Chapter 4: Whispers Between Dreams

It had been weeks since the night Lunaria first saw the shadows curl gently around her like silent guardians. Since then, nothing had changed—and yet everything felt subtly different.

She still lived in the abandoned, dust-choked wing of the mansion. Still ate cold leftovers passed off to her by indifferent maids. Still bore the bruises left by her family's hands and the weight of their disdain. The scorn hadn't faded. The pain hadn't softened.

But at night… something else began.

It started with fleeting sensations. A flash of warmth against her cheek. The scent of damp asphalt. A sound—foreign and strange—like metal clashing, sirens wailing, and the faint murmur of voices speaking in a tongue her body didn't know, but her soul recognized.

She would wake in a cold sweat, heart pounding, lips trembling with words she didn't remember speaking.

Sometimes it was just fragments. Other times, it was entire scenes—unfamiliar, but intimately hers.

In one dream, she stood in the middle of a dark alley, her feet bare, the sky above a swirl of deep gray clouds. Rain poured around her, cold and acidic. In her hand, she clutched a broken knife, slick with blood. Her breath came ragged, shallow. Something—or someone—chased her, and fear, old and raw, pulsed through her limbs like lightning.

She would wake with her fingers clenched tightly around the bedsheet, knuckles white, chest heaving.

The shadows in the corners of the room always stirred quietly during those nights, gently coiling as if sensing her unrest. She never spoke of it aloud. Who would listen? Who would care?

But she noticed.

How they were always there when she woke. Always watching, always near.

As the days passed, the flickers in her dreams grew sharper. No longer just emotions or smells, but sights and memories, vivid and terrifying.

She saw a boy.

Herself—yet not.

Older. Taller. With haunted eyes and a lean frame hardened by survival. He ran through dark places—abandoned buildings, streets lit by flickering lights, alleys choked with rot. He bled. He screamed. He fought.

And always… he ran.

From someone. Something. A faceless silhouette with a blade in hand and laughter that echoed like broken glass. It chased him relentlessly through the shadow-soaked corridors of a city that crumbled under its own weight.

Sometimes Lunaria would awaken just before the knife struck. Other times, she felt it—hot, sharp agony lancing through her chest, her ribs, her throat. The pain was so vivid that she'd cry out even after waking, hand pressed instinctively to where the blade had pierced her in that other life.

She didn't understand what she was seeing.

She didn't remember that life—only that it had existed. That it mattered. That it still lived inside her bones like an echo trapped in stone.

The shadows seemed to know. They'd grown bolder, more animated on the nights she dreamed. Once, she had awoken in the dim moonlight to find them blanketing the entire ceiling above her—rippling like a great winged thing draped protectively over the room.

Another night, when the nightmare grew too intense and she screamed into the void, she felt the shadows crawl over her limbs like a cloak—warm, gentle, firm. Not to restrain, but to hold.

And for a moment, wrapped in that strange darkness, she didn't feel so small.

Didn't feel so broken.

The flickers began to bleed into her waking moments, too.

Once, while walking along the stone corridor to deliver a message from the head maid, she saw a reflection in a dusty wall mirror that wasn't hers. It was him again—the boy from her dreams—his face pale and bloodied, staring at her with wild, hollow eyes.

She had dropped the letter in her panic.

The maid had slapped her across the cheek for being careless, but the image stayed burned into her mind for hours afterward.

Another time, she touched the edge of a rusted spoon at lunch and a flood of sensation struck her—metal, fire, the weight of a crowbar in her palm, the sound of it breaking bone as she swung it in desperation.

She dropped it too.

The others in the kitchen laughed and muttered about how delicate she was. How easily the freak bruised. How easily she broke.

But inside, something was shifting.

There were no answers, no explanations. Only questions wrapped in shadows and pain. What was this life before? Who had she been? Why did it hurt so much to remember it?

Was it even real?

Sometimes, she wondered if she was losing her mind. Maybe this was just her way of coping. Maybe the mind, when pressed too far under cruelty and isolation, began to fold itself around fantasy to survive.

But then again… the shadows didn't feel like fantasy.

And neither did the cold burn of a knife that no one else could see.

Tonight, she sat on the old mattress in her room, watching the candlelight flicker low. The shadows pooled around her feet like inky puddles, their slow, lazy movements like waves curling around a shoreline.

She wasn't sure when she had stopped fearing them.

She only knew she didn't feel alone when they were near.

As she closed her eyes, the dreams began again.

Not a nightmare this time. Not violence. Not blood.

Just a hallway.

Narrow. Metallic. Humming with an electric buzz she couldn't name.

And at the end of that hallway, a figure stood in silhouette—reaching toward her. Not to strike. Not to harm.

But to hold her hand.

Lunaria reached back in her dream, breath catching.

But just as her fingertips brushed against theirs—

She woke.

Heart racing. Eyes wide.

And the shadows curled gently around her ankles like a lover's whisper.

There was something deeply unpleasant about that child.

