2025-12-12 18:52:00Isolde returned to the Corbul Negru after the festival, her mind reeling. The image of the pale man in the black coat, the man who looked the same as the man she saw in the castle burned behind her eyelids.
After bidding the others goodnight, she couldn’t sleep, she tossed and turned for hours.
When she finally drifted into a fitful doze, she was awakened by the sound of her window latch clicking shut.
She sat up, heart pounding. "Who’s there?"
The room was empty. The window, which she was certain she had locked, was unlatched. But on the sill, bathed in the pale moonlight, lay a single object.
It was a black rose.
It was fresh, velvety, and impossibly perfect, with thorns that looked like polished obsidian. Next to it was a small piece of parchment. Isolde picked it up, her hands trembling.
There was no text. It was a charcoal sketch.
It was a drawing of her, standing by the bakery wall at the festival, looking into the shadows.
The skill was masterful, capturing not just her likeness, but the longing and fear in her eyes. It was signed with a single, sharp letter: A.
Isolde admired the sketch for a while, luring her into a imagination of her own
He had been here? He had come into her room?
The fear she should have felt was completely eclipsed by a strange, intoxicating pull.
She lay back down, the scent of the black rose, like earth and winter rain filling the room.
***********
Sleep took her instantly this time, dragging her into a vivid, lucid dream.
She was not in the inn. She was in the Great Hall of Aethelred, but the ash and ruin were gone. The walls were draped in rich tapestries, and thousands of candles flickered in iron chandeliers.
Music played—a slow, haunting waltz. She was dancing, spinning effortlessly in the arms of a man.
Aurelius.
He wore the black velvet she had seen in her vision. His hands were cold, but his hold was gentle, protective. He looked down at her, his golden eyes filled with a desperate, centuries-old adoration.
"My beloved...." his murmured in Romania
„Ești mai luminoasă decât toate candelele din sala asta.
Când te privesc, uit cine sunt ca prinț… și îmi amintesc cine vreau să fiu ca bărbatul tău.
Rămâi lângă mine în seara asta… și în toate serile care vor urma.”
“You shine brighter than all the candles in this hall.
When I look at you, I forget who I am as a prince… and remember who I want to be as your man.
Stay by my side tonight… and in all the nights to come.”
"Who are you?" she asked in the dream.
"I am the memory that refuses to fade," he replied, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. "And you... you are the dream I thought I had lost."
He leaned in, his lips inches from hers. The cold coming off him was intense, burning.
Isolde woke with a gasp, her skin flushed, her body humming with residual adrenaline. The sun was not yet up, the village was draped in the heavy, pre-dawn grey. The room was empty, but the black rose remained on her nightstand, a silent proof that the connection was real.
Isolde could no longer stay in the room. She felt suffocated and scared.
She grabbed her coat and boots, needing the bite of the mountain air to clear the fog in her head.
She slipped out of the inn, nodding to the empty chair where Marius usually sat guard. He was gone likely asleep, she thought.
She didn't intend to go far. She walked toward the edge of the village, where the cobblestones gave way to the dense treeline. The mist was thick this morning, curling around her ankles like white smoke. She walked until the village was just a smudge of grey behind her, lost in thought about the sketch and the man.
Snap.
The sound of a heavy branch breaking pulled her from her reverie.
Isolde stopped. The silence of the forest was absolute. No birds. No wind.
Then, a low growl vibrated through the mist.
Isolde turned slowly. Ten feet away, emerging from the fog, was a wolf. It was massive, its fur matted and grey, its yellow eyes fixed on her.
The Zimbrul Fomist???
But no... It wasn't the monstrous Zimbrul Fomist, it was a natural wolf, but it was starving and desperate.
Two more stepped out from the shadows to her left. A pack.
Isolde backed up, her boot hitting a root. She stumbled. The lead wolf lowered its head, sensing weakness, and lunged.
Isolde threw her arms up, screaming, expecting the tear of teeth.
A blur of black motion tore through the mist.
