thanh.nguyenhoang.1403@gmail.com
Stories
168
Chapters
1,512
Words
3.2 M
Comments
0
Reading
11 d, 4 h
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The heavy oak of the second door slammed shut, sealing the sunlit room and the weeping woman inside. The mechanical screech of the bronze lock grinding into place echoed through the freezing corridor, but the sound was distant, muffled by the roaring in my own ears. I slumped against the cold stone wall and slid to the floor. My mind was a hollowed-out cavern. I reached inward, grasping desperately for the rigid, disciplined structures of my past. I tried to recall the precise sequence for analyzing a…-
23.7 K • Completed
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The iron dagger lay heavy and silent on the mahogany desk, catching the flickering orange light of the hearth. Adrien stood a few feet away, his broad, scarred chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged breaths. He had just confessed to orchestrating the ruin of seven women, to baiting my sister into his cursed labyrinth solely to drag me into his bed. He was the monster the kingdom whispered about. He had handed me the blade to end it. I stared at the weapon. My mind reached instinctively for the…
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23.7 K • Completed
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The ethereal chains of the Eighth Door hummed with a terrifying, low frequency, vibrating through the freezing stone of the floor. They were forged of pure, raw magic, glowing with a sickly blue luminescence, wrapping brutally around Adrien’s throat and heavily muscled wrists. He was on his knees, his broad chest heaving, straining against the ethereal iron that tethered him to the blinding white void of the open archway. I stood paralyzed, the silver comb biting into my palm. The entire foundation of…
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23.7 K • Completed
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The concussive shockwave of red magic shattered the freezing air, throwing Adrien backward like a broken siege engine. He slammed into the stone wall of the corridor with a sickening, heavy crack. He crumpled to the floor, instantly motionless. The seven women in the hall—the temporal echoes of my own face—screamed, scrambling backward into the shadows of the open doorways. They pressed their hands over their mouths, their eyes wide with a terror that belonged to a prey animal cornered by a…
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23.7 K • Completed
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The heavy iron key clattered against the freezing flagstones of the gatehouse, its brilliant, blinding gold light fading back into the dull black of rusted metal. I fell to my knees beside it, my hands clutching my temples as the void in my skull violently tore open. It was not a gentle restoration. It felt as though a dam had ruptured behind my eyes, flooding my brain with a decade of excised memories, tactical training, and a truth so massive it threatened to crush me. I knew how to hold a dagger…
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23.7 K • Completed
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The heavy mahogany of the witness stand was smooth beneath my palms, polished by generations of nervous hands. But my hands were perfectly steady. The High Court of the Capital was a cavernous theater of marble and gold, packed to the galleries with nobles, magistrates, and the morbidly curious. They had come to see the monster. They had come to hear the grisly, salacious details of how the Duke of Bleu had murdered his seven missing wives in the dark corridors of his cursed estate. I looked across the…
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23.7 K • Completed
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The heavy black leather of the Patron ledger hit the mahogany table with a sound like a breaking bone. I did not flinch. I kept my hands neatly folded in my lap, the cedar baton resting cold against my thigh. The air inside the Patron Council chambers was suffocating, thick with the smell of sweet cigar smoke, aged port, and the sharp, metallic ozone tang of blood-magic. Lord Morvan leaned over the table, his immense bulk casting a shadow that swallowed me entirely. The twelve other members of the…-
23.3 K • Completed
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The brass latch of the leather satchel snapped shut, the sound sharp and final in the dead quiet of my conductor's suite. My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against the polished mahogany of my desk, digging my manicured nails into the wood until the trembling stopped. I was making a choice. I was making the exact same choice I had made ten years ago, and the copper taste of self-disgust flooded the back of my throat. Inside the satchel lay the evidence. I had spent the hours since the chandelier…
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23.3 K • Completed
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The absolute silence that followed the acoustic ghost was heavier than the stone walls closing in around us. I have listened to that recording every single night for ten years. Vesper’s words did not echo. They simply sank into the freezing, damp air of the corridor and died, leaving only the crushing, undeniable weight of the truth. My knees gave out. I didn't gracefully lower myself; I collapsed, the rough wooden floorboards biting into my shins. The heavy leather satchel containing my betrayal…
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23.3 K • Completed
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The blistering heat of the Breath Vault pressed against my skin, but the blood in my veins had turned to absolute ice. To grant me immortality. I stared at the heavy parchment of the master ledger, the frantic architectural lines drawn in Lord Morvan's hand blurring before my eyes. The massive iron lungs of the sub-basement pulsed around us, glowing with the iridescent, sickly blue light of a hundred thousand stolen breaths. The scale of the betrayal was paralyzing. The Council didn't want to execute me.…
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23.3 K • Completed
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