"Very well," I said. "You will wear me as your shadow. I will stand between you and the hand that strikes."
The words tasted of verdict and of vow—iron and silk mingled on my tongue—and I permitted them both. I have made more perilous promises to lesser women, offered oaths to queens whose names I no longer remember. The difference here was simple, and therefore catastrophic: I meant it.
Do not mistake me for merciful. I do not avenge mortals for sport; I am not in the habit of correcting the world's cruelties. But there was something in the symmetry of this one that pleased me—an aesthetic more than a moral. A house that reeks of roses and rot, a brother who mistakes his reflection for a crown, and a girl who wears her defiance like a confession. The night loves balance. So do I, when it amuses me.
Perhaps that is why I spoke as I did. Perhaps it was only the poet left in me, starved but not yet dead, who admired the composition of her tragedy. Or perhaps it was something more primitive—the faint echo of what I used to be before eternity sanded my soul into glass.
Her story was an open wound, but it bled with grace. And I, who have known beauty in every violent form, found myself captivated not by her suffering, but by the quiet precision of her endurance. There was art in it—the kind only pain refines.
The wind stirred, as though approving the arrangement. Snow fell between us, settling like a signature on parchment. I watched her mouth tremble—not in fear, but in the solemn awe of someone who recognizes the weight of her own salvation.
I should have left her there, beneath the cathedral of winter. I should have let the promise decay, as all things do. But she looked at me then—truly looked—and the night itself seemed to hold its breath, waiting to see which of us would break first.
And though I have not breathed in centuries, I swear I almost did.
"Do not mistake theater for heart," I warned. One must always speak the lie aloud, especially when both players intend to betray it. My voice carried easily through the cold, flat as judgment. It is important to name the boundaries of sin, even if one intends to cross them slowly, with ceremony.
She asked what happens if theater becomes true. I did not answer. Instead, I looked toward the horizon where dawn was already conspiring. It begins its work long before the rays arrive—softly sketching the outlines of things. I have always hated being outlined. To have one's edges defined is to be reminded of containment, of body, of consequence.
"Do not tempt me," I told her. My tone was even, but my pulse—if one can still call it that—shifted beneath the surface. Temptation is not a leash; it is a geography. I know every province by name. I have crossed its borders so many times that the guards no longer ask for my papers. Yet somehow, her voice redrew the map—red ink on familiar parchment. It rearranged what I thought was immutable. I do not prefer difference. It corrodes discipline.
We walked. The world watched. I let my shadow braid with hers—not out of sentiment, but study. It is instructive to observe how creation edits itself around a single mortal. The wolves quieted, as though recalling some ancient covenant. The wind, which moments ago had quarreled with the iron gate, fell into reverent silence. Even the snow began to fall with a peculiar patience, the kind that attends confession—slow, deliberate, aware of its own beauty.
I have walked through battlefields without commanding such courtesy. I have watched kings die and the world not blink. And yet here she was, this fragile symmetry of flesh and defiance, and the night itself re-arranged its posture to accommodate her.
I resented it. I admired it. I could not decide which was worse.
There was an elegance in the way her presence disrupted the old order of things—a reminder that even after centuries, the world still has the nerve to surprise me. She did not belong beside me, yet she walked as if the distance between damnation and desire had never existed. And for the first time in a very long time, I felt the faint, humiliating tug of gravity.
I told myself it was irritation. It was not.
It was the beginning of something worse.
"You will belong to me in every eye that dares to see," I told her, because ownership spoken aloud is less dangerous than ownership implied. Silence, left unchecked, becomes prophecy. At least words give ruin a name.
She accepted with a queen's precision, as if bestowing mercy rather than receiving it. "If it keeps my brother's hand from me." No plea, no tremor—just calculation refined into dignity. Her composure was immaculate, the kind that only the broken ever master.
I thought briefly of that hand—the one that had written its cowardice upon her skin, each bruise a signature of authority masquerading as love. I imagined it trembling, someday, when it met my justice. And though I keep no pulse, something stuttered in the hollow where one ought to beat.
She looked at me then, her gaze an unspoken question. Not of fear, but of curiosity. A murderer, she said almost without sound.
