Ophelia Ashvale's POV
The guards returned her to the tower without a new gown.
"The Duke says you'll wear what you're wearing," one of them muttered, and Ophelia caught the faint smile he was trying to hide. This was a test within a test. Punishment disguised as permission.
She spent the night in the wine-stained gown, the fabric dried stiff and uncomfortable against her skin. She didn't sleep. Instead, she sat by the window, watching the fortress for signs of movement, listening for footsteps that might indicate her doom approaching.
Nothing came.
Just silence. Just darkness. Just the endless, torturous waiting.
When dawn broke, she was still alive.
The next night, servants brought dinner to her tower—simple food, nothing fancy. A bowl of soup, bread, water. No wine. The servant who delivered it was young, nervous, and wouldn't meet her eyes.
"The Duke requests your presence in the dining hall again this evening," the servant said quickly, as if rushing through the words would make the message less terrifying. "Formal dinner. Seven o'clock."
Ophelia nodded, and the servant fled.
She dressed in the white gown again—it had been cleaned, the wine stains somehow vanished, though the fabric felt different now. Changed. Like it carried the memory of blood even though it was pristine.
The great hall was arranged differently this time. The long table had been set for only two places again, but candles lined the walls, casting dancing shadows that made the room feel alive. The Duke stood waiting, and this time he'd changed too. His formal black wear was the same, his mask was the same, but something in his posture was different.
Less predatory. More... uncertain.
"Sit," he commanded, and she sat.
Servants brought food—courses of roasted meats, vegetables in cream sauces, bread still steaming from the ovens. The kind of meals that belonged in celebration, not execution.
Wine was poured.
This time, Ophelia watched very carefully as the servant filled the Duke's glass first, then hers. She watched as the Duke lifted his glass and drank. A full swallow, unhurried, deliberate.
"It's excellent wine," he said, and his eyes—those ice-blue eyes—locked on hers. "From the southern vineyards. Very rare."
He was testing her. Testing whether she'd learned the lesson. Testing whether she understood that the poison had been a message, not a threat.
Slowly, deliberately, Ophelia lifted her own glass.
She drank.
The wine was bitter and sweet at the same time, and it burned as it went down. It was, indeed, excellent wine. And it wasn't poisoned.
"Good," the Duke said softly. "You're learning."
They ate in silence, and Ophelia's mind raced trying to understand what was happening. If the wine wasn't poisoned, then the warning note had been a test. But a test of what? Her survival instinct? Her intelligence? Her ability to make decisions under pressure?
After the meal, as guards escorted her back to the tower through torch-lit corridors, the Duke appeared in the hallway ahead.
"Walk," he commanded, and the guards fell back, giving them space.
He fell into step beside her, his presence overwhelming in the narrow corridor. Up close, his mask caught the torchlight and threw it back like a mirror. But his eyes remained visible—still ice blue, but somehow less cold than before.
"You're more observant than you appear," he said quietly.
"Someone warned me," she replied. "About the poison."
"Yes."
He didn't elaborate. Didn't explain who had sent the note or why. He just walked beside her, his footsteps matching hers perfectly.
"Listen carefully," he said as they reached the stairs to her tower. "This fortress holds dangers you cannot imagine. Dangers you'll never see coming."
"Like poisoned wine?"
"Like much worse than that." He stopped at the tower door, and she could smell leather and winter air and something darker underneath. Something that smelled like grief. "Trust no one. Not the servants. Not the guards. Not even..." He paused. "Not anyone."
"Then who can I trust?"
"Eat nothing unless I've tasted it first. Drink nothing unless I've tasted it first. And under no circumstances are you to wander the western wing after dark. Do you understand?"
"Why? What's there?"
"Things you're safer not knowing."
He stepped closer, and Ophelia's breath caught. She thought he might remove his mask. Thought he might reveal himself. Instead, he simply watched her, and she saw something flicker behind the ice—pain, perhaps. Or loneliness. Or the ghost of someone who'd died long ago.
