His cheek was bruised. His lips split. One eye was swollen nearly shut.
Around him, the faint echo of laughter and noblemen’s footsteps drifted through the air like a cruel lullaby.
“This one won’t last the night,” murmured a voice from behind the bars.
“Good. I don’t like meat that still talks,” another replied.
They laughed—and left.
Chains rattled somewhere in the dark. Rats scurried. Water dripped from the leaking roof.
Charles didn’t move. His breath was shallow, trembling.
Each inhale burned, scraping his lungs like broken glass.
The ceiling above was cracked and shadowed. Rain leaked through its corners, dripping slowly onto the stone. Each drop echoed—a cruel reminder of passing time. A clock counting down to his end.
He was too weak to crawl. Too battered to scream. His thoughts slipped like mud between bloody fingers.
But beneath the wreckage of his body… something refused to die.
Hatred.
It curled in his chest like coals beneath ash—faint, yet simmering. Waiting.
“Is this it?”
“After everything they took from me… after all I’ve lost… I die here, nameless? Like a dog?”
His fingers twitched. Slow. Weak.
But they curled.
A trembling fist.
Blood smeared beneath his palm.
“No.”
His eyes—one nearly swollen shut—opened.
They stared into the cracked ceiling above.
And he hated.
He hated the nobles who laughed while slitting his mother’s throat. He hated the city that turned its face away. He hated the world for watching… and doing nothing.
“I won’t die in this place.”
A sharp pain spread across his ribs as he tried to move, but it didn’t stop him.
He clawed his fingers across the stone.
“I’m still here. I’m still—”
And then—
Something answered.
The air shifted.
It was faint at first. Like the breath of something ancient exhaling in the dark.
Smoke coiled from the corners of the chamber—thick and slow, like ink spilled underwater.
But this was no ordinary smoke.
It devoured the lantern’s glow. It pulsed like a living thing.
And then—
From the void between heartbeats—
A voice.
“You called for me again, Charles.”
It was soft.
Almost kind.
A whisper not of warmth… but of understanding.
And within it was something hollow. Something vast. A silence that screamed.
The smoke curled inward.
Taking shape.
A silhouette. First formless. Then limbs. Hair. Skin.
A woman.
Her silver hair fell like a curtain of moonlight. Her crimson eyes glowed with embers beneath a pale brow.
Her lips curled—not cruelly. Not kindly.
A smile caught between mockery and mourning.
But what froze Charles…
What ripped the last gasp of breath from his lungs—
Was her face.
It was Catherine’s.
His former maid.
The girl who once smiled while serving tea. Who sang lullabies when he had nightmares. Who was murdered along with the Milverton family.
She knelt before him like a memory returned.
Charles’s body tensed.
He choked out her name.
“...Catherine...?”
The woman’s eyes softened.
“No,” she said gently. “I only chose the form you would trust most.”
Silence.
He stared at her, unable to look away.
Every part of him screamed to run.
Yet he couldn't.
“Who… are you?” he rasped.
The woman stepped forward.
Her bare feet made no sound even as they touched the blood pooling around him.
She crouched, her eyes locking with his.
“My name,” she whispered, “is Vespera.”
“And I have come… to make you an offer.”
---
The smoke swirled around them.
Vespera’s hair moved as if under water. Her cloak billowed softly in air that no longer obeyed natural law.
“Charles August Milverton,” she said, “your life has been nothing but suffering. They tore you from your mother. Stole your home. Broke your body.”
Her voice was not pitying.
It was truthful.
“You screamed. You bled. And no one came.”
Charles gritted his teeth.
Blood smeared his lips.
“They… stabbed her in front of me. They laughed…”
“And they’ll laugh again,” she said.
“Unless you stop them.”
Her voice lowered, like a blade sliding from its sheath.
“Unless we stop them.”
She raised her hand.
Her fingers, pale and cold, brushed his cheek—gently, reverently.
Charles flinched.
But didn’t pull away.
“You’ve seen what justice truly is,” she whispered. “A word held hostage by the rich.”
“But revenge… revenge is yours to wield.”
Charles stared into her eyes.
And there it was.
In that gaze.
A mirror.
A reflection of himself. Twisted. Shattered. Yet still burning.
“...With what…?” he asked. “I’m broken.”
Vespera leaned closer.
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“With your soul.”
A silence heavier than death settled over them.
Only the drip of rain… and Charles’s jagged breath.
Then—
He laughed.
Weak. Bitter.
“If I must become a devil to make them suffer…”
His fingers dug into the floor.
“Take it.”
“Take my soul.”
“Burn it. Tear it. Devour it—I don’t care.”
Her lips curved.
The smoke around her pulsed.
“Very well.”
She leaned in.
Her lips brushed his—not warmly.
But like winter meeting fire.
The air shattered.
Time halted.
And then—
It began.
Charles gasped.
A scream built in his throat—but no sound escaped.
His body arched.
Veins lit with black fire beneath his skin. His ribs cracked back into place. Bruises faded.
Bones knit.
Blood vanished.
And then—
He breathed.
For the first time in days… weeks… perhaps in years—
He breathed without pain.
Vespera stood.
Her silhouette cloaked in living darkness.
“The contract is sealed.”
Charles rose slowly.
Eyes still wide. Skin now pale as porcelain.
He touched his own chest—then stared at his trembling hands.
They no longer hurt.
But they weren’t the same.
“What… have I become?” he whispered.
Vespera’s voice echoed behind him like a second heartbeat.
“The world made you a corpse, Charles.”
“I gave you the power to rise.”
“Now show them what crawls out of the grave.”
---
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