A chill, damp air, thick with the scent of mildew and decaying velvet, stung Zoryan Volkov’s nostrils. His head throbbed, a dull bass drum against his skull, and the metallic tang of old blood coated his tongue. He fought against the insistent pressure on his wrists, then his ankles, the rough hemp biting into his skin. Moonlight, fractured by grimy panes, striped the dust motes dancing in the gloom. He was in the Voronin Manor hall, a place infamous even in Revensk’s shadowed lore. Gilt-framed portraits, their subjects’ eyes lost to grime and time, stared down from walls peeled like old parchment. Chandeliers, once grand, hung like skeletal spiders from a ceiling scarred by water damage.
He pulled again, testing the restraints. Solid. Too solid. A low, mocking hum vibrated through the air, not quite a sound, more a pressure against his eardrums. It coalesced into a voice, light and melodious, yet sharp as broken glass.
“Awake at last, Detective Volkov? I was beginning to think you were less hardboiled and more… boiled through.”
Zoryan grunted, straining against the ropes. “Who’s there? Show yourself.” His voice was a rasp.
“Impatient, aren’t we? Such a shame. I rather enjoy the suspense. It’s a quality I’ve come to appreciate in my… current state.” The humming intensified, circling him. “Though I suppose your kind rarely has the luxury of suspense. Just blunt, predictable facts. Or, in my case, the lack thereof.”
He felt a sudden drop in temperature, like walking into a freezer, followed by the faint scent of lilies and ozone. In the center of the parquetry floor, where a crystal fountain once stood, a shimmering outline began to form. It pulsed with a soft, inner luminescence, coalescing into the figure of a young woman. Her gown, a vibrant sapphire, seemed to ripple with an unseen breeze, though no air stirred in the tomb-like room. Her hair, the color of polished mahogany, cascaded over her shoulders, and her eyes, an intense emerald, fixed on him with a furious intensity that belied the delicate curve of her lips. Liriana Voronin. The cold case. The one he’d been dragged onto, a whisper of old money and forgotten rituals.
“Liri,” Zoryan breathed, the name a rusty hinge. He knew the files, the faded photographs. This was her, undeniably, terrifyingly so.
“Or Liriana, if you prefer formalities,” she said, a saccharine sweetness coating the venom in her tone. “Though I doubt we’ll be exchanging calling cards. You’re the latest in a long, predictable line, aren’t you, Detective? Another cynical man with a badge, poking around my demise like it’s a discarded puzzle piece.”
“You lured me here,” Zoryan stated, not a question. The anonymous tip about an occult sigil scored into an old oak on the grounds had targeted him specifically for his odd track record. He’d walked right into it.
Liri floated closer, her luminescence brightening, casting eerie shadows that stretched and warped across the peeling wallpaper. “Of course I did. How else was I to get your attention? The living are so… dense. And the police? Utterly useless. You’re all the same. You’ll investigate, you’ll interview, you’ll find nothing but dust and cobwebs, and then you’ll file another report marked ‘unsolved,’ just like the last ten investigators who came before you.” Her voice rose, the anger simmering beneath the surface now boiling over.
“I don’t ‘file reports’ that are ‘unsolved’,” Zoryan retorted, tugging at the ropes again, his muscles straining. “And I don’t take orders from dead heiresses. What do you want? Why am I here?”
“I want justice,” she hissed, her eyes blazing. “I want to know who did this to me, who sacrificed me on that vile altar! And I want you to find them.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you’ll be just another failure in a long line of them. And my killer will walk free, perhaps even sacrifice another poor soul on the next celestial alignment, gaining more power, ensuring I remain a ghost forever.” The thought seemed to physically pain her, her form flickering for a moment.
Zoryan saw his chance. While she was agitated, her focus fractured. He twisted his right wrist, digging the edge of a silver locket he always wore—a cheap, tarnished thing with no sentimental value, just a habit—into the rough hemp. He grated it back and forth, the silver surprisingly effective at chafing the natural fibers.
“You think I’m just going to roll over because a pretty ghost tells me to?” he scoffed, maintaining eye contact with her, a challenge in his gaze. “I work on facts, not spectral histrionics.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Facts? My murder is a fact! My killer’s existence is a fact! And your inability to solve it will also be a fact!” She shimmered, an aura of frustration radiating from her.
The rope around his right wrist snapped with a sudden give. Zoryan yanked his hand free, instinctively thrusting it out to regain balance, pushing himself back from the chair. His palm, still clutching the silver locket that had just cut him free, brushed against Liri’s luminous form.
A deafening shriek tore through the hall, a sound that wasn’t just heard but felt, vibrating through Zoryan’s bones. Liri’s form twisted, dissolving into a blinding flash of sapphire light that slammed into him with the force of a physical blow. He staggered, a searing cold igniting in his chest, then spreading through every vein, every nerve ending. He felt a sudden, dizzying sense of expansion, like his very self was being stretched thin, invaded. The scent of lilies filled his head, overwhelming, intoxicating. He gasped, falling back against the chair, his hands flying up, gripping his own head.
The sapphire light dissipated. Liri was gone. The ballroom was silent save for Zoryan’s ragged breathing.
He looked down at his hands, his own flesh and blood, then felt a strange, alien sensation deep within him, a vivid, screaming presence that was not his own.
*What did you do to me?*