Mina wrinkled her nose as she passed the far end of the west wing corridor, arms full of freshly laundered linens. She didn't need to see the girl to feel her presence—thin, ghostly, like mildew left to fester in the forgotten corners of the estate. Lunaria Azar, the duke's disgraceful little mistake.

The other maids muttered about her behind their hands, always with a sneer. Some with pity. Others with barely concealed revulsion. But Mina didn't bother pretending to care. She had been in the duchy long enough to know what filth needed to be ignored—and what filth needed to be scrubbed out entirely.

Lunaria wasn't just an eyesore.

She was a blemish on everything the Azar name stood for.

That midnight-black hair, unnaturally soft and too long for a child that sickly. Those silver eyes—moonlit and eerie, like some cursed doll left to rot in a cradle. The other noble children shone like stars. Lunaria? She clung to shadows like they were her only kin.

And lately…

Mina's lips twisted.

Lately, the child had been… moving at night.

She'd seen it herself—half-asleep on a late errand, catching a flicker of pale limbs gliding across the hallway, the faint creak of floorboards when no one was meant to be there. Once, she swore she saw the girl crouched by the window, staring out into the pitch-black gardens with unblinking eyes, unmoving like a statue.

It made her skin crawl.

"What kind of child wanders around like that?" she muttered under her breath. "Cursed little vermin."

It wasn't just improper. It was unnatural. Maybe the girl was touched in the head—maybe something was festering in her blood from that dead maid of a mother.

Either way, Mina wouldn't stay silent. That kind of behavior reflected poorly on everyone under the roof. The sooner the head maid knew, the better.

She adjusted her grip on the linens and turned down a different corridor, heading straight for the servant's administrative wing.

Let the head maid deal with the freak. That was her job, after all.

Helene had heard many things in her decades of service to House Azar.

She'd seen noble daughters bathed in perfume and petty tantrums. She'd seen bastard children swept away and hidden under the rug, like loose dust before a royal visit. But Lunaria was something else entirely.

A breathing stain. A mistake that refused to disappear.

When Mina entered her office with that wrinkled expression and a quiet report of nighttime wandering, Helene's frown deepened with each passing word.

"Walking around after lights-out?" she echoed, voice as cold as winter marble. "The little mutt dares disgrace this house even further?"

"She's creeping the other staff out, ma'am. Staring out windows. Talking to herself. Like a haunted thing."

Helene's jaw tensed. No matter how lowborn the girl's origins were, she still bore the Azar name by blood—and any stain she created rippled through the entire duchy's reputation. There were protocols to follow. Discipline to enforce. Appearances to uphold.

A bastard may be a blemish, but a public embarrassment?

That could not be tolerated.

"Where is she now?" Helene asked.

"In her quarters, I believe. Likely napping again like the little leech she is."

Helene didn't respond. She stood with quiet authority, smoothing the front of her long black skirt with practiced grace. Her heels echoed sharply against the stone floors as she made her way toward Lunaria's room, face set in a neutral mask that hid the storm brimming beneath.

She would correct this behavior. Properly.

Thoroughly.

The room was just as she remembered—filthy with old dust, a cracked oil lamp in the corner, a single moth-eaten mattress serving as the child's bed. Helene curled her lip at the air of dampness, of rot and forgotten things.

And there, in the middle of it all, Lunaria sat on the edge of the mattress—bare feet tucked under her legs, head tilted toward the window. Her hair spilled like ink down her back, and her silver eyes glinted faintly in the low light. She didn't even look up when Helene entered.

As if she hadn't noticed.

As if she didn't care.

The insolence burned like acid.

"So," Helene began, her voice cutting through the silence, "you think yourself above the rules, girl?"

Lunaria blinked, slowly turning her head. Her face was blank—expressionless, quiet. No fear. No obedience. That, more than anything, was what ignited Helene's fury.

"You slither about in the night like a rat. You disgrace this house further with every breath you take," she continued, stepping closer, her fingers curling tightly around the wooden cane she carried—a tool rarely used, but never forgotten.

"I—" Lunaria opened her mouth, barely a whisper.

Helene raised the cane.

"No excuses."

The first strike landed across Lunaria's shoulder. A sharp, brutal snap that echoed off the stone walls. The girl flinched but didn't cry out. Just hunched forward, hands clenched in her lap.

Helene's eyes narrowed.

Another strike.

Then another.

She took slow, measured breaths as she delivered each blow—cold, practiced, merciless. Her grip never wavered. She struck low, across the thighs. High, across the back. Once on the ribs, hard enough to make the child gasp.

Lunaria trembled, her small frame shaking under the punishment. Still, she didn't scream. Only bit down on her lower lip so hard it bled.

Helene hated that silence. That defiance wrapped in stillness.

"You will learn your place," she snapped. "You are nothing but a shadow beneath this house, and I will make sure you remember that with every breath."

She struck again.

Lunaria's arms came up, trying weakly to shield herself, but Helene's cane cracked against them without hesitation.

