Chapter 7: Whispers Beyond the Door

The midday light filtered weakly through the tall, grimy window of Lunaria's room, casting pallid beams across the cracked wooden floor. Dust motes floated lazily in the sunlit shafts like drifting ghosts, undisturbed by time or breath.

Lunaria sat on the edge of her bed, knees drawn loosely to her chest, her fingers absently twisting the hem of her dress. Her thoughts had become increasingly restless since the engagement had been announced, her mind spiraling in quiet circles. The idea of marriage—of leaving this place—felt so distant and yet so close, like a mirage just beyond the reach of her fingertips.

The silence of the room, usually her only companion, was broken suddenly by the muffled creak of footsteps echoing in the hallway beyond her door. Her ears twitched toward the sound instinctively, sharpened by years of listening for danger. A moment later, she heard voices—two, maybe three maids, speaking in hushed tones as they passed by her room.

"…—you heard what they said, right? The Dornevale girl?"

Lunaria froze, her breath catching faintly in her throat.

Dornevale.

Elowen.

She leaned closer to the door, tilting her head toward the thin crack between wood and frame. The voices were clear enough now to catch their edges, words trailing down the corridor like the threads of a spider's web.

"She's a monster," one of the maids hissed. "I swear it. They say she once broke a tutor's jaw just because he corrected her posture."

A soft gasp followed. "But she's just a child!"

"She's thirteen. Old enough to know cruelty. They say she's driven away half a dozen tutors already—some even went mad. One started muttering to himself in corners, claiming shadows followed him wherever he went. Another fled the estate entirely."

Lunaria's grip on the blanket tightened slowly, the fabric crumpling beneath her fingers. Shadows… again, always the shadows.

"They say she was born under an ill omen," the maid continued. "An eclipse, or some cursed star. The servants call her The Winter Flame—cold to the bone, but ready to burn everything if you get too close."

"I heard her own siblings won't share a room with her. One of the younger ones still flinches whenever her name's spoken aloud."

A dry laugh came next. "No wonder the Duke agreed to the engagement. She's as broken as the one in this wing—birds of a feather, they must've thought."

Lunaria flinched at the comment, though it was nothing she hadn't heard before. But the mention of Elowen's nature unsettled her more deeply than the insult.

She had imagined many things when she first heard of her future fiancée—an indifferent noble girl, perhaps haughty or distant, or maybe just another victim like herself. But this was something else.

Cold. Violent. Unpredictable.

"Do you remember that incident last year?" another voice joined in now—a different maid, older, more gravelly. "A visiting noble's son made some comment at a banquet. She didn't even respond—just stared at him without blinking. The next day, he was found locked in a greenhouse. Swear to the gods, he wouldn't speak for days. Just kept saying her name over and over like a curse."

Lunaria's pulse quickened.

Who is this girl?

"She's not just cruel," the first maid whispered. "She's… wrong. Like something hollow wears her skin. You feel it in the room when she walks in, like the air goes still."

A long pause.

"…And that's who they're marrying off to that poor thing."

"She won't last a week," one of them muttered. "She's already half-broken. The Dornevale girl will finish the job."

Their voices were growing softer now, the footsteps continuing down the hall.

"But it makes you wonder," one of them added before their tones became too faint to follow. "If the girl in this wing is cursed, maybe that's why they're being paired. One curse to bind another."

Lunaria remained frozen, lips parted slightly, her breath shallow and slow.

Silence returned at last.

She turned her gaze toward the window again, though she wasn't seeing anything outside. Her mind was elsewhere, tangled in the heavy words she'd just heard.

Cold. Violent. Hollow.

She felt no fear—at least, not the kind she expected. Her life had been spent under cruelty so relentless it had carved calluses into her spirit. Pain was familiar. Suffering was a constant. What frightened her more than Elowen's reputation… was the unpredictability of hope.

She hadn't allowed herself to believe this engagement would bring anything good. But now, she wondered what kind of life awaited her in the Dornevale estate. A colder cage? A more dangerous one?

Or… perhaps someone just like me.

The whispers echoed in her skull again—she's wrong, hollow, cursed.

Lunaria swallowed hard.

What would it mean to be bonded to a girl like that?

