, the air growing colder the higher he went. Dust motes drifted in narrow beams of light filtering through the slitted windows, each one turning the air thick and dreamlike.
At last, he reached the highest room — the chamber that had once belonged to Lady Mariota.
He paused in the doorway. Time had stopped here.
The room bore the marks of centuries, yet nothing had decayed beyond recognition. The furniture — dark oak carved with intricate patterns — was worn but intact. A small table still held the ghost of a candle’s wax trail. The embroidered curtains, though threadbare, hung in place, their faded colour still hinting at old luxury. The air smelled faintly of rosewater and damp stone.
Damien stepped carefully inside, the wooden floor groaning softly beneath his boots. He set the wrapped portrait against the wall and looked around, his voice calm but firm.
“Lady Mariota,” he said quietly, “I’ve brought your likeness home. Show me where it belongs.”
For a long moment, there was only silence. The wind whispered faintly through the cracks in the window frame. Then the temperature dropped.
A faint shimmer appeared before him — at first like moonlight bending through water, then slowly taking shape. A silvery silhouette of a woman stood in the center of the room, her edges flickering, delicate as smoke.
Damien inclined his head slightly in respect.
“Show me, my lady.”
The figure lifted an arm, the gesture slow and graceful, and pointed toward a bare space on the far wall.
Damien turned to look. There, between two candle sconces, hung a lone iron hook — empty, waiting.
He nodded. “Thank you.”
Kneeling beside the portrait, he unwrapped the canvas, peeling away the canvas cloth with deliberate care. The fabric whispered as it fell away, revealing what lay beneath.
He froze.
The breath caught in his throat.
The woman in the painting was exquisite — not in the cold, painted way of nobility, but alive. She sat upon a wooden chair carved with thistles and vines, her cream-coloured gown falling in soft folds, the fabric shimmering faintly as if brushed by light. A necklace of green stones — emeralds, perhaps — rested at her throat, gleaming against her perfect porcelain skin. Her brown hair cascaded in loose curls, catching gold where the light struck it.
But it was her face that arrested him.
Her eyes were a soft, impossible blue — not icy, but luminous. They seemed to see beyond the frame, beyond time itself. And her smile — faint, serene, heartbreakingly human — made his pulse quicken in spite of himself.
She was beauty, devotion, and sorrow bound together in paint.
Damien swallowed hard, steadying his breath. He lifted the portrait and hung it gently on the waiting hook. It settled with a soft click.
The room seemed to exhale.
The air lightened. The scent of rosewater deepened, warm and faintly sweet. Behind him, the silver silhouette shimmered again — brighter now, the faint outline of her face clearer, the tilt of her head unmistakably grateful.
Damien turned to her slowly. “It’s done,” he said quietly.
The spirit lowered her hand, her form softening, fading like mist under sunlight. For a heartbeat, the room was empty again. Then, from the portrait, a subtle glow began to pulse — a living warmth that rippled across the painted fabric, as if the woman within had drawn her first breath in centuries.
Damien stared, spellbound. Her painted lips seemed to part just enough to form the shape of a whisper — one he couldn’t quite hear, but felt in the hollow of his chest.
Then the glow faded. The silence returned.
The tower stood silent beneath the dying light of day, its scaffolding casting long, fractured shadows across the courtyard. Damien lingered at the threshold of the highest room, the portrait of Lady Mariota safely returned. He inhaled slowly, letting the weight of centuries settle around him — the air thick with dust, the faint scent of rosewood and old stone, and something older still: sorrow.
He moved through the chamber with deliberate care, his hands brushing along the carved furniture, the walls, the cold floor. He stopped at the center of the room, kneeling before the portrait. He traced a finger along the frame, then produced a small pouch of chalk from his coat pocket. With measured strokes, he drew faint, looping sigils in the dust on the floor around the portrait — nothing overt, nothing magical in the common sense, but symbols shaped to suggest protection, marks that instinctively inspire awe and caution.
The lines glimmered faintly in the last light, shifting as though alive, guiding the eyes and the mind. Damien whispered softly, barely audible, “Rest here, Mariota. None shall disturb you again.”
He stepped back, surveying the room. The air pulsed subtly, the temperature dropping a degree, enough to make the shadows deepen without anyone outside noticing. The candlelight in the sconces flickered unnaturally, drawing shapes that seemed to bend the corners of the room. Even the smallest disturbance — the edge of a chair, the curl of the curtain — seemed purposeful, as if the chamber itself now refused intrusion.
Damien moved to the window. The village below was stirring in the evening haze, lights beginning to glow in kitchens and hearths. He opened the shutters, letting a breeze drift through, carrying the faint scent of heather from the hills. Then, with a subtle gesture, he let the shadows pool just beyond the treeline, thickening and quivering as if alive. They were not aggressive — just enough to obscure, to make the tower appear distant, dangerous, unreachable.
Next, he placed small stones around the base of the tower in deliberate patterns, arranging them to create natural obstacles: uneven footing, slippery moss, minor trip hazards. Nothing that would harm anyone, but enough to ensure instinctive caution. He whispered again, more firmly: “Let no one come here with malice in their heart.”
Finally, he stepped back to the portrait. The silver glow of Mariota’s painted eyes seemed to deepen, almost as if acknowledging the measures he had taken. Damien exhaled slowly, letting the tension leave his shoulders. He did not linger.
From the shadows of the courtyard, he melted silently into the mist, leaving the tower standing serene and foreboding. Behind him, the village lights shimmered, but the path to the tower seemed longer, steeper, and subtly treacherous to any who might seek it.
The night held its breath. The tower stood watch, and for the first time in centuries, Lady Mariota rested — unseen, untroubled, protected by the quiet hand of a guardian who moved like shadow and thought like memory.
Into the Darkness: Chapter 7
Chapter 7. An unexplainable urge seizes Damien. His shadow tendrils, usually bound to his command, writhe on their own—curling upward like smoke made solid. Before he can resist, they coil around his body, tightening, pulling him inward. The world collapses into darkness. He’s falling...
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