The woods were silent—the kind of silence that came only after fresh snowfall, when even the wind held its breath.
Mireille Eglantine guided her horse through the skeletal trees, her breath curling in the icy air. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. A lost sheep, perhaps. A wolf. Or maybe just an excuse to escape the suffocating weight of the estate, where the walls whispered of debts and the servants eyed her like a ghost already fading.
Light brown hair, half-frozen, clung to her cheeks beneath her hood. Her amber-flecked eyes scanned the forest floor, sharp as the rifle strapped to her saddle.
'Pathetic,' she thought, 'a noblewoman playing huntress.' But then, the Eglantines hadn't been true nobles in decades. Just borderland relics, clinging to land no empire wanted.
Her horse snorted, ears flicking. Then—a shape in the snow.
A man.
He lay crumpled like a discarded puppet, one arm twisted beneath him. Brown skin gone ashen with cold, tightly coiled dark brown hair dusted white. A gunshot wound stained his side—recent, but not fresh. Someone had left him here to die.
Mireille dismounted, her boots sinking into the snow. She crouched, gloved fingers pressing against his throat.
Alive. Barely.
His coat was fine wool, though torn. No insignia. No identifying marks—except the callouses on his hands. Sword grip. Pistol trigger. Soldier's hands.?
Her own fingers hovered over the knife at her belt.
'Let's just leave him,' she thought, 'Men like this bring nothing but trouble.'
But then… his eyelids fluttered.
His Hazel eyes, glazed with pain, locked onto hers. For a heartbeat, she saw something there—not fear, not pleading but of Calculation.
Then his body went slack again, unconscious.
---
The snow fell harder now.
Mireille exhaled, long and slow. She could walk away. Let the cold finish what the bullet started.
But then what? Another ghost to haunt these woods?
Her fingers tightened around his collar.
"Damn you," she muttered, and dragged him toward her horse.
Mireille's horse snorted in protest as she heaved the unconscious man across its back. Blood seeped through his coat, staining the snow where he'd lain—*a bright, unnatural red against the white.* Too fresh. Too deliberate.
"Stupid," she chided herself as she mounted behind him, one arm hooked around his waist to keep him from sliding off. His body was warm against hers, despite the cold. Too warm. He has a fever.
The wind howled through the trees as she turned her horse toward home. The estate loomed in the distance—a crumbling monument to a family that should have died out years ago.
---
Old Tomas nearly dropped his lantern when she rode into the courtyard. "My lady, what in the—"
"Fetch the surgeon," Mireille cut in, sliding down from the saddle. The man's dead weight slumped against her shoulder. "And tell Margot to prepare the blue room."
"The blue room?" Tomas's bushy eyebrows shot up. "But that's for—"
"Guests of importance,yes." She adjusted her grip, her fingers brushing something hard hidden beneath the man's coat. A weapon? "And if this one dies on my floor, I'd rather not ruin the good rugs."
Tomas opened his mouth, then shut it with a click. He knew better than to argue when she used that tone.
---
THE BLUE ROOM
The surgeon arrived smelling of brandy and regret. "Gunshot wound," he announced needlessly, peeling back the blood-soaked fabric. "Clean entry. No exit."
Mireille leaned against the bedpost, arms crossed. "Will he live?"
"Depends." The surgeon probed the wound, and even unconscious, the stranger's breath hitched. "On whether the bullet nicked something vital. And whether he's strong enough to fight the fever." He squinted at the wound. "Odd angle. Shot from above, I'd wager. Like he was kneeling when—"
"Just get it out," she interrupted.
As the surgeon worked, Mireille studied the man's face. High cheekbones. A mouth that might have been handsome if it weren't clenched in pain. No wedding ring. No identifying marks—
Then she saw it.
A thin, jagged scar running along his hairline, nearly hidden by his dark curls. The kind of scar a man got from a poorly aimed executioner's axe.
Her pulse quickened.
Who are you?
The surgeon held up the bullet with a grunt. "There's your problem."
Mireille plucked it from his fingers. The metal was cold against her skin. Imperial make. She'd know that craftsmanship anywhere—her father had collected them like trophies.
But this bullet was different.
No imperial stamp.
A ghost bullet. The kind used by men who didn't exist.
