"Follow me."
The voice came low from behind her — calm, deliberate, distant.
Aurelia didn't turn. Not at once. Not anymore.
She had stopped reacting to voices.
Her hands trembled slightly at her sides, curled into fists that didn't quite close. Her fingers were still cold from the carriage ride, her skin prickled by the silence that clung to her like a veil soaked in rain. When she finally moved, it was slow, like ash drifting through water.
A man stood behind her.
He was tall, draped in shadow and black. Silver thread stitched along his sleeves in patterns she didn't recognize. His coat hung long, precise, like something military, but unmarked by any emblem. A high collar, dark gloves. His face was bare — no mask, no helmet — and his eyes, when they found hers, were pale gray.
Like stone before the storm.
"I am Julius," he said. "Assigned to escort you."
She didn't speak. Her throat burned too deeply for that. Her eyes flicked to the corridor behind him, then back.
He didn't wait for a reply. He turned.
And she followed.
---
The corridor devoured sound.
Their footsteps sank into a thick, black carpet that coiled through the marble floor like a river of ink. Walls of veined quartz shimmered faintly with torchlight, though no heat came from them. The cold air tasted clean, hollow. Like stone beneath a cathedral.
Aurelia walked like someone balancing on the edge of a dream.
Back straight, arms clasped in front of her, chin tilted — not with pride, but resistance. A final thread of control. Her gaze was glassy. Her lips, dry.
"You may find it quieter here than where you came from," Julius said, his voice like a flicker in the dark.
She didn't answer.
She didn't want him to think she was listening.
"No one disturbs what he claims."
Still nothing.
He glanced over his shoulder. She met his gaze for a breath, then looked away — not in fear, but with the slow, deliberate numbness of someone who had already been taken apart, piece by piece.
"Do you wish to say something?" he asked.
Her lips parted. A dry breath escaped.
"I don't know what I have left to say."
They passed beneath an archway carved from dark wood and bone. The torches changed here — blue flames curled in silver sconces. The air shimmered faintly with something unseen.
"You have not spoken freely since you arrived," he said.
"What should I have said?" Her voice was hollow.
"Thank you...for purchasing me?"
He didn't answer.
More silence. More corridors.
Each hallway looked like the next. Polished obsidian doors. Ceilings etched with constellations. The mansion did not feel lived in. It felt like something holy. Or haunted.
"He won't hurt you," Julius said. "Not if you follow the rules."
She gave a small, bitter laugh.
It didn't sound human.
"I've followed rules all my life. That's what brought me here."
He stopped. Her steps almost faltered.
"I know what it is to lose everything," he said.
She blinked.
His voice had changed.
She met his eyes again. This time, something inside her paused. Her chest pulled tight. Something about the way he looked at her — not pity, not warning. Recognition.
And sorrow.
But it vanished the moment it surfaced.
"I don't need sympathy," she muttered.
They reached a door — taller than the others, carved with silver bones and a flower with no name.
Julius raised a gloved hand.
The door opened without a sound.
"This is yours."
Aurelia didn't step forward.
She stared through the threshold.
The room was too much. Too clean. Too soft. Velvet drapes. A canopied bed with midnight sheets. Dried lavender curling in glass bowls. Mirrors along one wall, curving and splintered like frozen waves. They fractured her reflection as she entered, breaking her into pieces she didn't recognize.
She whispered, barely audible:
"It doesn't feel like mine."
I don't like this place a bit...why do they treatme like I'm important , I'm I?
She thought.
She moved into the room slowly. As if it might vanish if she walked too loudly.
Her hand brushed the nearest mirror. Cold. Sharp.
"Is this where they keep us?" she murmured. "Pretty things on display?"
"No one is watching you now," Julius said. "You're free."
Her mouth twisted. Not a smile. Not quite.
He stood still beside the door, lookingat her everymove.
"You don't act like the others," she said.
"I'm not like the others."
She turned to him.
"You speak like you've been through this."
He didn't respond, just staring at her.
"Have you?"
His eyes met hers.
"Yes."
The word came out low. Almost inaudible. But it was true. She could feel the weight of it.
"Then you know," she said, eyes suddenly hot, "how hard it is to keep walking."
He nodded.
Then his gaze shifted, the softness in him buried again.
"You will survive."
She let out a breath.
"I don't think I was meant to."
He stepped forward. Just once.
His voice dropped, barely a whisper.
"There was a time when you smiled so easily. When your hands were always stained with flower petals, I'll bring it back."
Her head snapped up.
What?
She whispered.
He blinked, caught in the slip.
His expression shifted.
"I meant… nothing. Rest. I'll return when you're called."
He turned. Swift. Too swift.
She stared after him, chest tight.
A name rose like smoke at the back of her mind.
But no, she told herself.
He is dead.
And this is a stranger.
The door shut with a soft, final sound.
Aurelia didn't move.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't ask who he was.
She stood in the middle of the room, frozen among silk and gold.
The air was too still. The shadows too long. The wealth too deep. Like being buried alive in a cathedral made for kings.
Behind the door, Julius did not move.
His hand rested against the carved wood.
He lowered his head.
And whispered:
"You've grown so much…"
His voice cracked.
Fingers clenched.
"I'm sorry."
But no one heard it.
And he would not say it again.
He straightened.
The mask returned.
He turned. And walked away — like a ghost still guarding its own grave.
---
To be continued...