The fire in Eira's room burned low, its warmth barely touching the cold, unyielding stone walls. She sat stiffly on the edge of the bed, a blanket draped loosely over her shoulders. Sleep hovered just out of reach, like a taunting shadow, as her mind replayed the night's events in a relentless loop.
The rogue vampire's snarling face rose in her memory, its red, feral eyes locked onto hers. Her shoulder still tingled faintly where its claws had torn through her skin—where Caius's tongue had healed her. That memory alone made her stomach churn. His touch had been both chilling and intimate, a sensation she couldn't erase no matter how hard she tried.
"You're stronger than you think," he'd said, his tone maddeningly calm, like an unshakable force of nature. She scoffed quietly to herself at the thought.
Stronger? Was this strength?
She didn't feel it. She felt… hollow.
Her gaze drifted to the flickering fire. Its glow barely illuminated the dark corners of the room, and the shadows seemed to stretch and shift as if they were alive. She tightened the blanket around herself, but the ache in her chest wouldn't ease. It was a dull, pressing weight—too deep to soothe and too sharp to ignore.
Eira shifted to her side, tucking her knees toward her chest. Her muscles protested as she moved, sore from hours of combat drills and the fight that had followed. Her mind, however, refused to let her rest. It played cruel games, conjuring images of the rogue's body collapsing onto her and the stickiness of its blood coating her hands.
She exhaled shakily and pressed her palms against her face. "Just sleep," she whispered to herself, her voice breaking in the stillness. "Just stop thinking."
The room was quiet except for the faint crackle of the dying fire and the occasional sigh of wind against the castle walls. She focused on those sounds, forcing her breathing to slow.
Inhale. Exhale.
She counted each breath, letting her thoughts unravel, but her mind was like a tightly wound thread that refused to fray. Her hand drifted unconsciously to her shoulder, where the wound had been, and she pressed her fingers into the now-smooth skin. The thought of Caius's golden eyes watching her so closely made her shiver, but she didn't know if it was from discomfort or something deeper.
The shadows in the room seemed to shift again, darker now, pooling in the corners. Eira blinked, her heavy eyelids pulling downward, her mind slipping into hazy half-thoughts. She tried to cling to wakefulness, but it was like holding water in her hands.
Her breathing slowed. The crackling fire became a distant murmur, its light dimming as though being snuffed out by an unseen hand.
The weight in her chest softened—not lifting, but changing. It wasn't a hollow ache anymore. It was something heavier, something pulling at her, dragging her downward.
She reached for wakefulness one last time, her fingers twitching against the blanket, but the pull was too strong.
Sleep overtook her—not a gentle surrender, but a slow descent into something cold and unfamiliar.
It was not a peaceful sleep.
Eira stood in a hall so vast and grand that it felt like the air itself had weight. The walls were smooth and gleaming, as though made of polished obsidian, but they shimmered, bending and distorting like reflections in rippling water. The air was heavy, like it was trying to crush her ribs, and every breath came with effort.
Faint whispers echoed in the distance. The words were too soft to make out, but they carried a sharpness that made the back of her neck prickle.
Ahead of her, a man stood with his back turned. His shoulders were broad, his stance rigid. His dark hair, just brushing the collar of his coat, was a mess of uneven strands that seemed to shift with the flickering light.
"Caius," The name left her lips unbidden, but the figure didn't move.
As she stepped closer, she realized he wasn't alone. A woman stood beside him, her form blurred like a figure trapped behind frosted glass. Her presence filled the space with an oppressive weight.
Eira couldn't see the woman's face, but her movements were fluid, deliberate. She leaned toward Caius, her head tilting as though whispering something to him. The sound of her voice was faint and indistinct, as if the words were being carried away before they could reach Eira's ears.
The tension in the air thickened. Caius's posture didn't change, but there was something in the way he stood—his shoulders tight, his hands clenched at his sides—that made her chest ache.
The whispers swelled, rising into a cacophony of muffled, overlapping voices. The flickering light didn't seem to come from any source, as though the shadows themselves pulsed with life.
Eira tried to move closer, but the hall buckled around her, the walls folding in on themselves as the scene shifted violently.
Flashes.
The glint of steel. The roar of fire.
Faceless figures clashed, their movements a chaotic blur. Eira smelled blood, its metallic tang thick in the air, and felt its warmth on her hands. She stumbled, trying to ground herself, but the world spun wildly.
Faceless figures moved in a blur, locked in desperate, frantic battle. Eira stumbled backward, her feet skidding against the slick surface of the ground—stone, she realized, dark and glossy, pooling with blood.
