Upon a bed shrouded in silken shadow, a maiden stirred. Her skin was pale as alabaster, her long silver hair cascading in languid waves as though woven from moonlight itself. Slowly, with a motion both delicate and inevitable, her eyelids parted, unveiling eyes of a most unnatural hue—crimson, as though twin rubies had been set within the hollows of her gaze.

“A dream…” she murmured, her voice raw, brittle, and faintly tremulous, as if awakened from centuries of silence.

Half-conscious, she rose from her resting place and drifted toward the washroom. There, bending low over the basin, she bathed her countenance in the chill of running water. When at last she turned her face toward the looking glass, she was met by a void.

The mirror was vacant. No visage stared back at her—only the inverted image of the dim chamber itself.

“Oh… I had forgotten. My reflection does not belong to this world,” she spoke with a soft laugh, her tone touched not by sorrow but by a peculiar mirth, as though her very absence from the glass was a secret amusement.

“Then let it be banished!”

Her slender, bloodless fingers, pale as carved marble, reached for the frame of the mirror. With a sudden flare of strength, she wrenched it from its place and cast it aside. The glass burst upon the floor with a crystalline scream, scattering into a thousand shards that glimmered like cursed stars upon the stone.

Not long after, a voice, deep and resonant with authority, broke through the silence of destruction. From the threshold emerged an elderly gentleman, his snowy hair swept back with immaculate care, his form clad in a black-and-white livery of stately elegance. He bore the unmistakable air of one accustomed to the service of nobility—composed, dignified, and steeped in the gravitas of old tradition.

“Hime-sama,” he intoned, his sternness cloaked in paternal concern, “how oft must I implore you—cast not your fury upon the furnishings of this house!”

“Ah, Sebas! You have returned!” The maiden’s face, brightened by a smile almost childlike, turned toward him as she hastened to his side, all memory of her violent indulgence dissolving as swiftly as the storm that had birthed it.

Sebas pressed a hand to his chest, his expression unreadable. With practiced ease, he set about clearing the disorder the girl had just created, gathering the shattered glass from the floor.

Meanwhile, the girl passed him without a glance and made her way to the dining hall, while he remained bent to his task, still occupied with the scattered shards.

Upon entering the room, she was greeted by a long table lined with chairs facing one another. There were twelve in total, arranged with meticulous symmetry. Two stood at each end of the table, while five were placed along the right side and five along the left, opposing one another in silent order.

At the center of the table rested a large bowl fitted with several candles, their flames casting a dim light across the polished surface.

The girl took her seat at the chair at the head of the table and reclined against it with languid ease.

With her small, delicate hand, she reached for an empty wine glass already set before her.

Not long after, Sebas appeared at her side, carrying a dark glass bottle. He tilted it carefully, pouring its contents into the glass. The liquid that flowed forth was a deep, striking crimson, and from it rose an odor akin to iron.

The girl gently swirled the filled glass. Her red eyes fixed upon its surface, her gaze heavy with unspoken intent.

“What a pity… this is not the main course,” she murmured softly.

She drank it in a single draught.

As the liquid passed her lips, a flush bloomed upon her pale cheeks. Her eyes grew languid, her gaze unfocused. Her breathing deepened, and warm vapor escaped her mouth, accompanied by faint sounds that could easily be misunderstood by any who heard them.

“Eehhmm…”

“Aahhh…”

“This sweetness… it is truly exquisite…”

“If it tastes this sweet… what, then, will the main course be like?”

Suddenly, the girl burst into laughter.

“Haha… this is unbearable. This flavor makes me long to devour that meal at once,” she said, her lips twisting into a crooked smile.

She rose from her seat and walked toward the great window at the far end of the hall.

The light steps of her leather shoes echoed softly through the candlelit chamber, dim and silent, the world beyond the wide window swallowed by darkness. She lifted her head.

Her gaze settled upon the moon, veiled behind heavy clouds in the night sky.

Lightning split the heavens. Its light pierced the transparent glass, illuminating the corridor where the girl stood alone.

In that sudden brilliance, hair white as snow and eyes of deep crimson shone vividly, revealing her form like a living painting brought to motion, her skin deathly pale.

She stared into the brooding sky with a sharp gaze, like a predator that had fixed its prey.

Two small fangs emerged from either corner of her mouth, her lips curved into a bright smile.

In a voice soft and light, words flowed from her lips, chilling in contrast to her beauty, pristine and untouchable.

“After all this time…” her mouth twisted unnaturally, forming a smile most unsettling to behold. “…you will all pay a fitting price for what you did in the past.”

Having uttered words that rang like a vow, the girl turned and vanished once more into the dim, silent corridors of the ancient castle, which stood upon a sheer cliff above the raging sea, lashed by thunder and storm.