I woke up slowly to the sound of crackling flames, a warm, comforting background noise. Apparently, the fireplace was still lit.

I didn’t remember the exact moment I’d fallen asleep—only that the fire had been hypnotic and my body far too exhausted to resist its lullaby. I sat up slowly, blinking as reality settled back onto my skin. My bandaged arm, the empty cup on the table, the dense atmosphere of that dimly lit castle… it hadn’t been a dream.

I turned my head carefully, expecting to see her, but Velmira was no longer in the room.

I stood up, still slightly dizzy from the blood loss. Morning light filtered timidly through the dusty, faintly opaque stained-glass windows. No clocks, no morning birdsong, no distant church bells. Time didn’t seem to exist here. Or at least not in any way I understood.

I walked through the great hall, pretending to look around casually… but who was I kidding? My curiosity was definitely winning, maybe more than I wanted to admit… and curiosity was notorious for killing the cat. Even so, I decided to keep looking.

Tall shelves were filled with old books, their spines worn and dusty, their titles written in languages I didn’t recognize—languages I wasn’t even sure existed. A couple of tapestries hung on the walls: one depicting a woman in a long dress holding a raised sword, the other a wolf with red eyes surrounded by flames. I couldn’t tell if they were symbols or history. Maybe both.

“Do you enjoy snooping in other people’s homes?” a voice said behind me, slicing through the silence.

I spun around. Velmira stood in the doorway, leaning elegantly against the frame as her crimson eyes locked onto mine. Her hair was braided today, and she wore a dark cloak over her shoulders, as if she had just returned from an outing.

“I wasn’t snooping. I was just… observing,” I said, looking away. I think it’s obvious I’ve never been a good liar—especially considering how awful that sounded.

I’m not terrible at lying; I’m worse than that.

“That sounds exactly like something a snoop would say.”

I rolled my eyes, but I smiled at her, trying to hide how clearly she’d caught me.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“Hunting,” she answered without hesitation, without bothering to sugarcoat it. It was as if telling a human that was completely normal.

She approached without making a sound, as always. There was snow on her cloak, though I didn’t remember seeing any when I arrived. She extended her hand and brushed her fingers across one of the books with care.

“I thought you would’ve left by now,” she said, her eyes still on the shelf.

“I thought it wasn’t safe yet,” I replied, watching her even though her back was turned to me.

“Good choice.”

She turned and left the room without another word. I followed her without asking. She didn’t stop me.

We walked through one of the side corridors, where the walls closed in slightly and the air felt older, heavier. Velmira walked ahead, as if she knew every crack on the floor, every sheet-covered piece of furniture, every forgotten portrait swallowed by the shadows, and every cobweb lingering in dark corners.

We passed a long gallery lined with dusty portraits. I stopped in front of one.

“Is this you?” I asked, pointing to a particular painting.

Velmira stopped as well. She looked at the portrait without speaking.

It showed a young woman with fair skin and dark brown hair, wearing an old-fashioned navy-blue dress. She had a proud expression, her eyes lined with delicate precision. She didn’t look much like the Velmira I knew now, but something in the gaze was the same—the calm coldness of someone who already knew more than she said.

“I don’t remember you being so… young,” I whispered.

“That was another life,” she replied immediately.

“How old were you?”

“Twenty.”

“And how many years have passed since then?”

“Enough that I don’t count them anymore,” she said in a cold, clipped tone that left no room for argument.

We kept walking. Each room was its own world. One had ancient maps framed on the walls like relics. Another displayed weapons I couldn’t name: curved spears, knives with engraved names, shields with emblems that looked like they belonged in legends.

We finally reached a small library. Not as grand as the main hall’s, but much brighter… almost cozy. Here, there were no sheets or dust. The books were organized, the furniture intact, and an oil lamp illuminated the corner where a desk was covered in papers.

“You still use this place?” I asked from behind her.

“Sometimes,” she replied simply.

I approached one of the tall shelves. I pulled a random book—the first my hand brushed. It was written in something similar to French but older. Even so, I recognized a few words. It seemed to be about anatomy, or something close to it. I set it back.

“Do you read a lot?”

