Adrian could not sleep. The sheets felt suffocating, heavy, as though they conspired against him. The room was too warm, though the night beyond the windows lay drenched in cold mist. His breath came sharp, uneven, and he found himself pacing, his bare feet striking the wooden floor like an accusation.
Why had he come here? What devil had pulled him by the collar into this house of velvet and poison? He could not answer, only that he had once been empty, and now he was drowning.
He threw open the shutters. A pale moon leaked its sickly light over the gardens. Somewhere below, faint laughter drifted upward, that dreadful kind of laughter that has no joy in it—only cruelty, only games. Adrian pressed his palms to his ears, but the sound clawed through his skull.
He muttered, half to himself, half to God, though he no longer knew if God listened:
"Silence… silence, just one moment of silence."
It was then he heard it. A whisper, faint, as though drawn from the very marrow of the walls.
"Adrian…"
He turned. No one. Only the shadow of the bed, the mirror in which his reflection glared back at him like an enemy. His throat tightened. The whisper came again, this time clearer, urgent, almost pleading.
He pulled the door open. The corridor stretched before him, lamps guttering, walls sighing as though breathing. He walked quickly, not knowing where or why, only that the sound beckoned him, pulling him deeper into the house.
At last, at the bend of the corridor, a figure appeared. Nyra. She was barefoot, her hair loose, her eyes wide with that strange fire he had not yet named. She raised a finger to her lips.
"Come," she hissed. "Not here. Too many ears."
Adrian followed, though every step felt like betrayal. She led him down a staircase narrow and crooked, into a wing of the estate he had never seen before. The air grew colder. The walls were lined with portraits of men—young, handsome, proud—all their eyes painted with unnatural brightness, as though they had been too alive to die properly.
Nyra stopped before one of the portraits, her hand trembling as it hovered just shy of the canvas. The man's face was severe, noble, with a faint smile that seemed both tender and mocking.
"He came here, as you did," she whispered. "He thought himself fortunate. Chosen. Loved. But where is he now?"
Adrian felt a chill crawl up his spine. "Where?" he demanded, his voice too loud, echoing against the walls. He cursed himself, bit his lip until it bled.
Nyra turned sharply, her face pale, her lips trembling. "Gone. Vanished. As they all do. This house swallows men, Adrian. It swallows them whole, until there is nothing left but a portrait to laugh at those who come after."
He stared at her, at her eyes that burned like coals, and for a moment he thought he should run—leave this place, leave her, flee into the night with no direction but freedom. But he did not. He could not.
Instead, he touched her arm. She flinched, yet did not pull away.
"You stayed," he said, his voice low. "Why?"
"Because I was young. Because I believed I could save him. Because…" She bit down hard on the word, but it spilled out anyway. "…because I loved him."
Something twisted in Adrian's chest. A knife? A hand? He could not tell. He wanted to ask her everything: the man's name, the truth of the house, what game these women played. But her nearness disarmed him, her sorrow seeped into his skin, and instead of questions, he found himself leaning closer.
Nyra's lips quivered, uncertain, as though she balanced on the edge of ruin. When he kissed her, it was not fire but grief he tasted, a desperate clinging, not a victory. Her hands clutched at his shoulders like a drowning soul clawing at driftwood.
The kiss deepened, reckless, but something in Adrian recoiled. It was not the sweet intoxication Selene offered, nor the fierce domination of Liora. This was something raw, naked, too human. He pulled back, trembling.
Her eyes glistened. "Leave, Adrian. Leave before they finish you. Before you become another face in these halls."
Her voice broke. She covered her face, and in that instant, she looked more like a child than a temptress.
Adrian staggered back. He wanted to shout, to demand answers, but his throat was dry. His body betrayed him—his heart hammering, his skin burning, his veins demanding more of that desperate closeness.
He fled instead. Up the stairwell, back into the corridors of velvet and candlelight, running until the portraits no longer watched him.
At last, breathless, he leaned against a wall, hands shaking. His chest ached with confusion: desire, pity, fear, all coiled together. He cursed himself. Fool. Weakling. Hypocrite.
And yet, in the silence that followed, he heard again the faintest whisper. Not Nyra's this time, but another—softer, colder, curling like smoke through his mind.
"Adrian… you belong to us now."
He pressed his fists against his temples, grinding his teeth, his laughter breaking into a sob. The house was alive. And it would not let him go.