A small shiver ran down her spine. Not from fear, but from something she couldn't name yet. Something primal and deep and strange. Something like recognition.

The thought curled at the edge of her mind like smoke.

Perhaps there was more to this engagement than mere politics.

Perhaps the gods themselves had a crueler story in mind.

And Elowen Dornevale… was the first chapter.

The stories didn't stop.

They came in trickles at first—fragments whispered by careless maids and overconfident footmen who thought her deaf or too broken to care. But Lunaria heard everything. She always had. Life in the shadows had sharpened her ears like a blade honed against stone. And now, it seemed, her ears were catching tales not just of mockery or insult—but of Elowen Dornevale.

And the more she heard, the harder it became to turn her thoughts away.

It wasn't just the fear in the voices that spoke of her fiancée—it was the reverence, the tremor behind their words, the way they looked over their shoulders after uttering her name, as though afraid even whispers might summon her. Lunaria found herself listening more deliberately now, lingering by doorways, slowing her steps near open corridors, learning to distinguish even the subtlest shifts in tone that heralded a new tale.

"She set the greenhouse on fire once," a gardener murmured to another, voice low, breath smelling of bitterroot tobacco. "Didn't even flinch. Just watched it burn, said it looked prettier that way."

"No proof she lit it," his companion said skeptically.

"No proof she didn't either," came the quick reply. "She was the only one there. And she was smiling."

Lunaria's fingers curled around a fraying curtain, heart ticking steadily beneath her ribs. Smiling, they said. A girl who could smile at a blaze.

Another day, two maids carrying linens murmured between themselves near the end of a hall.

"They say she has a collection of weapons in her room. Not dolls. Not jewelry. Weapons. Daggers, a spiked fan, even a broken saber from one of her fencing instructors."

"Why would a girl need weapons?"

"She doesn't need them. She wants them."

Later, a tutor newly arrived at the Azar estate—young, haughty, and barely hiding his disdain for his assignment—chuckled to another servant over tea. "The Dornevale girl once challenged her cousin to a duel in the middle of a banquet. Her parents laughed it off. Said it was good for building character."

"A duel?"

"She cut the boy's cheek. Didn't hesitate."

A part of Lunaria recoiled from these stories. Violence was not unfamiliar—her body bore the proof in bruises, her spirit tattooed with pain. But this… was different. Not reactionary violence, not punishment for failure—deliberate violence. Purposeful. Cold. Controlled.

And yet—what lingered in her mind after each tale wasn't fear.

It was curiosity.

Elowen Dornevale, this supposed monster of a girl, was a mystery painted in shades of blood and shadow. The stories were mismatched threads, rumors stitched together with bias and exaggeration. Lunaria knew better than anyone how easily truth was twisted to suit gossip.

But what if even half of it was true?

What kind of girl would grow into a creature like that?

What would it feel like to speak to her? To see her eyes, hear her voice? Was there cruelty beneath that stillness… or a kind of clarity?

What does it take to make the world fear you at thirteen?

Lunaria lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling beams, the light of the moon casting pale slashes across her blanket. Her thoughts turned in restless spirals, pieces of stories assembling themselves in her mind into a silhouette. She imagined a girl with cold eyes and a sharper smile, a girl surrounded by flickering flames and wilting flowers, a girl who stood alone in a world that didn't understand her.

Maybe that's what they fear, she thought, her fingers tracing an absent pattern against the sheet. Not her cruelty… but her refusal to bow.

Her own existence had been nothing but obedience, silence, submission. Every bruise had come with a lesson: Do not speak. Do not raise your eyes. Do not hope.

And yet Elowen, they said, fought.

She raised her voice. Drew blood. Stared down nobles and snapped swords in two.

It was terrifying—and intoxicating.

Lunaria's thoughts drifted further, conjuring fragments of conversation from maids, guards, and tutors alike.

"She reads strange books… things about the soul and dreams."

"She once fed a dead bird to a snake, just to watch how it moved."

"She doesn't cry. Not even when her father scolds her."

"She keeps a fox skull under her pillow—said it whispers to her."

The absurdity of some tales was obvious, even laughable. But Lunaria still held them close, rolling them over in her mind like beads on a prayer string. They were windows—however smudged—into the person she was bound to meet.

