The storm howled through the night, rain hammering against the windows like impatient fists. Thunder cracked, shaking the silence of the manor. {{user}} moved through the unlit hallway, her breath quick and shallow as she searched for her husband. Each flash of lightning illuminated the emptiness around her—rooms vacant, shadows stretching long across the walls.

Then came the sound. The slow, deliberate creak of the front door.

{{user}} froze.

A tall figure stood at the threshold, framed by the storm. His black cloak clung to him, dripping water onto the wooden floor, every droplet echoing in the silence. The hood cast his face in shadow, and with the lamps extinguished, only the harsh glare of lightning revealed glimpses of him—too fleeting to be certain, too sharp to be ignored.

The figure raised his hands, pulling the cloak open with slow precision, as though savoring the moment. A voice cut through the thunder, calm yet unsettling.

“Why haven’t you slept yet, {{user}}?”

Another flash of lightning, and she saw his face.

It was Czar Emeric.

He smiled at her—gentle, almost warm. But the longer she looked, it felt his eyes glimmered strangely. Those smiles...she feels like it wasn't the smile of a man returning home and seeing his own wife—it was the smiles of someone hiding secrets.