"Your father sold you to your death," he said quietly. "That much you know. But death doesn't have to come quickly. Cooperate, and you might survive long enough to matter."
"Matter to whom?"
He didn't answer. Just turned and walked back down the corridor, disappearing into shadows, leaving her alone in the tower with a thousand questions and no answers.
That night, as Ophelia lay in bed, she thought about the note. About the poison. About the test disguised as threat.
Someone in this fortress was watching her. Protecting her. Planning something.
And she still had no idea who.
Or what they wanted.
CHAPTER 8: THE HIDDEN PASSAGE
Ophelia Ashvale's POV
She didn't sleep.
Not after the Duke's warning. Not after the feel of his presence lingering in the hallway outside her locked door. Not after discovering the lock was open, waiting, like a trap baited with hope.
Ophelia sat on the tower room bed, watching the darkness shift into gray, then gray into pale dawn. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking. Every sound—a distant footstep, the creak of stone, the whisper of wind—sent her heart hammering into her ribs.
You'll need your strength.
What had he meant? For the wedding night? For something worse?
As exhaustion finally pulled her under just before sunrise, she dreamed of masks and fire and screaming she couldn't locate. She woke gasping, tangled in silk sheets that felt like suffocating hands.
The sun was high now. Hours had passed. A servant had come and gone—she remembered the tray of food appearing and disappearing, but she'd eaten nothing.
She was alone again.
Ophelia stood and paced the circular room, from window to wall to window. The mountains beyond were still. The fortress below was silent. It was as if the entire world was holding its breath, waiting to see what she would do.
Her eyes landed on the stone walls.
Stone on stone, fitted so precisely that barely a hairline separated them. But as she traced her fingers along one section—near the back corner, behind where the bed sat—she felt something different. One stone was slightly loose. Just barely. Just enough that when she pressed it, it moved inward with a soft click.
Ophelia froze. Had she imagined that?
She pressed again, harder this time.
The stone shifted fully inward, and a section of wall swung open, revealing darkness beyond.
Her breath caught.
Don't leave without escort. Don't wander. The Duke's orders.
His warnings were still ringing in her ears. This was clearly a place she wasn't supposed to find. A place he'd deliberately kept from her. Which meant this was danger.
Which meant she had to know.
The passage was narrow—so narrow her shoulders brushed both walls as she moved through it. It was pitch black, and she had to feel her way forward, one hand on each side of stone that was cold and damp and covered in a dust that made her cough.
She should turn back. Every instinct screamed at her to go back to the tower room and close that stone wall and pretend she'd never found it.
But she kept walking.
The passage curved, then sloped downward slightly. The darkness was absolute. She couldn't see her own hand in front of her face. She could only feel her way forward like a blind person, counting her steps, trying not to think about what would happen if the passage collapsed or led nowhere or led somewhere worse.
Then—a glimmer of light.
Just barely visible at first, then growing stronger. A faint golden glow that seemed to spill from around a corner ahead.
Ophelia moved toward it, faster now, her fear giving way to curiosity.
The passage opened suddenly into a vast circular room.
She stepped through and stopped dead.
Books. Thousands of books, covering walls that stretched so high she couldn't see the ceiling. Shelves of dark wood rose from floor to shadow, and books crowded every inch—leather-bound volumes with gold lettering, worn paperbacks that looked loved and read, scrolls and manuscripts and journals stacked in careful piles.
And at the center of the room, a library so beautiful it stole her breath.
Reading chairs upholstered in deep blue velvet. Tables covered with half-finished cups of tea, open books, scattered notes in handwriting she couldn't read. Candles burning in elaborate candelabras, their light golden and warm and alive.
Someone used this place. Recently.
Ophelia moved through the library like walking through a dream. She ran her fingers along the spines of books—histories, poetry, philosophy, languages she didn't recognize. She picked up a volume at random and opened it to find pressed flowers between the pages, dried lavender that crumbled to dust at her touch.
This wasn't a place of death. This was a place of life.
Above the fireplace, a portrait hung in the shadows.
Ophelia stepped closer, her eyes adjusting to the light. And then she saw it—saw them—and understood everything.
A family stood frozen in paint and time. A man in his fifties with kind eyes and a sword at his side. A woman beautiful in the way of intelligence and strength, her hand resting on the man's shoulder. A boy—maybe sixteen, seventeen—with striking blue eyes that she would recognize anywhere. Unmasked. Unscarred. Smiling like he'd never known loss.
And beside him, a young girl, maybe twelve, with dark curls and the same blue eyes, laughing silently at something only the painter could see.
The Nocturne family. Before the fire. Before tragedy. Before him.
"You shouldn't be here."
Ophelia spun so fast she nearly tripped.
The Duke stood in the library doorway, backlit by candles, and for a moment she was certain he would kill her right here in this beautiful place filled with books and memories and ghosts.
Instead, he stepped inside and closed the hidden door behind him.
He didn't look at her. He looked at the portrait.
And something in his silence was more terrible than any threat.
"That was before," he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Before what?" Ophelia whispered back.
His hand rose to his mask—not to remove it, but to touch it, like reminding himself it was still there. "Before I became what you see now."
She gathered courage she didn't know she had. "What happened to them? Your family?"
His jaw tightened. The silence stretched so long she thought he wouldn't answer. Then:
"They burned. Imperial soldiers, following the Emperor's orders. My parents died in the fire." His voice broke almost imperceptibly on the next words. "My sister... I couldn't save her."
Ophelia's own fear cracked open, revealing something underneath it. Something that looked almost like compassion.
"I'm sorry," she said, and meant it.
"Don't be." He turned to face her, and the mask caught the firelight, but his eyes were different now—not cold. Wounded. "Sympathy is wasted on monsters."
"You're not a monster."
The words came out before she could stop them. His entire body went very still.
"You don't know me," he said, dangerous and quiet.
"I know you didn't hurt me when you had the chance. I know you gave me a warning instead. I know..." She gestured to the library. "I know you keep this place. A place full of books and memories and—and life. Monsters don't do that."
He didn't respond. Didn't move. Just watched her with those ice-blue eyes that suddenly didn't seem quite so cold anymore.
Finally, he gestured to the shelves. "You can read?"
"I taught myself. Newspapers, discarded pages, anything I could find."
Something shifted in his expression—surprise, maybe. Or respect. "This library was my sister's favorite place. It shouldn't stay empty."
It was permission and grief combined. It was the first thing he'd offered her that wasn't a threat or a command.
It was the first thing that suggested he was human.
"I won't tell anyone I found this place," Ophelia said quickly.
"I know." He moved toward the fireplace and stared up at the portrait—at the girl with dark curls, at the boy he'd been, at the family he'd lost. "No one else knows about it. No one else comes here." He paused. "You can, if you wish. But only at night. And only when the tower is quiet."
"Why?" she asked, searching for the trap in his kindness.
"Because," he said, and his voice was very soft, "even monsters deserve to remember what they were."
He turned and walked back toward the hidden passage, and Ophelia understood that he was leaving her here. Alone. With his memories and his sister's books and the ghost of the boy he'd been.
"Your name," she called out softly. "The guards said your name, but... do you have another? A name only for friends?"
He paused at the passage entrance. "Vanus. That was what she called me."
Then he was gone, and the hidden door closed behind him, and Ophelia was left standing in a room full of books and the ghost of a boy who'd once existed before fire and death and silver masks.
She reached up and gently touched the portrait of the girl.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to that laughing face frozen in time. "I'm sorry about what happened."
Outside the library, in the darkness of the fortress, the Duke—Vanus—stood very still, his hand pressed against the stone wall of the passage.
For the first time in thirteen years, someone had looked at him and seen something other than a monster.
And somewhere deep in the scarred, broken place where his heart used to be, something cracked open.
Something dangerous.
Something that felt almost like hope.