Zaire's POV
The chapel felt a bit chillier tonight.
Zaire Castellan found himself standing alone beneath the ribbed arches, the stone walls alive with silence. The flickering candlelight did little to soften the sharpness of his silhouette: tall, lean, draped in a long black coat that hugged him like a shadow. His skin was pale, similar to the old marble, and his dark, ancient eyes held countless storms, completely unreadable yet steady. Those eyes didn't just look at you; they seemed to see right through you.
His hair, thick and dark, was long enough to fall forward as he moved, often tucked behind his ears with a casual flick. His black leather gloves hung loosely at his sides, were always still.
No one in Eldermere truly knew who he was.
To them, he was simply "Mr. Castellan," the quiet man living in the old manor on the hill. The man who walked as if time had no hold on him. The watcher who observed too closely and spoke too little.
But he wasn't from Eldermere; he didn't even belong to this century.
He walked slowly towards the altar, his boots making no sound on the ancient stone floor.
The carvings on the altar were long buried under the dust and a faith that shimmered faintly in his presence, as if they recognized him.
Zaire paused, his fingers brushing over one of the sigils. "You remember me," he murmured. "After all this time."
As Zaire studied the sigils, the old priest quietly entered behind him, one of the rare few who truly understood what Zaire was and the life he had once led.
"She heard it," the priest said quietly. "The name."
Zaire's expression remained unchanged. "Rain."
The priest hesitated. "You haven't used that name in—"
"Decades," Zaire interjected. "And it wasn't meant for her to hear."
"But she still did," the priest insisted. "And you felt it too, didn't you?"
He did. Just yesterday, in the library, he had felt a flicker of something between the shelves.
He hadn't intended to stop, nor had he ever stopped. But she did.
Just for a moment, she had looked up, sensing something. There was a pull between them, like the weight of a question left unanswered.
She hadn't seen him entirely, but he felt it, an invisible string tugging at him once more.
* * *
Later that night, back at the manor, the fire cast long shadows across the wooden floors.
Dusken, his massive counterpart, lay sprawled on the rug like a dog too stunning to be real. He blinked up at Zaire, then yawned.
"You felt her too, didn't you?" Zaire murmured.
Dusken gave a low whine, a mix of annoyance and restlessness.
"I'm not sure what it means yet," Zaire said, pouring himself a drink. His voice remained calm, even though his hands weren't as steady as he would have liked, and he hated it.
Centuries had gone by since he'd last felt this way.
Yet, there was something about the girl, Niah Esme Viremont, that caused the world to shift, a thread loosening from the fabric of a carefully woven history.
She didn't know him. Not yet.
But something within him whispered:
You will soon.
Again.
* * *