THE DRAVEN ESTATE
The road wound higher through the pines until it finally broke open, revealing the Draven Estate. It wasn't what Marina expected—not a mansion or a castle, but something stranger. The structure rose like a shard of night carved into the hillside, all black stone walls and steep, jagged gables. Thin windows glowed faintly with firelight, but they didn't look warm. They looked like eyes. Watching.
Even the trees kept their distance. The pines leaned back from the estate as if it exhaled something cold that the forest itself didn't dare touch.
Kael hadn't said a word in the last ten minutes. His hands were locked tight on the steering wheel, the muscles in his jaw flexing whenever she glanced at him. His silence only made the weight in Marina's chest grow heavier.
Finally, she broke it. "Why would Ezra come here? Why would he—"
Kael cut her off without looking at her. "Inside. We'll talk inside."
His voice was calm, but not kind. More like a command.
The gravel crunched under the tires as the car rolled to a stop. Marina hesitated before opening her door, her fingers brushing over the cracked compass resting in her coat pocket. She didn't even remember putting it there, but it felt like the only thing tethering her to something familiar.
The air outside was sharp, cold enough that her breath puffed white. The estate loomed above her, its windows flickering as though the flames inside were alive, moving of their own accord.
The front doors opened before Kael could knock.
Marina stepped inside and felt the temperature shift—not warmer, exactly, but heavier, as though the air carried something dense and unseen. The faint scent of woodsmoke clung to everything, laced with something metallic, like the air after a lightning strike.
The hall stretched long and dim, its walls lined with portraits. The faces in them weren't familiar, but every painted pair of eyes followed her as she walked. The flicker of candles along the walls made the shadows stretch and crawl, as though they were alive, too.
She noticed them then—the people.
Figures moved silently through the halls. None of them spoke, not to her. Their eyes glinted faintly in the low light, catching the flames like glass. Some watched her openly as she passed. Others didn't even bother to pretend they weren't listening, their heads tilted ever so slightly, as though following her heartbeat.
Marina's skin prickled. Every step deeper into the estate felt like crossing into somewhere she wasn't supposed to be.
Kael led her through a final set of carved double doors into a vast study.
The room was cavernous, its ceiling lost in shadow. Shelves lined the walls, heavy with leather-bound books and maps marked with constellations. A massive hearth burned in the center wall, the firelight casting long shadows over mounted antlers and gleaming steel.
And waiting in the center of it all were three figures.
Elders.
Their presence filled the room in a way Marina couldn't explain. They didn't move, didn't speak, but the weight of their attention made her throat tighten. The eldest—a tall woman with silver-threaded hair, her amber eyes faintly glowing even in the firelight—tilted her head slowly as Marina stepped closer.
"So," the woman murmured, her voice a soft ripple of sound that somehow carried across the vast room. "The girl who carries the Blackwood curse finally arrives."
Marina froze. Her fingers tightened around the compass in her pocket until the cracked glass bit into her palm.
"The what?" Her voice was steadier than she felt, but not by much.
The woman's lips curved, the faintest shadow of a smile.
"Don't worry," she said softly. "You'll understand… soon enough."
Before Marina could ask, the flames in the hearth guttered low. Every candle in the room flickered violently, its light shrinking as if pulled by some invisible tide.
From the woods beyond the estate walls came a sound.
A howl.
Low, long, and mournful. It rose slowly through the night air, the kind of sound that made every instinct in Marina scream to hide. It was distant, but not distant enough.
The windows rattled in their frames.
The elders didn't react. Not even a blink. They just listened, their eyes reflecting the firelight like molten gold.
When the howl finally faded, the silver-haired woman's gaze returned to Marina, her voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried the weight of a threat:
"Stay inside tonight. If you want to see the morning."