NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 13: Chapter 13: The Portrait That Breathed
It began with a scream.
Elara bolted upright in bed, heart pounding. The scream wasn't hers. It had come from outside her dorm—somewhere in the southern wing. The other students didn't stir. The sound hadn't reached their dreams.
But Elara had heard it. Because she was marked now.
She slipped out of bed, threw on her robe, and grabbed the Grimoire from her desk. The page that had once shown her name was now blank again. The circle of thorns had vanished. In its place, faint letters formed a single warning:
"Do not go where the paintings watch."
The southern wing of Hollowmoor was mostly abandoned. Students rarely had classes there. Most of the older rooms were converted into storage—or so they claimed. But Elara had walked those halls before. She knew there were paintings in the southern wing that didn't match the rest of the school's decor.
They were too vivid. Too real.
As she stepped through the corridor, torchlight flickered oddly. The stone walls breathed ever so slightly. The scream hadn't come again, but the echo of it still hung in the air.
Then she saw it.
A single portrait had been moved. It now stood at the center of the hallway, its frame cracked at the edges. It showed a woman in red velvet, eyes shut, mouth sealed with stitches.
Elara froze. Her candle sputtered.
The woman's chest rose and fell.
The painting was breathing.
She stepped closer. Her instincts screamed at her to run. But the Grimoire pulsed faintly in her hand, drawing her forward.
The stitched mouth twitched.
Then—slowly—opened.
No stitches fell. The threads slid apart on their own, like they were alive.
A voice emerged from the canvas. Soft, like wind through dead leaves:
"Do not read his name."
Elara's breath caught.
"Whose name?"
The woman's eyes remained shut. Her lips moved with great effort.
"The one who burns without fire. He waits beneath the chapel. He waits for you."
The portrait's eyes snapped open.
They were Elara's.
She staggered back. Her candle dropped, flame vanishing.
Then the voice changed. It became her own voice, echoing from the portrait:
"Elara Vale, daughter of flame, you were never meant to last this long."
A hand grabbed her shoulder.
She screamed.
It was Cassian.
He looked terrified.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he hissed.
"I—I heard something. A scream. That painting—"
He looked at it.
It was blank now. Just canvas.
"There's nothing there," he said. "Elara, are you okay? You look pale."
"I saw it breathing. It spoke to me. In my voice."
Cassian hesitated. Then he nodded slowly. "That means it's started."
"What has?"
He glanced down the corridor. "Come on. We can't talk here."
They slipped through a hidden passage behind the library shelves. Cassian had discovered it weeks ago—one of the many Hollowmoor secrets he hadn't shared until now.
Inside was a small study chamber. Candlelit. Smelling of old ink and older secrets.
Cassian poured them both a cup of bitter tea. Elara barely touched hers.
"Start talking," she said.
He sighed. "The portraits in the southern wing aren't really paintings. They're bindings."
"Bindings?"
"Of things too dangerous to destroy. Spirits. Fragments. Ghosts with no bodies but too much memory."
"Like the Watcher?"
Cassian shook his head. "Worse. These things don't hunt. They warn."
Elara set down her tea. "It told me not to read his name. And something about the chapel."
Cassian flinched. "No one's supposed to go under the chapel. That's where they buried the first headmaster after he tried to open the Grimoire with blood magic. Some say part of him's still down there."
"I think the Watcher's trying to lure me there."
Cassian met her eyes. "Then you can't go. Not without protection. Not alone."
She took out the Grimoire.
The page turned on its own.
A map formed.
Not of the school.
Of what lay beneath it.
A labyrinth. A pit. A chained door.
And a single word written in the middle: "REMEMBER."
They made their way to the chapel at midnight. Cassian insisted on carrying salt, iron, and a mirror. Elara carried only her wand and the Grimoire.
The chapel was quiet. Hollow statues lined the pews. The altar had long since crumbled. Behind it, hidden behind a velvet curtain, was a stone trapdoor.
Exactly like the map showed.
They pried it open.
Darkness swallowed them.
The descent was steep. A spiral staircase of damp stone. Whispers followed them—some in Elara's voice, some in voices she didn't recognize.
Cassian muttered charms under his breath. "To keep the silence honest," he explained.
At the bottom, a hall stretched forward. Walls covered in runes. Bloodstains that hadn't dried. A cold that bit deeper than mere weather.
At the center: a door of iron.
It pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Behind that," Cassian whispered, "is whatever the first headmaster trapped."
Elara stepped forward. The Grimoire pulsed in her bag.
She touched the door.
And a voice whispered inside her head:
"Your name is a key. Use it."
Her mouth opened before she could stop it.
"Elara Vale."
The door groaned.
Cassian shouted, "NO!"
But it was too late.
The door opened.
And a man stood inside.
He was tall. Skin like parchment. Eyes like hollow stars. He smiled gently.
"I've waited for you, daughter of ash."
Cassian raised his wand. "Who are you?"
The man looked at him with pity. "You are not meant to see me."
Cassian collapsed.
Unconscious.
Elara backed away. "Are you the Watcher?"
He laughed.
"No. I am the Reminder. The one who stays behind so others forget."
"But the book—"
"The Grimoire lies when it must. It shows truths only to those willing to bleed for them."
He stepped forward.
"You have one chance, Elara. Take the name. Bury it deep. And never speak it. Not even to yourself."
A flame appeared in his hand. Inside it: a single letter.
"D."
She reached for it.
And the world tilted.
Screams erupted from the walls.
The door slammed shut behind her.
The Reminder pressed the flame into her chest.
"You are the lock now," he said.
Darkness swallowed her.
When Elara awoke, she was back in her bed.
No sign of Cassian. No sign of the chapel. No sign of the Reminder.
Only the Grimoire, open on her pillow.
A new entry burned into the page:
"She took the name. She became the lock." "Now, the key hunts for her."
And below it: