One evening, as the wind battered the castle like a stone hand and the gargoyles seemed to weep with mouths wide open, the Baron returned drunk. More drunk than usual. With clouded eyes and wet hair, reeking of rain and old blood, he stormed into Elena's room like an aged storm — directionless, but thirsty for destruction.
"I raised you, took you out of your pagan filth, and you… you defy me! You won't bear me a child! You won't give me an heir! What kind of woman are you?!" he shouted, hurling an oil lamp that shattered by the door, its flame flickering menacingly like a prophecy.
Elena stood upright. Unmoving. Her dress torn, her feet bare. She looked at him. But in her silence there was an ending he could not comprehend. And that drove him mad.
"Answer me!" he screamed and slammed her against the wall, with a force that knocked the air from her chest. His hands gripped her throat, but she did not scream. So he began to strike. With fists. With his belt. With the edge of the table. He shattered the mirror and drove a shard into her palm.
"Cry! Cry, you wretch, you demon with an angel's face!"
But she did not cry. Her eyes stayed dry. Defiant. Fixed on something beyond him. Then the Baron lost his mind. He began kicking her with his boots. Dragging her by the hair. Punching her belly, her ribs, her breasts. Spitting in her face and laughing with a hatred that collapsed into tears.
"You're not a woman. You're a curse. And I will rip you out of flesh!"
Elena felt her body tearing. A rib had snapped. Her mouth was full of blood. One eye throbbed with pain. But her heart… her heart was alive. It beat. And in every beat was a call.
"Come," she whispered to the demon from her dreams. But he did not come.
When the Baron turned to drink from the shattered carafe, Elena saw the door slightly ajar. She didn't know how. Maybe a servant had forgotten to close it. Maybe the darkness favored her that night. Or maybe, it was simply time.
In a burst of lucid desperation, Elena stood, her broken body slick with warm blood. She looked at the Baron, who drowned his fury in wine, and felt a power rise from deep within her — an ancient force, a clear hatred, like a blade unsheathed after centuries.
"You give me nothing but death," she thought. "So I will give it back to you."
She charged at him with all the strength she had left, slamming her shoulder into his chest, and the Baron, caught off guard, stumbled and crashed over the table. A flask of wine, shards, books — everything scattered in a chaotic symphony.
Elena didn't look back. She ran through the castle corridors like a hunted animal. Doors slammed behind her, the chandelier flames flickered, shadows danced across the walls. Her heart pounded like a shattered drum. Blood poured from her wounds, but it no longer mattered. She had to run. To escape.
In the stables, near the trophy room where the Baron kept his cursed collections, Elena found what she hadn't known she needed: the Baron's favorite horse. A massive black stallion, bound with gilded iron chains. Its eyes burned red, like twin embers, and its mane was slick like pitch.
No saddle. No reins. No fear. Elena leapt onto its back with a cry of pain that was not just from the body — it came from the soul.
"Run! Now!"
And the horse understood. It burst through the gates, shattering wood and rusty nails. It tore through the night. Pierced the fog. And Elena fled. Hair whipping in the wind, wounds wide open, hands clinging to the mane of a cursed beast — but free. She rode into the forest. Into the night. Toward the calling.
Behind her, the Baron screamed:
"Elena! I will find you! You are mine! Mine!"
But the night did not answer him. The forest welcomed her. And the shadows opened their arms.
The stallion carried her at full gallop to the edge of the forest. That was as far as it could go. The horse halted suddenly, foam at its mouth and its eyes bulging from their sockets. Its legs gave out, and its body collapsed to the ground with a groan — the sound of an animal released from a curse. Elena tumbled from the saddle, hitting roots and rocks, but she did not stop. She was not allowed to stop.
With her wounds bleeding, clothes torn, and hair caked in mud, she crawled at first. Then she ran, barefoot on earth. Branches lashed at her. Leaves covered her. But the forest did not reject her. It received her. Like a lost daughter.
She stopped only when she could no longer feel the ground. When she heard nothing but her own blood. When her heart beat a single word:
"Come!"
She fell to her knees. Dug her hands into the soil. Screamed without voice. And then, among the trees, the shadows moved.