Morning crept slowly through the curtains, painting the marble floors in pale gold. The mansion woke in silence, as though listening for something. The wind outside had died completely. Even the trees stood still, their branches unmoving in the fog.
Ren hadn't slept again. He sat by the window, the book open on his lap, its pages fluttering faintly as though stirred by breath rather than breeze. His eyes traced the lines he'd already memorized... The prince and the keeper made a vow beneath the red moon.
The words had settled inside him like a song he couldn't forget.
He rubbed the side of his neck where the mark lay hidden under his collar. The skin still felt sensitive, a quiet ache pulsing there every few moments. It was almost like the mark had a heartbeat of its own.
The memory from last night... the voice, the whisper, the faint shimmer... lingered behind his eyes. He'd tried to convince himself it was a dream. But the air in this place never let him forget.
The house felt alive. Not in a haunted way, not exactly, but sentient... aware of him. He could feel its gaze in the way doors breathed open on their own, in how the chandeliers swayed when he spoke, in the rhythm of his footsteps echoing twice instead of once.
He closed the book and stood, stretching stiff limbs. The sunlight filtered through the stained glass, scattering lilac hues over his skin. For a moment, the reflection made him look almost ethereal... like the painted prince again, caught between worlds.
"Maybe I really have lost it," he murmured, almost laughing.
But the laugh died in his throat when he caught a flicker of movement in the mirror opposite the window.
He turned sharply.
Nothing. Only his own reflection... tired eyes, pale lips, hair messy from another sleepless night.
Still, something felt off. He stepped closer, eyes scanning the glass. There was a faint distortion behind his reflection... a darkness curling at the edges, too solid to be just shadow.
Ren's pulse quickened. "It's just… the light," he whispered. But his voice sounded hollow, unconvincing even to himself.
He turned away and walked toward the study room again. Maybe he'd find something else in the book. Maybe the next pages would explain.
The room was filled with morning haze, dust drifting like snowflakes through light beams. The scent of cedar still hung faintly in the air... old, sweet, like memory.
Ren placed the book on the desk and flipped to where he had stopped. The page was blank. He frowned, turning another. Blank too.
"What the hell…" he muttered, flipping faster. Every page was empty now. The ink had disappeared.
He stared at the parchment in disbelief, his heart pounding. Then, just as he reached the final page, the faint outline of words began to emerge again... slow, deliberate, as if written by an invisible hand.
He held his breath.
You seek the truth, yet you fear what you will see.
Ren's throat tightened. "Who's writing this?" he whispered.
The ink deepened, the letters curling elegantly: He never left. You are only now beginning to see him.
Ren stumbled back a step. "See… who?"
The air changed. The temperature dropped so suddenly his breath came out in white clouds. A faint hum filled the space again... the same low vibration that had haunted him since that first night.
He spun toward the mirror near the corner of the room.
The darkness was back. Clearer this time. A tall figure, barely visible through the distortion, standing behind his reflection.
Ren froze. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
The figure didn't move either. It just watched.
Every instinct screamed at him to run, but his body felt rooted in place.
Then the lights flickered. Once. Twice.
When they steadied again, the reflection was gone.
Ren turned slowly. The room was empty.
But the scent... stronger now... cedar and something deeper, like rain on stone.
He pressed a trembling hand to his chest, trying to steady his breathing. "You're not real," he whispered. "You're not..."
The mirror cracked.
Just a thin fracture, running from top to bottom like a vein of silver. But it was enough to silence him.
He didn't know how long he stood there, staring at it. Time had stopped meaning anything inside this place.
Eventually, he moved. Slowly. One step toward the desk, toward the book.
The ink had changed again. New words.
The prince called to him, even when he had no memory of his name.
Ren swallowed. "Stop," he whispered. "Stop talking in riddles."
He flipped another page, frustration breaking through fear.
This one wasn't blank. It was a sketch... rough, half-finished, yet hauntingly beautiful.
It showed a man standing behind the prince, hand resting lightly over the prince's shoulder. The man's face was obscured, shaded entirely in black, but the stance, the gesture... protective, intimate... made Ren's chest ache with something he didn't understand.
He touched the page. "Who are you?"
The shadowed figure in the drawing smiled.
Not in the book. In the reflection of the glass covering it.
Ren jerked his hand back. His breath came fast now.
He stumbled toward the door, but before he could reach it, the chandelier flickered again. The hum deepened.
The house itself seemed to breathe.
"Stop it!" he shouted. "Show yourself!"
For a moment, the silence that followed felt like the world holding its breath.
Then every light in the room went out.
Darkness swallowed everything... thick, absolute.
Ren's pulse pounded in his ears. He couldn't see, couldn't move, could barely think.
Then, out of the blackness, that familiar voice whispered near his ear.
You called for me.
Ren turned sharply toward the sound, heart hammering. "Who..."
Before he could finish, a faint glow pulsed from the book again, casting dim light across the room. The air thickened with mist, rising from the floor in swirling patterns.
Shapes began to form in the haze... indistinct at first, then sharper.
A figure.
Tall, dressed in black. The same silhouette he'd seen in his nightmares, in reflections, in the corners of rooms. But this time, it was solid. Real.
The man's face was hidden beneath the shadow of his hair, but his presence was undeniable... magnetic and terrifying at once.
Ren couldn't look away.
The man stepped closer. The floorboards didn't creak under his weight.
"You've been watching me," Ren whispered. His voice trembled, caught between fear and something else... a strange pull, like gravity itself bent toward this man.
The shadow stopped a few feet away. The faint light from the book painted the edge of his jaw, sharp and impossibly elegant.
I've always watched you.
The words didn't come from his lips. They bloomed inside Ren's mind, smooth and deep as velvet.
Ren's breath hitched. "Why? Who are you?"
The man didn't answer. He took another step, close enough now that Ren could feel the chill radiating from him... not icy, but the kind of cold that whispered of forgotten graves and ancient rain.
Ren's heart beat so hard it hurt. His body screamed to move, but his mind had gone still.
He looked up. The man's eyes met his.
Not human. Not entirely.
A deep shade of violet, swirling faintly with red... the same colors that had once burned in his mark.
Ren's lips parted, but no sound came.
The man smiled faintly. The kind of smile that wasn't cruel, but ancient... one that remembered too much.
At last, the voice murmured in his mind. You can see me.
Ren felt the air around him tremble, and before he could respond...
The light went out again.
And in that instant of absolute dark, he felt the faint brush of breath against his ear, and a single word whispered into the hollow of silence.
Ren.
END OF THE CHAPTER.