❝ frater meus, you're beautifully made and to you, i'm forever grateful ❞
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34. mark of cain
𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐃 𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐍'𝐓 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐆𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊. She wasn’t even sure if she had a plan — at least not one that could be considered anything more than a desperate, crumbling thought, hastily duct-taped together by the sheer force of panic. A last-ditch choice masquerading as strategy. The kind of decision people only made when all the rational ones had already bled out on the floor. But desperation had to count for something. Didn’t it?
The castle was as still as a corpse, and the night outside bled into the windows in a deep, unsettling maroon, the kind of color that didn’t belong in the sky, as though the heavens themselves were bruised and festering. Ingrid’s footsteps were muffled against the ancient stone, her pace uneven, cautious. The book in her hands felt heavier than it should, as though it had grown teeth and was slowly burrowing its weight into her bones. The cover, cracked and rotting, flaked under her grip like dead skin. Dust curled into the air with every slight motion, dancing in the torchlight like ash.
She held it tighter. Like a lifeline, like a secret.
Somewhere deep inside, a voice — her own, maybe — whispered that there had to be a way out of this place. This prison. This living mausoleum. The thought repeated like a prayer, like a spell. There has to be a way out. There has to be a way out. But even that hope was fraying at the edges.
The castle was a maze — its halls looping into themselves, its ceilings too high, as though trying to forget the people who walked beneath them. Every passage bled into another, every turn felt like déjà vu. Ingrid had passed the same statue three times now: a faceless woman cradling a broken sword. The paintings didn’t help either. Oil portraits of women dressed in opulence, lined up like saints in a cathedral. They stared down at her from their frames with the same narrowed eyes and expressionless scorn. Queens, she supposed. Ancestors. Ghosts.
Her gaze caught one again. An all-too-familiar woman immortalized in a permanent frown. Her lips were thin and bloodless. Her brow deeply etched, as if even in death she remained furious. Her eyes — dark green and sharp as broken glass — cut through the hallway. Ingrid had seen her before. She was certain of it. The problem was, she was also certain she hadn’t moved far enough to see her again.
She was walking in circles.
That thought hit her like ice down her spine. The castle wasn’t just labyrinthine, it felt alive. Shifting around her, folding her into its gut like prey. Her breath began to quicken, each inhale too sharp, each exhale barely making it out of her chest. The book pressed against her ribs. Her fingers twitched again, and this time she felt the panic brewing just beneath her skin.