It slammed into the mid-air wolf with the force of a freight train. There was a sickening crunch, a yelp, and the massive animal was thrown twenty feet into a tree, sliding down motionless.
Isolde scrambled back, gasping.
Standing between her and the pack was the man from the festival. The man from her dream. The man from the castle.
He stood tall and calm, his black wool coat billowing slightly. He didn't have a weapon.
He looked at the remaining wolves and let out a low, hissing sound, a noise that was primal and predatory, something no human throat could make.
The wolves whined, tails tucking between their legs. They scrambled over each other in their haste to flee, vanishing into the forest.
Silence returned.
Aurelius turned to Isolde. Up close, he was devastating. His skin was pale as marble, and the golden rings in his eyes seemed to glow in the gloom. He looked furious.
"Why do you wander, little historian?" his voice was rough, like gravel grinding on silk.
He reached down, gripping her arm to pull her up. His grip was iron-hard and freezing cold, even through her coat.
"I... I needed air," Isolde stammered, her legs shaking so hard she could barely stand. She looked at the dead wolf, then at him. "You killed it. With your bare hands."
"It would have killed you," he said simply, as if swatting a fly and killing a wolf were the same. He didn't let go of her arm. He pulled her closer, his eyes scanning her face, searching for injuries. "Did they touch you? Do you bleed?"
Isolde shook her head, mesmerized by the proximity. He smelled of ozone, old stone, and the black rose he had left in her room.
"No," she whispered. "You saved me."
Aurelius looked at her, his anger fading into that same hungry, sorrowful look she had seen at the festival.
He raised his hand, hesitating, then gently brushed a smudge of dirt from her cheek. His thumb lingered on her skin, cold and electrifying.
"You look so much like her," he murmured, more to himself than to her. Your heart... it beats so loudly."
He seemed to snap out of a trance. He stepped back, the mask of the aloof nobleman sliding back into place.
"Go back to the inn, Maria. Do not come into the woods again. Unless it's daytime.
The mountain is not kind to things that bleed."
"Wait!" Isolde cried, reaching out. "Who are you?
I... I saw you at the castle, at the festival, you drew that portrait and left the rose in my room right?
Aurelius smiled a bit, she seemed to like the drawing.
He paused, half-turned into the mist. He looked back over his shoulder, a tragic, enigmatic shadow.
"I am Lord of the Mountain," he said softly. "Go home."
Then, he stepped into the fog and vanished as if he had never been there, leaving Isolde alone with the dead wolf and a heart that was beating far too fast to be safe.
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Chapter 13: The Trial of Silver
The silence in Maya’s room was absolute, broken only by the rhythmic, heavy breathing of her drugged sleep. Ben didn't move. He stood by the frost-covered window, his shadow long and jagged against the floorboards. He wasn't looking at Maya anymore, his eyes were locked on the shimmering, impossible silver of Isolde’s gown."The dress, Isolde," Ben said, his voice dangerously quiet. "I’ve seen every piece of equipment we brought. I’ve seen every stitch of clothing in your suitcase. That... that is a museum piece.Isolde felt the weight of the gown suddenly become unbearable, like a suit of lead armor. "I found it, Ben. In the archives. I thought... I thought it would help me understand the period.""Don't lie to me!" Ben’s voice cracked like a whip. He stepped toward her, his face illuminated by the pale moonlight. "Leo is half-dead from a beast attack. Maya is turning into a statue of ice in front of our eyes. And you? You disappear and come back looking like you’ve stepped out o
Chapter 12: The Shattered Mirror
The Prince and the PredatorThe third night at Aethelred began with the same ethereal promise as the others, but the air in the Great Hall felt thick, charged with an electric tension that made the hair on Isolde’s arms stand up. She was dressed in a gown of shimmering silver, trailing like moonlight across the floor, but Aurelius did not move to greet her.He stood by the massive hearth, his back turned, his fingers digging so deeply into the stone mantle that it began to crumble.The fire in the hearth wasn't orange, it burned a low, spectral blue, casting long, distorted shadows against the tapestries."Aurelius?" Isolde whispered, stepping closer, her voice echoing in the vast, hollow space.He turned, and for the first time, she saw the cracks in the mask. His golden eyes were gone, replaced by a swirling, predatory obsidian that seemed to swallow what little light remained.His skin looked tighter across his cheekbones, and his breathing was a jagged, wet sound. The romantic
