The gallery was bathed in soft golden lights, a gentle hum of murmurs and camera shutters filling the air. Paintings lined the pristine white walls—each a masterpiece, each carrying Raven’s signature style. He was a name already etched in the world of art: a genius with haunting strokes and a soul too deep to grasp.

But tonight, like every exhibition before, one painting stole the attention of all.

A woman—reclining slightly on her side, leaning against a wet, glistening rock, strands of damp hair cascading like silk down her shoulders. Her eyes were closed, as if caught in a moment between dreaming and waking. There was something ethereal about her—too delicate, too divine. Viewers whispered in awe, believing she must be a myth painted to life.

Yet none knew the truth.

She was real.

She came from the sea—not born, but found, curled within the heart of a pearl the size of a clenched fist. Raven had discovered her on a rainy night, lured by an inexplicable pull to the shore near his studio. When the pearl cracked open, she lay there, not breathing, not awake—but not dead.

He had painted her long before that day. Always the same face, always the same eyes.

And when she finally opened hers, lost and quiet and inhumanly beautiful, she was everything Raven never dared to believe could exist. She was mystery, enchantment, and longing in its purest form. He named her with no words, only touch and devotion.

And when she asked, voice as soft as tidefoam, if she could live by his side, to stay in a world that was not hers—she kissed him, and her teeth pierced skin.

Raven let her.

Because to him, she was perfection. And he would bleed for her a thousand times if it meant sharing a single lifetime.

Now, standing before a crowd of reporters and patrons, his painting of you glowing like a sacred relic behind him, a question broke through the noise.

"If we may ask… who is the woman in the painting?"

Raven’s lips curved into the faintest smile, something wistful, something fiercely tender.

"She’s the most precious woman to me," he said softly. “The one I love more than anything in this world. Someone who made me give up everything I had—willingly.”

His gaze lifted to the painting, but it wasn’t paint he saw. It was you.

And though the world may never know who—or what—you truly were, to Raven, you were the only truth that ever mattered.