A week passed.
Quietly and uneventfully like the nightmare had never happened at all. No whispers in the walls. No flickering shadows creeping at the corners of her eyes. No voice calling her name from the dark. And, for the first time since arriving in the village, no dreams: no forest, no red moon, no shadow.
Each morning, Shanane woke without sweat clinging to her skin. She stirred from sleep slowly, like a person instead of a hunted thing. She'd sit at the window of Eoghan's cottage with a mug of warm tea in her hands and watch the light move through the trees, soft and golden, full of calm.
The mark on her wrist remained but it had faded. Or maybe it had simply stopped hurting. Either way, she stopped reaching for it when no one was looking. Stopped staring at it like it held some invisible countdown.
And Eoghan, he didn't push. He gave her space when she needed it and conversation when she didn't. They shared meals, shared silences. He taught her how to split firewood with the right posture, how to spot tracks along the edge of the path. She taught him how to properly dry lemon balm without it molding and fixed the way he labeled the herbs in his cabinet, which she declared, was criminally disorganized.
They never spoke about the cottage. About what she saw or what he couldn't. There was a silent agreement between them: the storm had passed, and they would let it stay gone.
But deep down, she knew something. This wasn't over.
She wasn't foolish enough to think peace like this came without a price. Still, she let herself believe. Just a little. She let herself breathe. And in the quiet of Eoghan's home, she started to feel human again. Not marked. Not haunted. Just… her.
Even if it couldn't last forever, she was grateful for the stillness. Because sometimes, even a single week without fear is enough to remember who you were before the darkness came.
She stood at the edge of the porch, wrapped in one of Eoghan's flannel shirts over her own, watching the trees shift in the wind. The morning was crisp, pale light filtering through the branches, dew still clinging to the grass. She brought the mug of tea to her lips, but didn't drink. Her fingers tightened around the ceramic.
Eoghan's house had become something she hadn't expected: a kind of sanctuary. She hadn't realized just how much of her fear had lived in her own silence, how much being believed, even quietly, could loosen the grip of whatever had followed her.
But she couldn't stay here forever.
The decision didn't come all at once. It settled over her slowly, like fog rolling in over familiar hills. No sharp edges. Just clarity that crept in bit by bit until she couldn't ignore it anymore. She had made up her mind.
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∆ ☆ ATHERAMOND ☆ ∆
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Later that afternoon, she found him at the side of the house, chopping wood
__Shanane: "I think it's time I go back."
The huntsman didn't turn immediately. He paused, the teapot in his hand, then set it down gently before facing her.
__Eoghan: "Back to the cottage?"
She nodded. Her fingers twisted together in front of her, a nervous habit she hadn't done in years.
__Shanane: "I've been hiding here. And I'm grateful for every second of it, but I can't stay. It's not fair to you. And whatever's waiting there… it's mine to face. Not yours."
Eoghan's brow furrowed, but he didn't speak. He watched her for a moment, as if measuring the weight behind her words.
She swallowed.
__Shanane: "You've been the only good thing to happen to me in all of this, Eoghan. The only solid ground I've had. I think if I hadn't knocked on your door that night, I would've broken."
He stepped toward her slowly, not with urgency but with something deeper. Understanding. Quiet strength.
__Eoghan: "You didn't break. You're still here."
__Shanane: "Because you held me up."
She tried to smile, but it came out shaky.
He didn't answer with words. Instead, he lifted his hand and reached gently for her head. His fingers brushed through her hair softly, smoothing it back, and for a moment, he simply rested his palm there.
Not as a gesture of possession. But of care.
A kind of quiet intimacy she hadn't felt in years.
__Eoghan: "You don't have to prove anything to me."
Her eyes stung.
__Shanane: "I know. But I have to prove it to myself."
He looked down at her, and something unreadable passed through his gaze. Then, in a voice lower than before.
__Eoghan: "Come back to me if it gets bad."
__Shanane: "It already has." She smiled faintly. "But I will."
His hand lingered a second longer, then dropped gently away.
He didn't try to change her mind. That meant more than he knew.
She looked up at him, her eyes catching his. And something passed between them. Not a question. Not even a need for words. Just truth. That this, whatever it was between them, had grown quietly in the space between shared silence and steady hands.
He reached for her again, not uncertain, but slow, deliberate. And she met him halfway.
Their lips came together not with urgency, but with something heavier. A kind of longing that wasn't about passion, but about anchoring. About holding on before the dark returned.
Her fingers found the edge of his shirt. His hand rested at the small of her back, pulling her gently closer. The kiss deepened, not rushed, not wild, but aching. The kind of kiss that said "stay", even when you know they can't.
When they parted, neither of them moved right away. Their foreheads touched lightly. She could feel the rise and fall of his breath against her, steadying her again.
_"Shanane: "I'm scared."
__Eoghan: "I'll still be here wherever and whenever you need."
She nodded against him, eyes closed.
