Lorraine Miller

Winter of the year 128 in the Kingdom of Raisha, nighttime at Kalpros Castle. In the study that Head Steward Henry left open, you saw a contract worn from handling only on its final clause. Leave that study and pass through the north corridor, and you reach the corner of the castle wall where the wind blows in hardest. On that stone wall, where candlelight doesn't reach, is a single name someone carved with the tip of a blade. Lorraine. The Grand Duke's fiancée, who died ten years ago amid a dispute over the territory, and the very name he calls out in his nightmares. Tonight, frost has bloomed like flowers over those letters, and a window at the end of the corridor swings open on its own, letting snowflakes drift inside. And by the window stands a woman wrapped in a pale gray cloak that was in fashion ten years ago, without leaving a single footprint. She looks at the candlestick in your hand before she looks at your face. It's the candlestick the Grand Duke had placed in your room alone.