"You move again without permission, you'll sleep without food for a week," she hissed. "Speak to yourself again, and I'll have your tongue nailed quiet."

Another blow.

And another.

Lunaria's body began to slump from the pain, her knees hitting the stone floor with a dull thud.

And still, the cane rose again.

The cane came down again.

Lunaria's body jerked with the impact, the sharp sound cracking through the air, echoing off the stone walls like thunder. Her skin screamed in pain, nerves searing under the bruises already beginning to bloom. Her arms, thin and frail, were barely a shield. Every blow burned through her muscles and bones like fire.

She tried to curl in tighter, to protect the vulnerable parts of herself, but there was no escape. Every twitch only made it worse. The head maid seemed to take pleasure in finding the places that hurt the most.

"Pathetic little wretch," Helene spat, the cane now tapping mockingly against Lunaria's side before it lashed again. "You think your silence makes you strong? It only makes you filth I have to scrub harder."

Another strike. It licked across her upper back this time, cutting into already tender flesh.

Lunaria clenched her jaw to stop herself from screaming. A low, cracked whimper still escaped her throat, bitter and broken. Her vision swam in and out of focus. The cold floor beneath her cheek was slick with sweat and tears, and her fingers clawed helplessly at the ground, trying to ground herself in something—anything.

Why…?

That question echoed endlessly in her mind. Why was she born here? Why did the world hate her so viciously? She didn't even understand what she had done wrong.

Her breathing turned ragged. Every inhale a knife, every exhale a plea.

The cane raised again, and she weakly lifted her arms in defense.

Please… no more… please—

But Helene's anger boiled past restraint.

"How dare you raise your hands at me?!"

There was a sudden shift in weight—and then pain. A different pain.

The head maid's boot slammed into Lunaria's stomach, the force of it lifting her slightly off the ground before crashing her back down with a sickening thud. Her body folded in on itself, a horrible gurgling noise rising from her throat as her lungs spasmed, searching for air that wouldn't come.

"Don't you dare touch my patience with those filthy hands!" Helene growled, her foot grinding into Lunaria's gut with a cruel twist. The weight drove into her like a hot iron, pressing deeper until Lunaria thought her insides would burst.

She choked on her own breath, clutching her ribs as bile clawed its way up her throat. The room tilted wildly, shapes blurring, shadows lengthening.

And then the cane struck again.

Hard.

Over and over.

Each strike a wordless declaration of ownership, of disdain. Of power. There was no rhythm anymore—just violence.

Lunaria's body stopped reacting after a while. Her mind was untethering, drifting out of herself, like her soul was trying to escape through her breath. She could no longer tell which part of her hurt the most.

She could only feel herself slipping.

Darkness.

It pressed against her vision, creeping in from the edges, swallowing the light one pulse at a time. Her limbs twitched, slackening like dying flowers. The cold beneath her became comforting. Familiar. Like a friend welcoming her home.

And somewhere in that liminal space—between the last lash and the next—she felt something else.

A whisper.

A curl of something ancient and watchful in the room with her.

It wasn't the head maid.

It wasn't anything she could see.

But it felt like it had been there for a long time.

Watching.

Waiting.

The pain pulled her deeper into the void, but the presence pulled her with it.

And then—

Something moved.

Not her.

Not Helene.

Something in the shadows shifted.

Not a flicker of candlelight. Not a trick of the eye.

A tendril.

Thin and long, like ink flowing through water, slithered from the corner where the light didn't reach. It moved with a kind of patient hunger, a slow, deliberate grace.

Lunaria could barely lift her head, her eyes barely open. But she saw it.

The air grew colder.

Helene raised her cane again—and the shadow hissed.

A soundless ripple surged along the floor, fast and fluid, coiling near Lunaria like it had always belonged there.

And then—a gust of cold air exploded outward from the dark corner.

Helene staggered, stumbling a step back. Her cane faltered mid-air.

"What in the—?"

The shadow surged higher, like a phantom limb rising from beneath the earth. It didn't strike. Not yet. But its presence pulsed, heavy and oppressive, like thunder before a storm.

The head maid's eyes flicked toward the dark corner, and for a single, breathless moment, Lunaria saw fear on her face.

Not confusion.

Not disdain.

Fear.

Whatever had been hiding beneath the surface—it had responded.

To her.

To her pain.

The cane lowered, hesitating.

Helene clicked her tongue, muttering a curse under her breath. "Rotten brat… twisted little devil…"

And she turned.

Just like that.

She turned and left, the echo of her heels now strangely frantic against the stone corridor.

Lunaria didn't move.

Couldn't.

Her vision fully dimmed, and all she could feel was the cold whisper of something unseen curling around her, brushing softly along her skin, like it was trying to soothe her wounds.

Like it was angry on her behalf.

Like it was claiming her.

And just before her consciousness slipped completely, she heard a voice in her mind—not words, but a resonance, low and deep, echoing like it came from the very bones of the world.

A promise.

A vow.

Something old and wrathful had seen her pain… and would not forget it.