The hallway stretched endlessly, lit by flickering candles that never melted, casting crooked shadows on the marble walls. Lucien followed Seraphine in silence, each step heavier than the last. The air thickened as they went deeper—too still, too cold, too aware.
She reached a door at the end. It was black, carved with ancient symbols and sealed with rusted iron. Seraphine placed her hand on it, and the door creaked open like it had been waiting for her.
Inside—
Bones.Chains.Bloodstains painted the floor like art.The room pulsed with something feral and old. The stench of rot couldn't mask the sweetness of perfume that clung to Seraphine's hair.
Lucien stopped just past the threshold.
Seraphine walked in barefoot, a ghost in silk, untouched by the decay around her.
"This is where they bring us when we fail," she said softly, as if revealing a sacred chapel. "But I never did."
She smiled, radiant in the flickering dark.
"I'm the longest-standing guardian the house has ever known. One hundred years. Still standing."
Lucien's breath caught in his throat.
"A hundred…?"
"Most guardians last twenty. Thirty, if they're strong. The house takes what it wants from you, and then it lets you go… unless you become it."She tilted her head at a fractured skull on the floor. "He tried to run. Thought he could break the house's rules. So it broke him."
Lucien looked at her—porcelain skin, soft lips, bright eyes. She didn't look a day past twenty-five.
"Then why do you look… so young?"
She laughed, a high, melodic sound that didn't belong here.
"That's the price. Or the reward, depending on how you see it. Immortality… if you serve the house without question."
She drifted across the room, toward a stone basin carved into the wall. It glowed faintly—like a heartbeat.
"This," she whispered, "is the secret no one ever leaves with."
Lucien stared at it. The basin looked ancient, veins of red and gold threading through the stone. The light inside pulsed slowly, unnaturally. It wasn't fire or magic. It was alive.
"This is what keeps the guardians alive?" he asked, voice low.
Seraphine nodded, caressing the edge with reverence.
"You give your soul to the house, and it gives you everything else. Beauty. Time. Power. All of it."
He backed a step. The temptation burned in his chest, but so did the fear.
"And you… you wanted this?"
She turned, walking toward him slowly, eyes fixed on him with wild adoration.
"I'm not alone anymore," she said. "I have you."
She smiled with something close to madness.
Lucien's throat dried. His eyes drifted to the skulls, to the basin, then back to the woman before him.
The guardian of the house.Immortal.Beautiful.And bound.
And now—She believed he belonged to her too.