It is not a question I favor. I have worn worse names than murderer: ghost, curse, consort, relic. I do not argue with reputations. They are the only art most men ever leave behind. Each name, like a brushstroke, paints me further into myth, and myths do not answer questions—they devour them.
"I am a consequence," I wanted to say. Not vengeance, not justice—simply what happens after. But she would not have understood; mortals seldom do. They mistake consequence for cruelty because they cannot endure what they've earned.
Instead, I gave her quiet.
Quiet is malleable; it can be sculpted into whatever shape the listener desires—mercy, warning, invitation. I let her believe it was all three.
The air between us thickened into that rarest of things: recognition without permission. She exhaled softly, and in that breath, I could almost hear her naming me—not the monster from the tales, but something worse, something true.
And I—who have not belonged to anything for centuries—found myself wondering what it might mean to be seen, not as myth or menace, but as consequence embodied.
The air thinned until her breath mingled with mine—an invisible collision, delicate and deliberate. Mortals imagine our kind to be heatless, but longing carries its own temperature, one that burns without flame and bleeds without wound. It was that heat I felt, moving through me like a memory of music.
Once, I preferred sound to blood. A violin's throat weeping beneath my hands, a soprano's defiance trembling just beneath control—those were my feasts. I used to believe that beauty was safest when it stayed obedient to form. I have taught myself to forget such things. Forgetting is a discipline, a craft refined over centuries. But she—she made forgetting incompetent.
"Ruin," she said softly, tasting the word as though it might bruise her tongue. She wore it freshly, but not without skill; some souls are born rehearsed for their undoing. "Perhaps ruin is holy."
I have heard monks offer prayers less perilous than that. Their hymns were only translations of fear. But her declaration—hers was blasphemy wrapped in grace, an invocation both dangerous and tender. I did not tell her she was right, though she was. Holiness is only ruin given ceremony, sin canonized by time.
I touched her face again—not for hunger, but for study. The act felt sacrilegious, and perhaps it was. Her skin was cold from the night, yet it yielded with the warmth of belief. I traced the line of her jaw, the tremor at her throat, the pulse beneath it whispering rebellion. My restraint betrayed me; it ached sharper than indulgence ever could.
There is a cruelty in abstaining when every fiber of eternity invites consumption. Yet, in that moment, I wanted nothing devoured—only observed. To memorize the geometry of her defiance, the lightlessness of her courage. The restraint stole from me more thoroughly than appetite ever had.
And when I withdrew my hand, it felt like desecration.
The silence that followed was devotional. The snow fell more slowly, as if the heavens themselves were reluctant to interrupt. I could have kissed her then—not out of lust, but to prove that touch could still sanctify instead of destroy. I did not. The cruelty of restraint, after all, is its own form of worship.
She asked for damnation as if requesting instruction, and it would have been perverse to deny a diligent student. "Very well," I whispered, and the night—ever a gossip—carried it reverently to the trees. The branches swayed as if to bear witness, and even the snow seemed to pause in expectation. I do not rush my lessons. Slow destruction is the only kind worth giving; it allows the soul the courtesy of keeping pace with the body.
We came to the edge of a clearing where the snow lay untouched—an unbroken expanse, white as silence, waiting to be ruined. I have always preferred clean canvases; desecration is more poetic when it begins with purity. The sky was bleeding into that indifferent grey which passes for morning in lands without mercy. I told her it does not favor what I am. She did not ask for proof. Instead, she matched her steps to mine, unhesitating, as though she understood choreography written in another century.
How long has it been since I danced? The thought offended me. Eternity teaches one many things, but it steals rhythm first. There was something indecent in the grace with which she kept time beside me, as though she had been built to move in tandem with catastrophe.
He will come, I thought. The brother. They always do, men of that breed—homing birds guided by cruelty, their malice a compass that never falters. He will arrive clad in righteousness: legal, filial, masculine—all the old uniforms pressed and polished to hide the stench of decay. He will speak the dialect of entitlement with perfect grammar, his tongue sharp with inheritance.
He will bring companions—men with knives and courtesy, men who mistake civility for strength. They will come armed with permission, with words like sister and duty sharpened into instruments. And when he looks at her, he will not see a woman. He will see furniture used incorrectly, property out of place.
