The Gravedancer’s Waltz Part - 1

The forest grew too still.

Even the wind held its breath as the trio stepped beyond the last line of trees and beheld the forgotten ruin of Valemire Estate. Moonlight glazed the crumbling spires, and the ivy-strangled balconies jutted like bones from a rotted corpse. The manor stood silent on a hill of frost-hardened grass, its many windows aglow with flickering gold light that could not, should not, exist.

“Charming,” Tovik muttered, adjusting the collar of his weather-cloaked dueling jacket. “If the dead wanted to host a masquerade, they could’ve at least swept the path.”

Elira didn’t answer. Her gaze lingered on the air, thick, glimmering, gently warping like heatwaves. Memory magic. But older. Wilder. It wasn’t just an illusion hanging here.

Vaelin stepped forward first. Silent as always, wrapped in dark leathers and layered shadows, his hand brushed the hilt of a dagger that hadn't left his side since Drevril’s throne room bled its final truth. The Gravedancer, they once called him. But tonight, he wasn’t sure whose grave he’d danced upon.

“This is it,” he said quietly, though the words didn’t sound like a confirmation; they sounded like a memory clawing its way up his spine.

Elira caught up beside him, her fingers pulsing faint ember-light beneath her gloves. “The ballroom that bleeds time. A place where the dead remember what we’ve forgotten.”

“And where I’m apparently the murderer,” Vaelin added.

Tovik raised a brow. “Well. You do have the cheekbones for a dramatic betrayal.”

But the joke fell flat against the cold.

A single violin note rose from deep within the manor. The sound didn’t drift, it pierced, humming through the marrow like a thread pulled tight through bone.

Elira winced, eyes flashing amber. “That wasn’t music. That was... resonance. It’s syncing with something.”

Vaelin’s pulse kicked. “It’s starting.”

The gates opened on their own.

No touch. No creak. Just a breath of wind and a groan of wrought iron, and the world buckled around them like parchment curling near flame.

And then they were inside.

Not the decayed ruin seen from the trees.

Not the rotting estate of fallen nobility.

But Valemire, as it had once stood, magnificent, regal, alive.

Candlelight blazed in chandelier prisms. Ivory columns stretched toward a vaulted ceiling where constellations danced in goldleaf paint. A thousand masked guests swept across polished obsidian floors in a synchronized waltz, their silks and velvets whispering secrets in time to the music.

The air was warm and perfumed with lilac and regret.

Tovik spun once, eyes wide. “Gods. Either we’re enchanted, or someone very wealthy had far too much time on their hands.”

“No,” Elira whispered, her voice full of wary awe. “This isn’t an illusion. This is an echo. We’ve crossed into a memory seam.”

Vaelin’s footsteps slowed as they entered the ballroom proper. The trio was unnoticed, yet the scene twisted to accommodate them. A servant with no scent or breath glided toward them with a silver tray, upon which rested three intricately carved masks.

The servant bowed. “Your masks, honored guests. The Last Waltz begins soon.”

Each mask pulsed with magic. Threads of the past.

Tovik grinned and selected a red fox mask adorned with velvet trim. “Dashing as ever.”

Elira hesitated, then chose one wrought from scorched porcelain. Her fingers brushed its ash-inscribed edge, and the runes sparked, tiny memories lighting her veins. She hissed under her breath but didn’t drop it.

Vaelin stared down at the final mask: a midnight leather design veined with silver shadowglass. His hand trembled as he picked it up.

“I’ve worn this before,” he murmured. “Not here. But somewhere. In another path.”

“It’s echoing a version of you,” Elira said. “One you could’ve been. Or were. Time’s bleeding.”

Vaelin put the mask on. It fit like a forgotten truth.

From the floor of the ballroom, a figure turned. A man in gold-trimmed crimson robes, masked in sweeping feathers, made his way across the dance like a shadow drawn to flame.

He stopped before Vaelin.

“You came back,” the man said. “I wasn’t sure you ever would.”

Vaelin stared. “Do I know you?”

The man’s voice faltered, but his gaze never did. “You killed me.”

In a side gallery dimly lit by candelabras, the trio gathered with the man, Lord Ryven Althros, to listen to a ghost’s accusation.

Ryven was strangely composed for someone reliving his own death. His hands never shook. His words flowed with memorized precision. He looked not like a phantom, but like a man clinging to what remained of his soul.

“You came to me at the edge of the Last Waltz,” Ryven said. “A shadow with no name. You asked me to walk with you into the moonlit garden. You spoke so gently, like someone offering freedom.”

“And then?” Vaelin asked.

Ryven looked him in the eye. “And then you slit my throat.”

Tovik cleared his throat awkwardly. “Any chance you’re misremembering? Or maybe he was... a different tall, broody assassin in dark clothes?”

“No. It was him.” Ryven’s gaze hardened. “I’ve watched it every night for two hundred years.”

Vaelin didn’t argue. He couldn’t. Somewhere deep beneath the veil of his Remnant-bound mind, he could feel the blood on his hands. He could taste the moment—the blade, the promise, the betrayal.

“He wasn’t you,” Elira said quietly. “But he was a version of you. This seam... it’s more than just a fragment of memory. It’s pulling the echo-lives into now. Remnant bleed.”

Vaelin looked down at his palm. The faint red scar, the bloodburn pulse, glowed for a moment, as if remembering too.

“Why now?” he asked Ryven. “Why does the loop keep playing?”

“I remembered,” Ryven said simply. “That’s when it started. The moment I saw you again. The moment I knew.”

A shriek tore through the air.

The music halted. The dancers froze mid-step, masks staring into nothing. Time stretched. The candles flared once, then blue.

Vaelin ran before he thought, Elira close behind, fire already building in her palms.

In the heart of the ballroom lay Ryven’s body. A perfect mirror of the man now staring down at it. Blood spread in a slow, viscous fan across the floor, trailing from a cut across the throat.

Everything shattered.

The world turned inside out.

They woke at the edge of the forest again.

Same path. Same trees. Same cursed stillness. The estate once again loomed under a setting sun, and inside, the golden lights danced behind broken windows.

Tovik sat up, groaning. “Tell me we didn’t just get waltzed to death.”

Vaelin stood slowly, dusting ash from his coat that hadn’t been there before. His voice was low. “It’s a loop.”

“A loop where you kill a man,” Elira said softly, brushing hair from her face. “Every night. Until we break it.”

Vaelin said nothing for a moment. Then:

“I saw myself. Not a vision. Not illusion. A life. I was the Gravedancer. And I killed him.”

Elira placed a hand on his chest, just over the pulsing scar. Her warmth steadied him. “Then we find out why.”

Behind them, the violin played again, first one note, then three.

The ballroom was waking.

And the Last Waltz had only just begun.

___________________________________________________

All Parts of the Series

The Gravedancer's Waltz Part 1

The Gravedancer's Waltz Part 2

The Gravedancer's Waltz Part 3

The Gravedancer's Waltz Part 4

The Gravedancer's Waltz Part 5