“Lirazna. You have returned.” The rasp, thin as spider silk, drifted through the archway. Pavlina felt the mountain draft prickle along her collar. She tightened her grip on the rough canvas of her pack. The coachman, his face a pale smear in the encroaching gloom, shifted nervously on his seat. The horses whickered, their breath pluming white. “My name is Pavlina,” she called out, her voice cutting through the sudden, unnatural stillness. “Pavlina Strzyga. And I’ve returned from precisely nowhere, thank you very much.” Her words, usually so precise, felt swallowed by the cavernous opening of the gates. A figure began to emerge from the inky depths. Not the towering, monstrous form she’d half-expected, but a stooped, elderly man. He moved with the slow, deliberate grace of someone far past his prime, his steps accompanied by the faint rustle of what sounded like heavy, brocaded fabric. As he drew closer, the flickering light of a torch, held aloft by an unseen hand further inside, illuminated him. He was tall, though bowed with age, his face a roadmap of deep-set wrinkles around eyes that seemed to hold centuries of quiet sorrow. His garb was centuries old, a doublet of faded emerald velvet over breeches of worn samite, all meticulously kept, yet clearly belonging to another era. “Pavlina Strzyga?” the man echoed, his voice carrying the same weary gravel as the gate's summons, but now laced with a new note: bewilderment. He stopped a few paces from the coach, peering at her through the gloom. “But… the Rite of Solace. It marks the return. It always marks the return.” He paused, his gaze sweeping over her, lingering on the simple wool of her dress and the sturdy, unadorned satchel at her feet. “Where are your trappings, girl? Your accoutrements? The finery befitting… the Sacrifice?” Pavlina bristled. “I am not a sacrifice, old man. I am Pavlina. And these ‘trappings,’ as you call them, are the extent of my earthly possessions. You’ll find them quite sufficient.” She gestured curtly to the chest in the back of the carriage. “And if you think I came here to be draped in baubles, you have sorely mistaken your captive.” The old man’s brow furrowed, deepening the already formidable lines. “Captive? No, no, child. You are the Sacrifice of Solace. Your duty is to… maintain the Lord’s household. To provide a semblance of order.” His gaze flickered towards the shadowy interior of the fortress. “To keep things… clean. Tidy.” He sounded as though he were reciting an unremembered creed. Pavlina stared. “To… keep house? After all that fanfare? The chest? The ominous pronouncements from the elders of Błędnik?” She scoffed, a short, sharp burst of air. “They called me a peace offering to a beast! And I’m to be a scullery maid?” The sheer absurdity of it, after the terror and indignity, was almost comical. “This is an elaborate joke, isn’t it?” “My name is Matyas, Seneschal of Gorycz,” the old man said, ignoring her outburst with practiced ease. “And there is no joke. Only the terms of the accord.” He turned to the coachman. “Unload the chest. Then leave this place, and never speak of what you have seen.” His voice was devoid of malice, simply stating a fact, like the stone of the mountain itself. As the coachman, clearly eager to flee, began to unstrap her chest, Matyas gestured for Pavlina to follow. “Come, then. Your chambers await. The kitchens are through the east wing, and the great hall requires dusting every third day. Do not neglect the wall hangings; they are centuries old.” Pavlina, still bristles raised at the absurd slight, stalked after him into the looming belly of the keep. The gates groaned shut behind them, severing her last link to the outside world. The air inside was thick with the scent of dust, old parchment, and something else – a faint, metallic tang, like distant thunder. The fortress was a labyrinth. Corridors stretched into infinity, lined with towering, unseen shelves and doors that seemed to melt into the shadows. Her 'chambers' turned out to be a small, austere room, high in a crumbling tower, with a narrow bed and a single, cracked window overlooking the desolate peaks. Matyas departed with a solemn bow, leaving her with a list of duties that would have exhausted a small army. Her pride, ever a stubborn beast, refused to accept such a paltry fate. A housekeeper? She, Pavlina Strzyga, the most skilled weaver in Błędnik, reduced to polishing cobwebs? Nonsense. This was merely a temporary diversion. She would find the truth. And she would certainly not be dusting any embroideries until she understood *why*. Clutching the leather-bound volume she’d smuggled from her pack—a treatise on archaic runic magic, dense and indecipherable, but comforting in its complexity—she began her own exploration. The halls were tomb-quiet. The staff Matyas had mentioned seemed entirely absent, or perhaps they were like the stones themselves, relics of an unremembered age. She wandered through dusty ballrooms, their polished floors reflecting the faint, bruised light filtering through grime-caked windows. She passed through kitchens larger than her entire village, filled with rusted spits and cold hearths, then through libraries whose shelves sagged under rows of books that crumbled at the slightest touch. Each hall showed decades of ruin and abandoned grandeur. Eventually, she stumbled upon a narrower corridor, one less traveled. It ended in a heavy, oak door, intricately carved with swirling, serpentine motifs that seemed to writhe in the dim light. Curiosity, sharper than any fear, urged her forward. The door creaked open, revealing not another storeroom, but a long, vaulted gallery. Moonlight, a stark silver, poured in through high, arched windows, illuminating the walls. They were covered, from floor to ceiling, with portraits. Men and women, noble and stern, gazed out from canvases of varying ages. Their faces were unfamiliar, their clothes archaic, their expressions caught in moments of stubborn pride or sorrow. Pavlina walked slowly, her footsteps echoing in the silence, her gaze sweeping over the parade of departed lords and ladies. Until she stopped. A painting, set slightly apart from the others, drew her eye like a magnet. It was a woman. Her hair, a riot of raven black, framed a face that was strikingly familiar. Her eyes, the colour of deep moss, held an intelligent, almost piercing intensity. Her mouth, full and unsmiling, hinted at a sharp wit, perhaps even a cruel one. She wore robes of deep midnight blue, embroidered with constellations, and in one elegant hand, she held a staff tipped with a pulsating, violet crystal. There was an undeniable air of power about her, of a mind that saw things others couldn’t. And her face… it was her own. Pavlina’s own face, rendered with unnerving accuracy, down to the slight tilt of her chin and the defiant spark in her gaze. Underneath the painting, etched into a bronze plaque, was a single line: *Lirazna. Sorceress-Regent of Gorycz. Circa 842 AE.* Pavlina's throat tightened. *Lirazna. You have returned.* The voice at the gate. The name Matyas had blurted. Her perfect double. A sorceress. The sigil on the chest. The pieces collided in a sickening lock. A sudden draft swept through the gallery, carrying the scent of petrichor and copper. Pavlina whirled around, fingers catching the strap of her bag. The air shimmered at the far end of the gallery, near a darkened archway. Shadows, deeper and more profound than the natural gloom, began to coalesce. They swirled, stretched, and reformed, like ink dropped into water. A towering, indistinct form began to emerge, not solid, but ever-shifting, its edges blurring and reforming with each breath it seemed to take. Pavlina took half a step back. This was it. The master of the keep. The Lord of Gorycz. A silhouette of pure, shifting shadow. But as the form steadied slightly, coalescing enough to show a faint outline, she saw it. Not fangs, not claws, but something else entirely. Eyes. Two points of profound, aching grief, like embers buried deep in the ash of a cold fire. They were fixed on her, wide with an emotion she couldn’t quite decipher, but it wasn't hunger. It was something akin to… terror. He flinched. The vast form recoiled, a ripple of shadow passing through him. His gaze fixed on her, filled with a desperate plea. And then, a sound. A low scrape, raw and pained, escaped the silhouette. A single word, barely audible, filled with dread: “You.”

A Beastly Housekeeper