She was still out there. I could feel it.
A sickening cocktail of grief, fear, and seething determination churned in my chest as I approached the deserted outbuildings—old stables, storage sheds, broken-down carriages. My eyes scanned every crevice and corner for the slightest movement.
The darkness seemed to warp around me, whispering with unseen threats.
Figures danced at the edge of my vision—shadows without form, without mercy. They slipped between trees and structures, taunting me with motion that vanished as quickly as they came. Were they real? Or was my mind unraveling?
I lunged toward them again and again. But the dark only laughed.
Mocking. Elusive. Cold.
I was alone.
Utterly, achingly alone?—
Except for the fire blooming in my chest, wrathful and wild.
The full moon spilled its pale light over the landscape like a gossamer veil, casting the world in silver and shadow. The gardens loomed before me, overgrown and haunted, as if the night itself had teeth.
There was something else here.
Watching.
A pressure in the air, subtle but oppressive, like a string pulled taut across the skin of my soul. I could feel it—something dark.Something ancient. It stalked the perimeter with me, just beyond sight.
Still, I walked.
Still, I searched.
My breath came in shallow bursts. My eyes strained to see through the thick veil of gloom. Then, I froze.
A figure emerged from the shadows, half-hidden against a garden shed wall. She was tall and cloaked in darkness, and in her hand gleamed a dagger slick with blood—Tomaso’s blood.
She stepped forward with a leer, her eyes burning with venom. Malice twisted her features.
She means to kill me next.
Panic surged through my limbs. I stumbled back, my heart crashing against my ribs. My legs nearly gave out beneath me.
Who is this woman? Why Tomaso? Why me?
And then?—
Another figure slipped from the darkness.
A man.
He stood at the garden’s edge, half-silhouetted in the moonlight. The wind teased his dark, tousled hair, and the flash of his icy-blue eyes struck me like lightning. He wasn’t simply watching—hesensedeverything. He moved like a shadow-given form, each step smooth, deliberate, and dangerous.
He was beautiful.
Beautiful in the way a storm is beautiful—wild, devastating, otherworldly.
He silenced the night.
Cloaked in black, he moved with a grace that seemed carved from myth, his long coat trailing like smoke behind him. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
The woman with the dagger turned her gaze on him, but something faltered. She took a half-step back.