She turned, and there he was again.
Caius stood at the center of the carnage, his golden eyes blazing. His face was streaked with blood, his expression raw and unguarded. His lips moved as though shouting something, but no sound reached her.
Her gaze was pulled to the shadows behind him. The woman was there again, watching the destruction unfold with a cold, detached smile. She held something in her hands—Eira couldn't tell if it was a blade, a chalice, or something else entirely.
Caius turned toward her, his eyes locking onto hers. For a split second, his gaze seemed to soften, but then the scene collapsed around her, plunging her into darkness.
Eira woke with a violent start, her body jolting upright as though dragged from drowning depths. Her lungs burned, each breath ragged and uneven, her chest heaving as though she had been running for miles. A cold sweat clung to her skin, dampening the edges of her hairline and the thin fabric of her nightgown.
The room swam around her, unfamiliar and distorted in the dim glow of the dying fire. Shadows stretched long and fluid across the walls, twisting and shifting with the faint flicker of the embers. For a moment, she felt like she was still trapped in the dream, the phantom weight of the hall's suffocating air pressing down on her chest.
Her hands clutched the blanket draped over her lap, the coarse fabric grounding her even as her fingers dug into it. But the pounding in her chest refused to relent. Fear lingered, sharp and vivid, but it wasn't alone. Beneath it simmered anger, sorrow, and a strange, hollow ache that wasn't hers.
"Was that a dream?" she asked hoarsely, her voice cracking in the oppressive silence.
Her gaze darted around the room as though expecting to see the figures from her vision materialize in the shifting shadows. The vividness of it all lingered—the gleam of blood on dark stone, the cruel curve of the woman's smile, the anguish etched into Caius's face. The emotions she'd felt in the dream clung to her like a second skin, too raw to ignore.
It wasn't just a dream. It couldn't be.
But how can I feel something that isn't mine?
She didn't know which terrified her more—that it was a dream, or that it wasn't.
Her fingers trembled as she pushed the blanket aside and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The cold stone floor bit into her bare feet, a sharp contrast to the sweat still cooling on her skin. The stillness of the room felt heavy now, almost expectant, as if it was waiting for her to act.
She stood slowly, her muscles stiff and reluctant, and moved to the desk in the corner. Her sketchpad and charcoal stick rested there, ordinary objects that now felt like lifelines.
Sitting at the desk, she reached for them without hesitation. The charcoal was cool and familiar in her hand, but her grip was unsteady. Her hand hovered over the blank page for a moment, her pulse still hammering in her ears. Then, almost of its own accord, her fingers began to move. It didn't feel like she was guiding her hand; it felt as if the images were pulling themselves out of her, demanding to be seen.
The first lines were rough and jagged, erratic as her breathing. Shadows took shape first—elongated impressions of the towering walls from the dream, their edges distorted and bending inward like they were closing in.
Her hand stilled briefly before beginning again, sketching the cruel curve of a smile. It was sharp and unnatural, the kind of smile that promised pain. The charcoal dragged over the paper in deliberate strokes, forming piercing eyes that stared back at her through the haze.
Eira shivered, but she couldn't stop.
Her fingers flew over the page, sketching the faint outline of a man with his back turned. His shoulders were broad but rigid, his posture tense, as though bracing himself for an unseen blow. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before adding the faintest detail of his hair, the strands just brushing the nape of his neck.
Caius.
The battlefield came next, sketched in chaotic, sweeping strokes that felt frantic, almost panicked. She didn't need to think about where the blood pooled or where the glint of steel would catch the light. The details flowed unbidden, dredged from the recesses of her mind like they had always been there, waiting.
Finally, she drew the woman.
Her face was indistinct, blurred at the edges as though wrapped in mist, but her eyes and smile were cruelly clear. The sharpness of her gaze felt alive on the page, mocking and all-knowing. Eira's hand hovered above the sketch, trembling as the final strokes came together.
The room seemed to hold its breath as she stared down at the images spread before her. The unease that had settled in her chest earlier now twisted into something deeper, darker. Her hands were smudged with charcoal, the faint black stains creeping up her fingers like they belonged there.
"Why do I feel like I know you?" she whispered, her voice barely audible.
Her gaze lingered on the woman's blurred face, her piercing eyes staring back at her as if they carried a secret only she could unravel.
A chill ran down Eira's spine, and she pushed the sketchpad away as though putting distance between herself and the memory it had dredged up. For the first time, she wondered if she had crossed a line, stepped into something she wasn't meant to see—or understand.
The woman's smile remained fixed on the page, sharp and mocking, as if daring her to look deeper.