Karina

"Tell me who she was."

Rhydan didn't stop walking.

I followed him through the frostbitten corridor, boots echoing on the stone, eyes fixed on the back of his cloak.

"You said her name. Elira. One of the brides before me."

"Karina-"

"You knew her."

His shoulders tightened.

The corridor opened into the inner courtyard, where the roses used to bloom before the frost took them. Now it was only tangled vines, shriveled thorns, and a smell like something just starting to rot.

"Stop avoiding it," I said.

He turned to face me, but his eyes didn't meet mine.

"You shouldn't say her name aloud."

"Why? Will she hear it?"

He didn't answer.

I stepped closer.

"She was here. In this castle. In this curse. Before me. What happened to her?"

He looked past me, jaw clenched.

"Rhydan."

"I said not to speak her name."

His voice was sharp this time.

I recoiled a little but didn't back away.

"You *brought* me into this," I said. "You married me into this death sentence. And now you want me to stay quiet while ghosts walk the halls and doors knock in the dark?"

The wind howled through the open arch. Somewhere beyond the courtyard, the old chimes rang.

He finally spoke, lower now. Cold. Guarded.

"Elira was... a mistake."

"A mistake?"

"One I won't repeat."

"That's not an answer."

"You don't want the answer."

"Yes," I said. "I do."

A long pause. Then he said, "She thought she could break the curse."

"And?"

He turned and walked away.

I stood there, heart pounding, the frost curling under my shoes like claws.

He wasn't going to tell me.

Not now.

Later, I found the painting.

I wasn't looking for it.

I was just wandering-something I did now when the walls felt too tight and the whispers too close.

It was in a forgotten gallery, behind a torn velvet curtain. A single painting, not part of the others. Dusty. Hung lower than eye level, like someone didn't want it seen.

The woman had dark hair like mine. She wore a deep red gown and held a single flower-something pale, maybe silver, painted so delicately it looked like it would fall off the canvas.

Her face was quiet. Not smiling. Not sad. Just still.

The plaque beneath read:

**Elira Valehart. The First Unbound.**

My breath caught.

First?

Unbound?

The edges of the frame were scorched.

Like someone had tried to burn it and failed.

"You shouldn't be in here."

I turned.

The maid-Talia-stood in the doorway, holding a tray.

"You know her," I said.

Her eyes flicked to the painting. Then quickly away.

"She's not spoken of."

"Why?"

Talia looked at me, truly looked, for the first time since I'd arrived.

"Because she didn't leave."

"Did she die here?"

"No."

"Then where is she?"

She hesitated.

"...Still here."

-

I didn't sleep that night.

I kept hearing footsteps in the corridor. Soft ones. Bare feet.

But when I opened the door, no one was there.

I lit a candle and returned to bed. I was just pulling the blanket up when I saw it.

The mirror.

Unbroken.

I stood slowly.

Walked over.

There was no blood on the floor. No cracks. No shards.

It hadn't been repaired. It had never shattered.

But I remembered it. The scream. The bleeding. My reflection's voice-

"She's waiting."

I pressed my hand to the glass.

Nothing moved.

But the room suddenly smelled of roses.

Not fresh ones. Dead ones. Sweet and sour.

Rotting.

The next morning, I confronted Rhydan again.

"You lied about her."

He didn't answer.

"You knew she wasn't dead."

"She's not alive either."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I'll give."

I slammed my hand on the table. "I *deserve* to know."

"You deserve to live, Karina."

"Then tell me how!"

He finally looked at me, jaw tight. His voice shook-not from fear, but from fury.

"If I tell you, you'll go looking."

"Maybe I already am."

His hands curled into fists. "You're not her."

"I know."

"Then stop chasing her ghost."

"I'm not. I'm chasing mine"

That night, I followed the song.

It was soft. Soft enough I might have missed it, if the castle weren't so still. A woman's voice, humming the same lullaby I'd heard before.

Not from the crypt or from the mirror.

I lit a lantern and slipped out the east hall, down the steps past the abandoned greenhouse.

The song grew clearer.

I passed the old fountain. The water had frozen solid in the bowl, but the voice echoed off the ice like it remembered being liquid.

I turned the corner-and stopped.

There she was.

A figure, cloaked in gray, standing in the snow near the blackened tree.

She was humming.

And then she stopped.

Without turning, she said, "You're not supposed to be here."

"Neither are you," I whispered.

She turned.

But her face was covered by a white veil.

"Are you Elira?"

She didn't answer, i stepped closer.

"I want to understand what happened to you. Why Rhydan-"

"He loved me," she said.

Her voice was quiet. Hollow.

"And I loved him. That was the mistake."

"Why?"

"Because love opens the gate."

"What gate?"

Her head tilted.

"You already know."

She pointed behind me, i turned and saw a stone door in the garden wall I'd never seen before.

Made of bone and root.

Marked with the same symbol on my wrist.

When I turned back, she was gone.

Back in my room, I traced the mark on my wrist until morning.

But I could feel it pulsing.

I thought about Rhydan's face when I said her name. The pain that lived in his eyes like a splinter too deep to pull.

He wasn't afraid of me becoming her.

He was afraid of remembering her.

Which meant...

She hadn't vanished.

Somewhere in the roots of this curse, beneath the bones of the castle.

And now?

I wasn't sure if I wanted to find her or if I already had.