I once thought that after leaving the convenience store, my life would finally grow simpler.
I was naïve.
The Rose never lets me go.Especially on the nights when I dare to think I can rest.
Silent held me too tightly that evening—tight enough to make me believe we could spend one quiet night together.
But this world…never grants us that kind of luxury.
Around three in the morning, a sound echoed outside the window—metal striking stone.
Not wind.Not traffic.
Something precise.Measured.Ritualistic.
Silent woke instantly.
His ears twitched—just barely—and his pupils narrowed to thin slits.
His instincts were screaming.
“They’re here,”he said sharply.
“Who?” I whispered.
He didn’t answer.He simply raised an arm, shielding me behind him.
The shadows in the room lifted—as though stirred by a presence not meant for this world.
A black petal fell onto the windowsill.
Not a rose petal.Not anything that should exist in nature.
It was—
a petal of the Rose.
The Messengers
Three figures appeared inside my room.
They did not open the door.They did not break the window.They simply appeared.
Long robes brushing the floor.Faces hidden beneath deep hoods.And on their chests—strings of bone fragments woven into talismanic necklaces.
Those bones…were not human.And not beast.
Silent pushed me farther behind him.
“Stay back.”
His voice was flat, but I felt the tension ripping across his shoulders.
All three Messengers lifted their heads at once.Beneath the hoods there were no faces—only swirling darkness.
The middle Messenger spoke:
“Chosen Daughter of the Rose.”
His voice sounded like someone speaking from within a crack in the world.
“We come by Her command—to deliver the Judgment of Blood.”
My heart clenched.
I didn’t reply.But the Messenger seemed to hear the fear in my breath.
“There is mixed blood in you,” he whispered.“Two lineages intertwining.The Rose demands to know—which lineage claims you.”
Silent’s face changed instantly.
He stepped forward.
“She owes you no confirmation.”
The Messengers tilted their heads—all three, in the exact same motion—like hounds hearing a faint sound.
“Silent Man,”they said together.
“Your blood… echoes too closely with hers.”
I froze.
My blood… and Silent’s?Similar?
A tight string inside me snapped taut.
“You…”I turned to him.“Silent… are you and I… related?”
He flinched.
Like the thought had never once crossed his mind.
His brows knit, as though he wanted to deny it—but before he could speak—
The Messenger raised the bone-talisman.
It pulsed—like a heart beating.
And at the same instant—
my Rosemark throbbed violently.
A sharp pain shot through my chest.I grabbed Silent’s arm with shaking fingers.
The Messenger’s voice slid through the room like frost:
“Your Mark… reacts to his blood.”
Silent went rigid.
His hand lifted toward me, hesitating—as if terrified that touching me might break something fragile.
My body trembled.The heat in my chest felt like burning metal ripped through flesh.
“It hurts… Silent… it hurts…”
The Messengers stepped closer.The bone fragments glowed faintly, casting light across my skin.
Their voices became like a verdict:
“You two are not lovers.You two carry the resonance of shared blood.”
Silent’s pupils constricted violently.
“Impossible,” he growled.“She’s not—”
But the Messengers ignored him.
The talisman glowed brighter.The pain in my Mark deepened, clawing into bone.
My breath fractured:
“Silent… are we…Are we actually—”
In that moment, Silent looked at me—not with desire,not with the possessive instinct of a vampire, not with the fierce devotion I had become used to.
But with—
fear.
Real, human fear.
Because he didn’t know.He truly didn’t know.
And worse—a part of him had begun to fear the answer.
The pain wasn’t from the Rosemark. It was from somewhere deeper—a place in the heart that only love could make vulnerable.
Silent grabbed my face with both hands.
“Hanna, look at me.”
His voice shook.
“We are not that.We are not—It’s impossible—”
The Messengers spoke again, their tones like cold dirt falling on a grave:
“In the Rose War, lineage was scattered.Families torn.Bloodlines severed and wandering…”
“Your two bloodlines…may rise from the same root.”
Cold spread through me.
Silent’s hand slipped from my cheek to my jaw—hesitating, uncertain, like he no longer trusted his own existence.
I could hear his heartbeat—too fast, too uneven, like a trapped beast with no escape.
The Messengers stepped back.
“The Rose will send another to confirm.The truth… will surface.”
They turned.
Their figures collapsed into a storm of black petals—carried away by a nonexistent wind.
And they vanished.
Silence After the Storm
The room went still.Silent was still gripping my wrist—hard enough to hurt.
I lifted my head.
For the first time, his eyes held no red, no beast, no hunger.
Only panic.
My voice came out small, trembling:
“Silent… are we…Are we really…?”
He pulled me into his arms so suddenly the air left my lungs.
His grip was desperate—bone-deep—as if afraid the world might snatch me away.
His voice broke against my ear:
“Don’t ask.Ask me anything when your eyes are open—I can answer anything.”
“But if you ask that again…”
He stopped.His breathing shook violently.
“I’m afraid I’ll lose my mind.”
I froze.
Silent’s forehead pressed to my neck.His body trembled.
Not like a vampire.Not from bloodlust.
But like a man—Terrified of losing someone he loved.Terrified of being pushed away.Terrified of being told the one thing he couldn’t bear.
We held each other for a long time.Fear wrapped around us like night.
Until—
A flicker of memory flashed through my mind:
Seitheil.
Standing in a sea of fire, smiling a broken, almost humiliating, almost hopeless smile.
His voice rose from the ashes of memory:
“Do you think he is your destiny?”“No.”“You are his.”
My heart clenched sharply.
Silent still held me, but he didn’t notice—
my entire body had gone cold.
Because suddenly,I understood something:
The Messengers weren’t trying to convince me that Silent was my brother.
They were trying to corner me into seeing a truth—
Something darker than taboo.
Seitheil. The Nightborne Elves who walked out of the fire.The only one who had never lied to me.
He was the one the Rose wanted me to face.The one the Rose had always been guiding me toward.
And he—
was the only one who had ever spoken the truth.
ns216.73.216.33da2
and then Add to home screen.