It will be my pleasure to teach him grammar.
There is an artistry to correction, a music to retribution when done in the proper key. I can already imagine the lesson—the clean line of his fear, the first tear in his certainty. He will learn the syntax of consequence, each phrase punctuated with silence.
And when it is done, when his hands no longer remember ownership, the world will exhale. The balance will restore itself, for a moment, and the night will call it justice.
But I will call it composition.
"Tomorrow," I said, "we are lovers."
It is an accurate word, and therefore a dishonest one. Lovers are not a species—only a season: two bodies believing in one another with enough intensity to momentarily convince the world it has meaning. Truth is optional; belief is compulsory. I am adept at compulsory things.
She met my decree not with submission, but with the ferocity of one who has already negotiated the terms of her damnation. "So long as the cruelty is yours," she answered. The air shivered between us, startled by her audacity.
I do not blush; I am not built for that fragile theater. But something within me—something ancient and reluctant—stirred to its forgotten name. It was not love; I have buried that word too many times. It was gentleness, or the ghost of it, and I despised its persistence.
"Do not mistake me for mercy," I told her, and meant it as instruction—to save her the disappointment of later years. But she asked me to be cruel. I will oblige. Cruelty, when disciplined, is a form of structure. It builds walls, outlines boundaries, teaches the body where to kneel and the heart where to hide.
There is an artistry in selective brutality. Applied correctly, it becomes a shelter; applied carelessly, it becomes a grave. I am well-practiced with my hands, and I have built both.
She did not flinch. The wind threaded her hair like a ribbon through frost, and the faintest trace of warmth—perhaps from her breath, perhaps from defiance—reached me. I imagined how easily I could destroy it. I imagined how exquisite it would be not to.
The night bent closer, listening. I let it. Some declarations deserve an audience.
And though I have promised her cruelty, I already know the truth: she will not die from what I take. She will die from what she awakens in me.
We stood close enough that a single inch could have resolved a question older than either of us. I did not grant it. Denial, when done properly, is not cruelty—it is truth rendered clean. It is often more honest than the indulgence mortals write poems about. To touch her would have been art; to withhold was religion. So I let my mouth's shadow pass across hers and left the air to suffocate on what we did not do. The mind is gluttonous—it will feast on restraint when starved of satisfaction.
"Very well," I told the world, more than her. "You have chosen your fire." The trees heard it first; the snow second; the stars last, as if they already understood. Fires are vain things. They crave witnesses and applause. I have burned villages, convents, kingdoms—and none of them pleased me as this small, private flame did. The difference was that this one did not ask to be seen; it merely existed. And I, absurdly, wanted to keep it. I do not forgive the feeling.
She asked if I had ever been caged. Of course I have. All creatures worth the trouble of remembering have. My prisons were not built of stone, but of oaths spoken in candlelight and vows mistaken for salvation. I have been trapped in the obedience of debts, the laughingstock of gratitude, the decorum of promises that wore holy faces. Once, I was even caged by a woman who believed I still possessed a human shape. She was wrong—but I wore it for a while to humor her.
Humor ruins more men than malice.
When I said blood is the key, Evangelina's mouth softened, and I saw understanding dawn like sin across her features. Her lips parted, not in fear, but in revelation—as though the word key might open her too, might unlock the quiet architecture of her defiance. For a moment, I envied the word itself, envied the ease with which it could enter her and be forgiven.
She did not know yet that keys and cages are often the same thing.
But she would.
And when she learned, she would call it freedom.
We spoke of pacts. Mortals imagine oaths belong to priests and kings—to those who wear crowns or collars heavy enough to bruise. They are wrong. Oaths belong to anyone who can stand still while the world moves and insist that it is the world which is swaying. "A pact stains," I told her. I am already stained beyond laundry, beyond even penance. She brought me a new color. I accepted.
The sun began its slow ascent behind the mountains, lifting its warning like a curtain no one asked to rise. Reality proposed itself—politely, efficiently, and without poetry. I have never liked reality; it is a servant that insists on being master. It lacks decadence, lacks imagination. I tolerate it the way one tolerates a well-meaning bore at supper: because it eventually excuses itself.