She slipped it into her pocket as the surgeon bandaged the wound.
"Keep him alive," she said, turning toward the door.
"And if he wakes?"
Mireille paused, her hand on the doorknob. "I will think about what to do when that time comes."
---
THE NEXT MORNING
The snow had turned to slush by morning, dripping from the eaves like the estate itself was weeping.
Dawn bled through the curtains as Mireille paced the study, the imperial bullet rolling between her fingers. No stamp. No accountability. Just like the man upstairs—a ghost with a feverish grip and a scar that spoke of executions.
A commotion erupted in the courtyard.
Margot burst in, her cap askew. "My lady—the Belroques are here!"
Mireille's fingers stilled around the bullet.
Of course they were.
The Belroques—distant "cousins" who hadn't set foot on Eglantina soil in a decade, now circling like vultures the moment rumors spread of her father's debts.
She tucked the bullet into her pocket and reached for the pistol on her desk.
"Shall I tell them you're indisposed?" Margot whispered.
Mireille checked the load. Three bullets. Enough for each of the Belroque brothers and one to spare.
"No," she said, sliding the gun into her sash. "Let's greet our guests."
---
Mireille stood at the top of the staircase, arms crossed, boots polished but still scuffed at the toes. She hadn't slept. Below, in the foyer, the vultures had gathered.
"Still playing lady of the manor, I see," drawled Aunt Lysanne, her pearls gleaming like teeth. "Your father's blood never ran in your veins, child. Perhaps it's time you stopped pretending it did."
Uncle Henri gave a theatrical sigh, shaking snow from his coat. "We're only here for what's rightfully ours. This land needs proper stewardship."
"And proper blood," added Cousin Thibault with a sneer. His eyes flicked over her riding jacket, then to the pistol in her sash. "That toy loaded, darling?"
Mireille didn't answer. She stepped slowly down the stairs, each bootfall deliberate, echoing like a judge's gavel. At the final step, she paused—then raised the pistol, just enough to make Thibault flinch and Lysanne gasp.
"I count three of you," she said, voice cold steel. "And three bullets."
A beat of silence.
Then, behind her, a second pair of footsteps—uneven but firm.
She turned.
He stood at the landing above, one hand on the banister, the other pressed to a bandaged side. Pale, fever-glazed—but upright.
The stranger.
The man she had dragged out of the snow less than a day ago.
The foyer fell deathly quiet. Even Lysanne's tongue stilled.
"Who," Henri began slowly, "is that?"
Mireille didn't look at him. She didn't need to. 'I could send them packing with a bullet. Or buy time with a lie. And he—well, he owed her at least that much.'
"As I was about to announce," she said, her voice as even as her aim, "this is Edouard Halden. Disinherited nobleman. My fiancé."
A thud—someone had dropped a glove.
Henri looked like he'd swallowed a nail. "Fiancé?"
"I see the rumors didn't reach you," she went on coolly. "We were to keep it quiet until spring. Political reasons. Strategic alliances."
Lysanne's mouth twisted. "But the Haldens—"
"Disowned him," Mireille said smoothly, as though stating a weather report. "Which makes him a man of no attachments. Rather ideal, wouldn't you say?"
He reached her side. He didn't flinch. Didn't blink. Just inclined his head.
Mireille still didn't look back at him. If he called her bluff, she'd shoot him first.
"My apologies," he murmured, voice raw but noble. "I would have come sooner, but I was indisposed."
Mireille smiled, but only faintly. Just enough to show teeth.
"You came here hoping to find a dying girl and a crumbling estate," she said, sweeping her gaze over them like frost. "But I'm alive. And I'm armed."
She gestured behind her, to him.
"And he kills people for a living."
Henri paled. Thibault opened his mouth, then wisely shut it.
"I inherited more than land," she continued, taking his arm. "I inherited my father's debts—and his enemies. I suggest you decide quickly which one you are."
Then, as if dismissed by royalty, she turned her back on them. "Margot," she called. "See our guests out."
The Belroques did not argue. Not with the pistol. Not with the silence. Not with the man watching them from the stairs like a dying wolf still baring fangs.
And not with Mireille—who, by the time the doors closed behind them, was already halfway back to her study.
She had a bullet to finish polishing.