Chapter 3: The First Bride Returns

The second night arrived with thunder.

Not from the sky.

From the West Wing.

The sound of boots on marble.

The sound of something waking up.

Evelyne dressed in silence.

Lucien waited at the throne, his cloak soaked in shadows.

“She’s coming,” he said.

“Who?”

“You’ll see.”

The door behind the throne opened again.

This time, Evelyne entered first.

She wanted to show she wasn’t afraid.

Even if she was.

Especially because she was.

The obsidian corridor felt different.

Heavier.

And as they passed the torchlight—

The whispers grew louder.

“She’s returned.”

“She’s come to claim him.”

“She was the first. She was the last.”

The mirror didn’t wait for them.

It split open like a wound.

And the air bled frost.

Evelyne stepped through.

Into the portrait room.

But the paintings were gone.

Only one remained.

The bleeding-veil bride.

And she was no longer in her frame.

She stood in the center of the room.

Alive.

Barefoot.

Smiling.

“Lucien,” she whispered. “You brought me someone new.”

Evelyne reached for her dagger.

But it melted in her hand.

The first bride’s eyes gleamed.

“She thinks she can last eleven nights?”

“She’s not like the others,” Lucien said.

The first bride laughed.

“Neither was I.”

She circled Evelyne, fingers trailing the air.

“Do you know what he becomes on the twelfth night?”

Evelyne didn’t speak.

Didn’t breathe.

“He forgets,” she hissed.

“Everything. Everyone. Even himself.”

Lucien’s hands clenched.

“Enough.”

The first bride turned to him.

“Still pretending it’s not your fault?”

He didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

The bride faced Evelyne again.

“You’ll break. They all do.”

“I won’t.”

“You already are.”

She vanished in a blink.

Back into the painting.

Bleeding veil and all.

The torches went out.

Lucien collapsed.

Evelyne caught him.

For a second—

Just a second—

She saw his true face.

Young.

Terrified.

Burning from the inside.

And beneath it all—

Lonely.

So very lonely.

“Why do you stay?” he whispered.

“Because someone has to remember you.”

Outside the mirror, the portrait was whole again.

But now…

It had two figures.

The first bride.

And the new one.

Hand in hand.

As if the curse had already begun to bind them.

Forever.