The chamber looked perfect not a thing out of place. To the left stood towering wardrobes of blackened oak, their carved edges so intricate they looked like thorned vines frozen in wood. In the centre of the room sat a huge mahogany bed, its high frame carved with stars, crescents, and strange celestial markings that matched the design. The bedding was immaculate. Heavy and dark. Pulled so perfectly smooth, it looked untouched by someone who slept in here.
Nothing in the room was feminine or soft with flowing fabrics.
This felt like a man’s room. I stepped farther inside, my boots sounding far too loud against the polished floor.
The walls were nothing like the rest of the house. There were no painting of women smiling down from gilded frames, no pastoral scenes meant to soothe the eye. Here, the walls were crowded with maps of lands and charts of skies. Constellations inked in silver and gold across black parchment and mounted in iron frames. Globes rested on carved stands beside the bed, each one marked not with countries but with lines, symbols, and what could be star routes. They were beyond my understanding
Then I turned toward the far side of the chamber and stopped breathing.
Hanging on a mannequin beside the window was a black ceremonial gown, its fabric falling in straight, folds. Above it, mounted neatly as if it were sacred, was the mask.
The mask of the Ecliptuari
That hollow, unnerving face I had come to hate. Pale and expressionless, with empty eye sockets and a cruel stillness, as though it had been made not to hide a man’s face but to erase it entirely.
I should have left then.
I should have turned around and walked straight back out before whoever owned this room returned and found me standing there in the middle invading the space.
But I wasn’t running out of here, Instead, I moved closer.
Had I walked into one of the Ecliptuari’s private rooms? What did they look like without those damned masks? Were they human and ordinary looking or did they look monstrous and wear the masks to conceal? Or worse, did they look beautiful, as beautiful as the brothers?
A shiver passed through me, but I pushed it aside as I began to search.
If I was trapped in this cursed place, then maybe somewhere in here there was a key, a hidden object—anything that could help me get out. I crossed the room to the wardrobe and pulled one of the doors open.
Inside, every garment hung in absolute perfection.
Dark frock coats. Tailored black fabrics embroidered with silver thread. Not a single crease. Not one sleeve out of line. And stitched into each cuff, collar, and breast was the same symbol.
My stomach turned cold.
Only one brother wore that symbol.
Only one
A single star sewn in silver.
I stared at the clothes; suddenly certain I had made a terrible mistake.
This was Fionn’s room.
Of course it was, everything was so neat and tidy, with nothing misplaced. Even the air in here felt tense and it smelled faintly of him. Cold iron and worn leather. It was Masculine and Clean.
I shut the wardrobe quickly.
My pulse was starting to flutter out of control, but I still could not stop myself. I moved to the bedside drawers and pulled them open one after another, rifling through letters and folded papers,old writings covered in a language I could not read. The ink was elegant and severe, all strange loops and sharp strokes, as if even the words had been written by someone incapable of gentleness.
In another cupboard, It only got worse.
Two whips hung against the inner panel.
Dark leather and worn. Not decorative or new. They looked like they had been well used with the fading of the handles.
I reached toward one before I could stop myself, letting my fingers brush the braid of it. The leather was smooth in places, cracked in others. My stomach tightenedwhen I noticed the oils and ointments lined underneath.
I did not want to know what they were for, nor who they had touched. But if this was Fionn’s room, then everything inside it felt like it was here for a reason and not for decoration. Being in here made me angry. I wanted to spit on all his order.