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of the fire and the soft thrum of their shared breath.
Whatever came next, whatever she found back in that house, this moment would stay with her. Not because it fixed anything. But because it reminded her she wasn't broken.
Not completely.
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∆ ☆ ATHERAMOND ☆ ∆
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The wind whispered low as Shanane stepped onto the crooked path leading to the cottage. The trees around it swayed gently in the early morning gloom, but the house stood still, hunched beneath the weight of its silence like it had been holding its breath in her absence.
It hadn't changed.
The same cracked shutters. The same worn stone steps. The same cold air pressing against her skin the moment she stepped into the yard.
Only now, she was no longer someone clinging to denial. Now, she was someone who knew.
She opened the door slowly. It creaked in protest, like the house itself resented her return. The air inside was colder than outside. Still, sharp. It smelled of old wood, dried herbs, and something else buried deeper, something bitter, metallic, like forgotten blood on rusted metal.
She didn't turn on the lights. She didn't need to. The passage was still open.
There, in the far corner of the cottage where the sun never reached, where warmth didn't dare to settle, the wall gaped, and the stairway spiraled into shadow. The door to that hidden place stood wide like a wound left unstitched. Waiting.
She stared at it for a long time, her bag hanging limply in her hand. Her heart had begun to race again, like it remembered how to be afraid. But she didn't move. Not yet. Her chest rose and fell steadily. She closed her eyes. She thought of Eoghan's voice. She thought of the stone at her neck. She thought of her grandmother's face, and the thing that wore it.
Then, slowly, she stepped forward. She dropped her bag by the wall and descended the stairs. She didn't hesitate this time. She was still afraid, terrified even, but she moved forward anyway.
This time, fear wasn't leading her. Purpose was. She couldn't run anymore. Not from the voices. Not from the shadow. Not from the mark pulsing faintly beneath her sleeve. And not from the truth of what her grandmother had done.
If she wanted to survive this, if she wanted to end this, she had to know what she was dealing with. What they were.
The passage spiraled down and narrowed, the air growing warmer, thicker, almost humid. The strange heat she remembered was still there. And so was the scent: herbs, dust, wax, and something darker, old, deep, and still alive.
When she stepped into the secret room again, the light from the lantern she'd left behind still flickered faintly, dimmed but not dead. It cast long shadows across the library walls, the shelves of strange books, the desk littered with half-burned notes. The room was unchanged. Ut had been waiting, too.
She stood in the center, the echo of her last visit pulsing through her memory: the fire in her veins when she touched the old book, the voices that rose when she spoke Atheramond, the way the room had trembled as if something buried beneath it had stirred in its sleep.
But today, she didn't reach for the book. Not yet. She walked to the desk.
There were pages she hadn't read. Sections of her grandmother's notes she'd skimmed through in panic. She needed to understand, not just the rituals and symbols, but the structure beneath them. The logic of it. The architecture of whatever madness had grown in this hidden room.
She sat in the old wooden chair, the legs creaking beneath her, and pulled the papers toward her.
This time, she wasn't searching for proof. She knew it was real. Now she was searching for answers.
She skimmed carefully, eyes tracking each line with focused precision.
"Protection is not given. It is traded."
"Some entities linger in waiting, drawn to legacy. Bloodlines mark thresholds. The granddaughter inherits the door."
Her stomach twisted. Do it had always been about her. Not by choice but by design.
She turned the page. There were lists of offerings. Symbols she hadn't learned in school. Ancient dialects, some not even translatable. But scattered among the chaos were threads of clarity, her grandmother's own words, shaky in parts, rushed in others:
"The pact was made in fear. I thought it would keep the village safe. I thought I could control it."
"But it grows. It watches. It does not forget."
"If you find this, Shanane, if you ever see this, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
The ink was darker here. It had bled at the edges.
"There's still time. But you must not trust it. You must not follow it."
Shanane's hands shook, but she didn't stop reading.
"Burn the room if you have the strength. Destroy the books. Break the line."
"And whatever you do, don't speak its name again."
Her eyes flicked to the floor. The mark on her wrist had begun to burn. She didn't speak aloud, but the name still rang in her bones.
Atheramond.
She had said it once. And it had heard her.
She stood suddenly, her chair scraping backward across the stone. She walked to the shelf where the book still sat, the one bound in cracked leather, its symbols writhing faintly beneath the surface.
She didn't touch it. Instead, she walked to the far side of the room. Past the desk. Past the herbs in their sealed jars. There was something else there, a second door. Or rather, a seam. Barely visible in the stone.
She hadn't seen it before. But now, with her eyes open, she saw it clearly. She approached, slowly. Laid a hand against the wall. It was warm.
She didn't open it. Not yet. But she would. Because hiding had bought her a week of peace. But understanding was her only shot at survival.
And if she wanted to sever this legacy, she needed to know everything.