Page 5 of Necromance
As I turned down another corridor, my candlelight stretched forward, illuminating a massive portrait hanging along the wall ahead.
My steps faltered. A man stared back at me.
The candle’s flame trembled again, and for the briefest moment, I could have sworn the man’s lips parted, as if he meant to speak.
A chill ran down my spine. The corridor felt deathly still.
I stepped closer, my light illuminating the edges of the painting, revealing details I hadn’t noticed at first glance.
The man was breathtaking.
His features were cut from elegance and shadow, sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw, and full lips that held the ghost of an unreadable expression. His dark hair fell in careless tussles, the strokes of the artist’s brush capturing its richness so perfectly that I could almost imagine the strands shifting in an unseen breeze.
But it was his eyes that truly unsettled me.
The artist had painted them in exquisite detail, deep, storm-dark with subtle gold flecks, and brimming with something hauntingly alive. There was no glassy vacancy, no stillness that marked most portraits. No, his gaze burned, as though the man inside the painting could see me just as clearly as I saw him.
I tilted my head, drawn in despite myself. There was something woven into the brush strokes… an intensity, a presence. Something unnatural. The longer I looked at him, the more certain I was that the man in the painting was staring straight into my soul.
A sense of unease crawled over me. I reached out, fingertips hovering just above the canvas, when suddenly, the candle’s flame guttered violently. A breath of air, cold and sharp as winter, swept through the corridor.
And the eyes in the portrait darkened.
I stumbled back, heart hammering against my ribs. The chill coiled around me, thick and suffocating, as if something unseen hadstirred. I swallowed hard. I had felt spirits before, countless times, but this was something different.
This wasn’t just a ghost.
There was something older, something darker here.
The candle trembled in my grip. Slowly, the oppressive cold receded, the hall settling into silence once more.
But the portrait remained and those piercing, impossible eyes never left mine.
I exhaled slowly, letting the last tendrils of unease slip away. Whatever had just happened, whatever had stirred when I nearly touched the painting, would have to wait.
For now, I needed a place to sleep.
Few people understood how important it was to choose the right bedchamber in a haunted house. Most believed ghosts drifted aimlessly through halls and walls, untethered to the rules of the living. But they were wrong. Spirits lingered where the energy suited them.
If I chose poorly, if I settled into a room steeped in restless energy, I wouldn’t sleep at all. The spirits would keep me shifting, unsettled, my dreams twisting into their memories and their burdened voices would bleed into my thoughts until dawn.
It had happened before. More than once.
I had learned, over time, to listen, to feel the pulse of a place. The right room, the safest room, wouldn’t be thegrandest or the most comfortable. It would be the one where the air settled around me instead of pressing in. Where the house itself allowed me to stay.
I turned away from the painting and stepped forward. The corridors seemed to stretch long and endless, the silence wrapping around me like a living thing.
To anyone else, the castle would feel abandoned. I knew better though. It was far from empty. Even now, even though I could sense that the spirits were hiding, I could feel them watching. I kept my pace measured, my breath slow. With each doorway I passed, I let my fingers brush lightly against the frame, testing for that subtle, almost imperceptible shift in the air.
Some rooms were wrong immediately. One sent a prickle of cold skittering over my skin. Another had a stillness that was almost too deep, as if the space had been folded in on itself, cut off from time.
When, at last, I finally found one, the moment I crossed the threshold, I knew.
The air inside was thick with dust and disuse, but the pressure I had felt in the hallways eased here. The space felt lived-in, not by the dead, but by memory, long ago laughter, the hush of candlelit conversations, the flutter of silk brushing stone.
Not untouched bythe past, but not claimed by it either.
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “This will do,” I murmured to myself as I sat my candle down on the vanity.