Her engagement to Elowen had once felt like a punishment. Now… it felt like a puzzle she couldn't help but want to solve.

What kind of girl would she be? Lunaria wondered again, her silver eyes half-lidded with thought. Would she truly be cruel? Would she mock her as others did? Or would she recognize the same hollowness beneath Lunaria's skin that whispered in her own?

And if she did…

Would that be more dangerous? Or more comforting?

She didn't know. But she wanted to find out.

The fear hadn't vanished. But it had been eclipsed by something far more insidious—fascination. A creeping warmth in her chest, a slow-burning ember that flickered with every new story.

Elowen Dornevale was a name wrapped in frost and fire.

And for the first time in her life, Lunaria found herself longing to meet someone.

The hallway beyond her door was quiet again. The servants had long since gone to bed. But Lunaria remained wide awake, eyes glinting faintly in the dark.

Waiting.

Wondering.

Wanting.

The night was still, but Lunaria's thoughts churned like the dark waters of a lake disturbed by unseen winds.

She remained curled beneath her worn blankets, but her mind was far from sleep. The stories of Elowen Dornevale still echoed in her ears, each word a thread that tugged at something buried deep within her—something she hadn't known was there until now. A subtle tension beneath her skin, a soft ache she couldn't name.

What is this feeling…?

She pressed her palm against her chest, as if trying to still the faint throb building there—quiet, steady, unfamiliar. It wasn't excitement. It wasn't fear. It was something else entirely. Something that made her feel hollow and heavy all at once, like a pit had formed in her soul and yet somehow reached outward, reaching for something just out of grasp.

There was a shape to her emptiness now.

A silhouette, not unlike the shadowed form she imagined each time she heard Elowen's name.

And the strangest part… was that it didn't frighten her.

It should have. This girl—this stranger—was said to be cruel, cold, and unpredictable. A creature of icy stares and callous hands, of whispered violence and unsettling grace. But instead of recoiling from the image, Lunaria found herself drawn to it, inexplicably and undeniably.

She had known loneliness her whole life. But now, for the first time, she realized just how vast that loneliness had grown.

It wasn't just a feeling—it was a landscape. A gray wasteland that stretched endlessly behind her eyes. And in that wasteland, Elowen's name felt like the first glimmer of color. Not warm. Not kind. But sharp and vivid, like a shard of stained glass piercing through endless fog.

Was it foolishness? Desperation? Was her mind playing tricks on her—projecting longing onto a person she hadn't even met, simply because her heart was starved for connection?

Maybe.

But that didn't stop the ache from growing.

Lunaria turned her face into her pillow, silver eyes half-lidded, lashes damp from sleeplessness. Could this girl understand what it meant to be unloved? Unwanted? Could there be, buried beneath Elowen's strange reputation, another soul like her own—ragged, hollowed, straining against a world that kept trying to crush it?

She didn't know.

She might never know.

And yet, she couldn't stop imagining it—two broken pieces, jagged and sharp, but fitting together in some inexplicable way.

Something about Elowen's name clung to her thoughts like a whisper in a dark room. A union of bastards, Caelan had sneered. But Lunaria couldn't help but feel that it was something more. A thread had been tied between them the moment the engagement was spoken aloud—and now, it tugged gently with every passing hour, drawing her forward toward a meeting she hadn't asked for… but now quietly craved.

Perhaps it was nothing but a dream.

A foolish hope.

But what if it wasn't?

What if this was the turning point in her life—the first crack in the walls that had caged her since birth?

A tremble passed through her fingers.

Please… don't let her be like them.

The thought came unbidden, soft and aching. Let her be cruel, let her be cold—but let her be different. Let her be real.

Lunaria exhaled slowly, curling deeper beneath her blanket as the moonlight slipped across the wooden floor, painting her small room in silver-blue shadows. The darkness no longer felt suffocating—it felt listening, watchful, like it too was waiting to see what Elowen Dornevale would bring.

Somewhere far away, a new wind stirred. And in Lunaria's hollow chest, something deeper than fear began to take root.

A seed of longing.

A quiet hope wrapped in shadow.

A yearning to not be alone anymore—even if the one who might stand beside her was a girl the world had already named a monster.

Perhaps monsters, after all, were the only ones who could ever understand each other.