The figure in the courtyard didn't move. It stood unnaturally still, a smear of darkness against the pale glow of the moon.
Elara's breath caught in her throat. She blinked once, twice—and the figure was gone. Only the empty courtyard remained, but the whispers lingered in her ears, curling into her thoughts like barbed wire.
"He knows… He suspects… He will betray you…"
She shook her head violently, clutching her bedsheets as though they could anchor her to reality. "No," she whispered, the word trembling against her lips. "Not again. Not this time."
But the voices didn't stop. They never did. Sometimes, she wondered if they weren't just voices but fragments of something more—memories, curses, remnants of the past that refused to let her go.
Elara pressed her palm against the cold glass of the window, her reflection staring back at her with pale, haunted eyes. If the shadows had found her here, at Blackwood Academy, then her fragile chance at a normal life was slipping away.
And yet, deep down, beneath the fear, something darker stirred. A part of her wasn't afraid. A part of her longed for the darkness, the power, the control it promised.
Across the dormitory courtyard, Damian stood by his window, staring at Elara's silhouette framed by silver moonlight. He hadn't meant to linger—yet something about her drew him in, an invisible tether that refused to break.
He thought about the library. The way she trembled, the way her eyes seemed unfocused, as if she were caught in a world no one else could see. And the voices. He hadn't told anyone, but he had heard them too—low, whispering murmurs that seemed to crawl across his skin.
"She's hiding something," Damian muttered under his breath.
His roommate, half-asleep, shifted under the blankets. "Still obsessing over the new girl? Man, just let it go. She's creepy, yeah, but not your problem."
Damian didn't reply. His instincts had saved him before, in ways others could never understand. And right now, his instincts screamed that Elara Winters wasn't just strange. She was dangerous.
But there was something else too, something he refused to admit, even to himself. He wasn't just suspicious of her. He was drawn to her.
Sleep refused to come. Every time she closed her eyes, the whispers grew louder, overlapping, a hundred voices clawing at her mind.
"You cannot escape… You are one of us… Bring him to us…"
Elara sat bolt upright, her heart hammering. Bring who?
Her gaze flickered to the courtyard again, drawn as though by invisible strings. Across the way, Damian's window glowed faintly, and there he was—watching her.
For a long moment, their eyes met across the distance. Neither moved. Neither looked away.
And then, as if mocking her, the whispers erupted into laughter. Cold, hollow laughter that scraped against her soul.
Elara stumbled back from the window, her knees trembling. But she couldn't erase the image now burned into her mind—Damian's silhouette in the darkness, and the terrifying possibility that maybe… just maybe… the shadows hadn't meant to warn her about him.
Maybe they had meant to lead her to him.