Chapter Text
"There she sees a damsel bright,
Drest in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare;
Her blue-veined feet unsandl'd were,
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess, 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she—
Beautiful exceedingly!" ~ "Christabel" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1816)
Prologue
The autumn nights were always dark in the lonely town of Iarkdon. Even more so in the surrounding forest, where the darkness grew so absolute that it barely resembled the place the townsfolk wandered by day, stuffing their pockets with wild berries.
The path, so clearly etched between the roots barely an hour before, had dissolved into the darkness. Ancient pines rose from the earth like the pillars of a forgotten temple, their crowns intertwining high above and blotting out even the faintest trace of moonlight. The man came to a halt. He listened for a moment, but neither the whisper of the wind nor the call of a bird broke the crushing, almost unnatural silence. A forest, even at night, should never have been this quiet.
"It's only a forest..." the man muttered to himself, though the words sounded strange, almost as if they didn't belong to him at all, as though someone else had placed them into his mouth. He continued onward, trying to remember the way back. The townsfolk had always warned people not to venture into these woods after dark, but he had never believed the old women's tales of ghosts and cursed manors.
Now he regretted it.
A quiet crack sounded behind him.
He spun around, blinking as he peered into the darkness to make sure no one was standing between the trees. Perhaps, for the briefest fraction of a second, a shadow had slipped from one trunk to another. Yet in the darkness, made even denser by the heavy mist, he couldn't be certain he had truly seen anything at all.
He stood perfectly still for what felt like an eternity before finally shaking his head and pressing on. After only a few steps, he heard it again.
A crack.
This time it was closer, and it sent his heart pounding even harder. He didn't look back again. It was impossible to tell whether he was simply afraid, or whether he just didn't want to know if something really was there.
At least not until he felt the icy brush of breath against the back of his neck. Then he ran.
He ran, stumbling over fallen branches and carpets of damp leaves. He knew that if he stopped, it would be the end of him. Whatever beast he had encountered was pursuing him now with the same determination he clung to in his desperate attempt to survive. He could hear it clearly now. His own footsteps echoed through the forest, accompanied by another set—far lighter, yet infinitely more graceful. Rather than crashing through the undergrowth as he did, the creature seemed to bound effortlessly through the woods, its feet barely brushing the forest floor despite the terrifying speed at which it moved.
Something shifted between the trees again, just beside him. He caught only the movement, never the shape. It was as though the darkness itself had leapt from one trunk to the next. He didn't dare look that way again. He tore his eyes forward and ran faster still, his heart pounding so violently it felt ready to burst from his chest with his final breath. Roots seemed to rise from the earth where none had been only moments before. He tripped and crashed heavily onto the rain-soaked leaves. Before he could scramble back to his feet, he heard a quiet laugh. So quiet that he wasn't even sure it had truly reached his ears. Perhaps he'd imagined it. In the state of blind panic that had consumed him, it wouldn't have been impossible. He sprang to his feet and kept running. Branches lashed at his face. His coat caught on thorns. Every breath tore at his throat. The forest, which had seemed almost welcoming only hours before, now stretched on without end.
Whatever was behind him moved in perfect rhythm with his own steps. Never faster. Never slower. As though it wasn't trying to catch him at all. As though it already knew that, sooner or later, he would stop on his own. Before he had the chance to make sense of that thought, another sound drifted through the trees. At first, he wondered whether fear had conjured it from his imagination, but with every passing second it became clearer.
Someone was singing.
The melody was more beautiful than anything he had ever heard. It floated through the forest as gently as the mist itself, calm and soothing, utterly out of place in the darkness surrounding him.
The man slowed. The fear remained, but it suddenly felt strangely distant, like a dream dissolving with the coming dawn. The voice belonged to a woman. Young. Gentle. At least, that was what he imagined from the way she sang the lullaby.
She sang as though she were lulling a child peacefully to sleep.
Then he saw something that, against all reason, rekindled the faintest spark of hope within him. A light flickered between the trees. At first it was little more than a glimmer. Then it grew brighter. It was the warm, golden light of a house. Nothing like the cold glow of the moon.
Relief washed over him so completely that he almost laughed. He covered the last few yards nearly blind with desperation. An old manor emerged from the mist so suddenly it seemed to have grown from the very heart of the forest. Tall windows shimmered with the warm glow of candlelight. Roses climbed the stone walls despite the lateness of the autumn season. The roof was old, yet impeccably kept.
The building looked... Almost impossibly peaceful. Like the kind of place one had always longed to return to.
Behind him came another crack. He rushed to the heavy wooden door and pounded against it.
"Please! Somebody, open the door!"
For a moment, only silence answered him. He was already considering forcing his way inside when the door slowly swung open without the faintest creak.
A young woman stood on the threshold. She wore a light-colored dress, much of it hidden beneath long, dark hair that had fallen loose, cascading over her chest in two soft waves. A single candle rested in her hand. Her face was remarkably serene. Her eyes were half-lidded, and the faintest smile lingered upon her lips. The man felt a pang of embarrassment, assuming he must have woken her. Yet she didn't look frightened.
She didn't even look surprised.
It was as though she had known someone would knock on her door that night.
"Please..." he gasped. "There's... something in the forest..."
Her gaze drifted past his shoulder into the darkness beyond. For the briefest moment, it seemed as though everything in the forest had fallen still. Even the mist.
Then she looked back at him. A barely perceptible smile touched her lips. "Come inside." She stepped aside, leaving the door open.
Warmth flowed from within the house. It smelled of wood, tea, and dried roses. Without sparing the forest another glance, the man crossed the threshold, allowing the door to close softly behind him. The forest remained outside, along with whatever had been chasing him.
At least, that's what he believed.
"Thank you," he stammered. "I didn't mean to wake you. I heard someone singing... I thought someone in the house was still awake." His breathing was still uneven.
"I wasn't asleep," she replied with a quiet sigh. She said nothing more. Only then did he truly look at her.
The woman's pink eyes, now fully open, were fixed upon him with something unmistakably animal in them. There was hunger in her gaze, but also such a profound absence of compassion that it was difficult to think of her as human at all.
The greatest shock, however, came when his eyes drifted lower. To her bare feet. Dirty with the dark soil of the forest.