“Reading keeps me sane,” she said, looking over the books.

Curiosity got the better of me again, and I had to ask, “And is that hard?”

“Harder than you think.”

Velmira sat in a chair near the desk and crossed her legs with elegance. She watched me with her head slightly tilted, her cheek resting on her hand, as if trying to decipher me in a silent interrogation. I sat down on the floor in front of her, legs crossed.

“What did you do before you became… this?”

She didn’t answer right away. Her gaze drifted somewhere far beyond the walls.

“I was a merchant’s daughter. My family owned land. I studied at home. I learned to play the lute, to speak three languages, and to dance as if that were enough to make me a lady,” she said, her eyes lost in what I assumed were distant memories.

“And… was it enough?”

“No. But it was what was expected.”

Then I asked the question that had been circling my mind since the start of the conversation, unsure what her answer might be.

“Velmira… did you like your life?”

She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read.

“I didn’t hate it. But I didn’t love it either. Until I met someone.”

The way she said it wasn’t nostalgic. It was wounded… perhaps even laced with hatred beneath her indifferent expression. I pressed my lips together and swallowed before speaking again.

“Who was it?”

“A traveler. A liar. A monster disguised as a man.” Then she closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, her gaze was steel. “He deceived me. Turned me into this. Left me alone… and simply vanished.”

I didn’t know what to say. There was an ancient sadness in her words that clung to the walls more tightly than any dirt or mold. A buried rage that still smoldered in her voice.

“I… I’m sorry,” I murmured, my gaze dropping to the floor. I felt I had touched a sensitive wound—one I should never have approached.

“Don’t apologize. It wasn’t your fault,” she responded, still staring ahead.

We remained silent for a while. A thick tension began to form in the room, one I couldn’t tolerate. Then, without thinking too much, I stood and picked up one of the books on the desk.

“Can I?”

“Go ahead.”

I sat again, this time in the opposite chair. The book was—or at least had been—a diary. The pages were handwritten in black ink, with elegant, meticulous penmanship, almost hypnotic. I didn’t recognize the language, but the script was beautiful.

“Is this… or was this yours?” I asked.

Velmira shook her head softly.

“My sister’s. She loved writing.”

I nodded. “And… where is she now?”

“Dead. Centuries ago.”

She said it so coldly that it hurt more than the words themselves.

We stayed like that for a long time. Me flipping through pages, her watching the fire grow in the library’s fireplace. We didn’t speak constantly, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable anymore. It felt… shared.

“You never left this castle?” I asked suddenly.

“I did. But I always return.”

“Why?”

“Because outside, everyone dies. In here, only I do. Slowly.”

I mulled over her words.

I walked to the desk and noticed a small carved wooden figure. A horse. Not very skillfully made, but charming in its own way.

“Did you make this?”

Velmira lowered her eyes to the little figure.

“My father did. I kept it because… he was the only one who didn’t fear me.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I was getting married… and I never came back,” she said with a sigh.

I placed the figure gently in her hand. She looked at it briefly, then set it back down on the desk with care.

“Sometimes it feels like all of that was another life,” she said. “As if it no longer belonged to me.”

I looked at the figure once more before murmuring, “Maybe it still does. Just in pieces.”

She looked at me with something different in her eyes. Not tenderness, not sympathy… but a crack. A faint hint of warmth. Small, almost imperceptible. But real.

“Why didn’t you run away that first night?” she asked then.

“Because I saw you hesitate. And I thought… if you could hesitate, then I could trust.”

Velmira smiled. A small, intimate smile, without fangs.

“You’re braver than you seem,” she said softly.

“And you’re more human than you pretend,” I replied, smiling back.

She didn’t respond. She simply stood up, took a book from the highest shelf, and offered it to me.

“Here. Read this before the next full moon. It will help you understand some things.”

“About you?”

“About what might happen.”

I didn’t ask more. Maybe I wasn’t ready for the answers.

But something in me knew that curiosity wasn’t mine alone. Velmira, without realizing it, was beginning to see the world differently. Through my eyes. Through our conversations. Through the silences we shared.

The curious human had awakened old memories.
And the distant vampire, unknowingly, had begun to lower her guard.