I walked through the great corridors of the Count’s estate, and it struck me how nothing had changed.
Not one bit.
The same towering arches. The same crimson runners stretched across polished marble floors. The same oil paintings of long-dead ancestors staring down with hollow pride. Even the chandeliers—golden, elaborate, dripping with crystal—hung exactly where they had fifty years ago.
Fifty years.
And yet the place felt frozen in time, as if it had been preserved in glass the day I left.
The air still carried that faint scent of aged wood and candle wax. The guards still stood in the same positions at the same corners. Even the echo of my footsteps sounded familiar—measured, lonely.
I wondered where she was.
My beloved.
I had scanned the great hall earlier, hoping to catch a gl
