Dmitri left the cottage with the bone dagger strapped to his side, his breath sharp and jagged in the frozen air. Irina had given him a satchel of talismans—black salt, protective herbs, dried petals of wolfsbane—but they felt like toys against what now hunted him.
She was waiting.
Not in the open, but behind every gust of wind, every shifting shadow in the trees. The world was white and dead, yet pulsing—alive with something ancient.
He had never felt so watched.
By the time he reached the edge of the woods, twilight had descended. The Orlov Estate rose before him—gothic, towering, the chimneys like dead fingers against the sky. Its windows were all dark now. Even the servants had fled.
Only silence greeted him.
And a name written in the snow.
Not by hand. No. The snow parted itself. As if breathed away by unseen lips.
DMITRI
One letter at a time. Curved and beautiful. A lover's handwriting.
He stared at it.
His throat tightened.
The warning from Irina echoed: If she whispers your name beneath the snow—run.
But the cold was deeper now. It wasn't just around him—it was inside him.
Then he heard it.
Soft, trailing, like a lullaby buried beneath layers of silence.
"Dmitri…"
The name brushed his ears like silk.
"You left me…"
His muscles tensed, frozen in place. The dagger at his side pulsed.
"You wore a ring… but not for me."
He spun around.
No one.
Only snow falling gently.
He took a step back—right into a figure.
She was behind him.
Vasilisa.
Her veil shimmered in the moonlight, no longer crimson but pure white. As if mourning herself. Her feet left no imprint in the snow. Her hands, delicate and pale, hovered inches from his shoulder.
He didn't move. Couldn't breathe.
She leaned closer, and her breath brushed his neck. Cold as death.
"Do you know what it felt like?" she whispered.
"I didn't—" Dmitri began, his voice cracking. "I wasn't the one—"
"But your face," she breathed, "is his. Your eyes… the same cruelty. The same betrayal. I could kiss you… and kill you."
He turned slowly. Her veil floated around her like mist. Through it, he saw her eyes—two voids of sorrow.
She tilted her head. "Will you offer yourself? End the line? Let me sleep?"
His hand dropped to the dagger.
"I will not die for a man I never met," he said.
Vasilisa smiled.
"Then he will rise," she whispered.
Dmitri's eyes widened. "What?"
She stepped back into the dark.
"I won't kill you, Dmitri Orlov. I'll give you a gift."
The snow at her feet bubbled.
"Your great-grandfather. Semyon. I've found his bones. And soon—he'll walk."
Then she vanished into the trees, and the ground beneath Dmitri's feet cracked with a deep, rumbling groan.
From somewhere far below the estate… something was waking up.
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