"We go," I said, and for once the snow did not resist me. It parted neatly beneath our steps, as though humoring an old superstition. The silence walked beside us, carrying what words could not. Ahead, the iron of the gate emerged through the pale mist, gleaming faintly as if it had been waiting to be useful again.
"Tonight we are strangers," I said. "Tomorrow, everyone will call us lovers."
The phrase felt inevitable, like a prophecy overheard in childhood. It also felt dangerous. Names have gravity; once spoken, they collect events around them. Lovers are not born—they are summoned. And I had just spoken the word into being.
With it came danger, and with danger, rules. I have many—written in no scripture but tested across centuries. I keep them not out of wisdom but for sport. Rule the first: never drink where you worship. Rule the second: never worship. Rule the third: if you must, call it strategy until the distinction no longer matters.
I have broken all three before. I suspect I will again.
The gate groaned as it opened, as if resentful of dawn's appointment. She crossed before me, her breath pale and bright as a dying candle. I followed—not as savior, nor as shadow, but as consequence. The snow swallowed our footprints in the same moment they were made. The world is efficient that way.
And somewhere between the sound of iron closing and the first bird daring to sing, I realized that for the first time in a century, I was not bored.
She turned toward me, and I saw the chapel of her throat, the architecture of defiance in the tilt of her chin. There is a line mortals cross without noticing—the one between survival and devotion. I could not tell on which side she stood. Perhaps she straddled it. That is the posture of martyrs and queens.
"Sleep," I should have told her. "Eat. Obey until we make obedience obsolete." I said none of those things. Instead, I let the back of my fingers barely memorize the curve beneath her jaw. She closed her eyes as if blessing the gesture. It occurred to me that I had not been gentle in a very long time—not even with myself.
We parted without turning away—an old superstition of mine, that turning backs empowers a knife. I walked into the trees and let their cold favor me. The world resumed its foolishness: birds threatening commentary, branches experimenting with courage under frost. Behind me, her steps faded toward the ruin that dares to call itself home.
I should have felt triumphant, or at least entertained. Instead, I felt the vulgar little ache of interruption. Eternity resents being paused. I considered finding another man to empty before dawn, to remind the night of its duties—but the idea bored me. Boredom is my oldest companion; I tend to it like a garden because it keeps worse things from growing. Tonight, something else sprouted.
Curiosity. How inelegant.
I told myself it was tactical—the brother would come, I would enjoy him; the girl would be useful, I would use her. The court would hum, the town would whisper, and the wolves would finally have something holy to gossip about. These are operations. I am an excellent operator.
And yet, the snow kept a different record: two shadows braided briefly where it is inconvenient for history to remember tenderness. I am not sentimental. Sentimentality is hunger dressed in lace. I am hungry enough without decoration. Still, when the wind changed, it carried the faintest trace of her: skin and sorrow, the sweetness of courage newly born. And I turned toward it like a desecrated saint toward a distant bell.
Do not mistake this for love. Love is a theatre, and I have stood on every stage. But something older than love stirred in me—something with the patience of roots and the cruelty of memory. You are awake, it whispered from the trees. I cursed it for being right.
I resumed my walk, my roses blooming dutifully behind me, the snow recording every blasphemy. Dawn drew its blade along the horizon, and the night obediently bled. I did not hasten. I have outrun the sun too often to flatter it with fear.
By the time I reached the chapel that remembers me—its roof collapsed in a beautiful surrender, its altar eroded to a pallid smile. Tomorrow: cruelty refined into protection, desire disciplined into theater, hunger forced to kneel before something that dares to resemble hope.
Tonight, I allowed myself one indecency. I spoke her name into the ruined air and let the chapel keep it for me.
"Evangelina."
The echo came back wounded—so soft, so human, that I almost failed to recognize it as my own. In it, I heard the sound of something breaking, something I had not believed still existed in me. It was not mercy. It was not love. It was longing, raw and ancient, older than faith and far more dangerous.
I am still cold. I remain what I am. But the endless corridor of night has found a door, and for the first time in centuries, I do not know whether I wish to open it or burn it. Either would be a kindness.
For now, I will do the one thing the living have forgotten and eternity fears most.
I will wait—aching, awake, and no longer alone.