Hilda spoke without reservation.
Ayla stood, bowing to the woman. “We appreciate your hospitality, Hilda.” From her cloak, she produced a vial of herbs. “For your ailing joints, take threeteaspoons with your afternoon tea, and all should be well.”
She grunted, “Remind the child to be wary of the dark.”
“What’s in the dark?” I asked.
Hilda’s crow eyes flickered to the only corner not lit by the starving fire. Shadowy wisps congealed, shifting and moving in tandem to the light just out of reach of it. From the inky black depths came whispers of hell crammed into a singular voice, echoing faintly off the small home.
“Death,” Ayla replied.
I walked longer than I should have—unease at the little information I gleaned from the village. Silas was still a mystery and harder to pin as simply a terror. As I left Ayla’s, it was clear there was more to the story of Silas and the castle.
I wandered through the fog, aware of the clouds affecting the landscape as well as the confusion in my soul. The fog was a dense ocean of white, obscuring anything it saw fit, and perhaps that’s what it was there for. To obscure the truth of Silas—of the castle—and the death plague of the village. To make everything before me obscure and out of reach.
A part of me hoped wandering would ease my mind, to get lost and not face either Ayla or Silas. To be forced to make the choice sooner or later. For somereason or another, I needed to stop being selfish and face the music.
For the first time in a long while, I had a choiceIcould make.
I came to the opening on the opposite side of the path, having looped myself around in circles for an eternity. The castle before me loomed, its magnificent structure touching the sky and reveling in the darkening of the gray clouds, an incoming storm on the prowl. The structure was a testament to the ominous warning barricaded within. Stones from the highest parapet crumbled, falling into the blocked off section of the west wing. The pallor of its walls shimmered in the dying light, and dark ascended onto the land once more, a phantom to forever wander that would succumb to the sea of time, crumbling into ash.
I pushed the wrought-iron gates open and made my way to the grand doors of the castle when the thought emerged.
The castle sighed as if it had been holding its breath.
The nights were synonymous with the horrors of the castle. Every bump, every creak was an imaginary demon appearing to me and only me. The ghosts had all but left me alone to my own thoughts. Even Ebony’s constant presence waned toward the evening, tending to her master in his study or the forbidden west wing.
I tossed and turned, sleep evading me as those eyes burned brightly in the back of my skull. Upon the soft cushions of the bed, the stares from those eyes bore into my skin, raking every inch of me in search for a weak point.
I felt more exposed than I had ever been.
A loud slam jarred me out from under the comforter, and I quickly stepped to the door, careful of the soft creaks of the floorboards and the hinges. At first, darkness greeted me, eyes quick to adjust to the light of the moon streaming into the foyer from the stained glass window, casting an eerie glow upon Silas’s stumbling form.
Just as the previous night, he was coated from head to toe in blood, shuffling along the steps as it dripped down white strands onto the banister. I cowered behind the door, expecting him to go to his study as he often did during the midnight hour.
This time, he turned left toward the west wing.
Silas halted a few steps, searching behind him for wary eyes. I held my breath, praying he wouldn’t seek out my door and scold me. He stayed like that for two heartbeats before turning on his heels and shuffling down the long corridor.
I grabbed the silver knife off the nightstand and followed him.
The walls wailed in response once I crossed the threshold. Voices echoed, seductively calling me to follow Silas in deeper.
I floundered in the dark, the glint reflecting off the blade the only source of light.
“What do you think you are doing?”
I jabbed the blade in the direction of the voice, only to be caught by the wrist by strong hands. Golden orbs glistened menacingly down at either me or the blade.
“Valeria, I asked you a question,” Silas said.
“I—uh, saw.” I was unsure of the lie I was to tell, at least one that’d be convincing to the man currently covered in blood. “You came in covered in blood, so I decided to follow after you.”
The scent of evergreens floated in the dark between us mixing in with spice. The orbs tilted with amusement as he brought my hand to his chest, removing a finger one by one from the hilt. “So, you decided to not only come after me and break the one rule I have in place but with a knife. I have to say I’m impressed by your boldness.”
My fingers relinquished their grip on the blade’s handle, and I watched as it glinted in the darkness of Silas’s hand. Utterly defeated, I expected to be killed—or worse, drained.
“What did I say about the west wing, Valeria?”