Chapter 11: The Waltz of the Damned
The chariot ride was faster tonight, or perhaps Isolde’s perception of time was simply dissolving. Marius drove the obsidian stallions with a reckless grace, the carriage swaying as they ascended the hidden paths to Aethelred. Inside, Isolde sat in a daze, her hand tracing the velvet upholstery. She felt like a bride being delivered to a temple.When the doors opened, she didn't wait for Marius. she ran up the stairs to the "Chamber of Relics."The green fire was already roaring. On the mannequin sat a new gown, this one of heavy, blood-red velvet with sleeves that trailed like wings. It was lined with ermine and cinched with a belt of solid gold.She dressed with a feverish haste, her fingers fumbling with the laces. She didn't look in the mirror this time. She didn't want to see another memories fondling her brain this time.*************Aurelius was waiting in the Music Room, a circular chamber walled with mirrors and dark mahogany. A single instrument sat in the center, a harp
Chapter 10: The Silk Labyrinth
The return to the Corbul Negru felt like falling from a dream into a gutter. Marius dropped Isolde at the edge of the village just as the sky began to bleed a pale, sickly gray.She walked toward the inn with her head down, her fingers curled tightly around the sapphire necklace hidden beneath her heavy wool scarf. The stones were freezing, a jagged reminder of the waltz, the starlight, and the way Aurelius had looked at her as if she were a resurrected goddess.She slipped through the front door, the floorboards groaning under her boots. The air in the inn smelled of stale tobacco and woodsmoke, mundane and suffocating.In the safety of her room, Isolde carefully removed the necklace. She pressed the cold gems to her lips, her eyes closing as she tried to summon the phantom scent of incense and roses. She hid the jewelry deep in the lining of her suitcase, burying it under her field notes. As she lay in bed, the coarse linen sheets felt like sandpaper against skin that had spent th
Chapter Nine: The Ghost of the Bride
Isolde waited for the entire team to go to bed, then she slipped outside, the entire village was quiet.But why would she actually agree to meet this mysterious man, what if the Zimbrul Fomist attacked her? But curiosity already gotten the better of her.Nothing will stop her, and even though she wants to, there's something pulling her towards the castle.The mountain air was a razor against Isolde’s skin as she walked, but the cold couldn't stop the fire burning in her veins.She reached the trailhead, expecting the lonely silence of the woods. Instead, she found a scene pulled from a nightmare of royalty.In the center of the path stood a massive, high-backed chariot. It was carved from wood so dark it seemed to absorb the moonlight, adorned with silver filigree shaped like weeping vines.Two obsidian-black stallions stood at the front, their eyes glowing with a faint, milky luminescence, their hooves striking the frozen earth with a sound like muffled thunder.Standing by the
Chapter Eight: The Archaeologist Obsession
The near-death encounter with the wolves failed to scare Isolde out of the High Carpathians, instead, it solidified her strange, dangerous obsession.She spent the morning of the attack narrating to Ben, Leo and Maya, insisting the man she saw was the same man she saw in the castle, the night of the bonfire as well.Leo, however, was thrilled. "A physical encounter! She was saved by something real. This is not a ghost story anymore!"The person you have been seeing was actually a real person?? Alive and breathing!! Ben howledMarius brought this, earlier this morning, Leo pointed to a large, brittle map he had spread out on the Corbul Negru’s table, pointing at a small structure half a mile from the main castle ruin.“This is the only auxiliary structure labeled in the 17th-century texts, the Watcher’s Tower. It was supposedly the private archive and observation post for the Von Caerstein family, sealed after the catastrophe. If there’s uncensored history, it’s there.”Ben was liv
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