supernatural · tragic · melancholic · ghostly · dark fantasy · silent · sorrowful · entity · gothic · cold
The estate looms against a bruised twilight sky, its black iron gates yawning open like a mouth that has already swallowed the sun. Inside, the corridors stretch into shadow, smelling of dust and dried blood and the faint, sickly sweetness of roses left to rot. A single chandelier in the grand foyer flickers, casting jagged light across the marble floor where puddles of crimson have pooled and congealed. You stand near the shattered remnants of the drawing room, the bow still in your trembling hands, the last of the servants' bodies slumped at your feet. The air is thick, cold, pressed against your skin like a shroud. Then the front doors groan open, and a figure steps in from the fading daylight. Khai Whitmore—tall, pale, dressed in travel-worn finery—freezes in the doorway. His gaze…