The moment Inara's hand touched the Groom's,
the world **tilted**.
Not like a collapse.
Not like falling.
More like reality itself exhaled—
and shifted to make room for a new rule:
**The Bride walks with the Groom.
The Groom walks with her.
Until the gate opens.**
A vow accepted by the dead
binds deeper than any vow spoken by the living.
---
### **IRVINE FEELS THE PRICE INSTANTLY**
Irvine's body jerked violently as if he'd been struck by lightning.
His fingers clawed the ground, nails cracking against stone.
"In—Inara—!"
Darkness pulsed from the center of his chest, spreading like spilled ink.
His breath hitched into a ragged choke.
His vision doubled—
One world: the chamber before him.
Another world: the Groom's perspective,
smooth,
cold,
hungry.
He saw Inara's hand in the Groom's grip
through eyes that weren't his.
He tasted the Groom's breath.
He felt the dead velvet of his coat.
He sensed the Groom's thoughts—
*Mine.
Soon.*
Irvine gagged, slamming a fist into the ground to break the vision.
"Inara—don't—go—"
The Groom didn't turn.
He didn't need to.
His calm voice slid across the chamber like a blade wrapped in silk:
*"He will live. That is what you asked for."*
Inara trembled,
but she kept her hand in the Groom's iron-cold grasp.
"Irvine," she whispered,
"stay awake. Stay with me. Please."
Irvine tried to rise—
his muscles trembled violently—
but he forced himself onto one knee.
The Groom flicked a single glance at him.
Irvine collapsed again, gasping.
Inara lurched toward him instinctively—but the Groom's grip tightened.
Not hurting.
Just claiming.
*"You vowed,"* he murmured.
Inara's heart stuttered.
A vow wasn't breakable here.
Not without consequences.
---
### **THE CHAMBER TRANSFORMS**
The walls around them began to breathe—
not metaphorically,
but **literally**.
Stone expanded, cracked, contracted,
like lungs inhaling stale air for the first time in decades.
Inara choked on the smell—
mold,
wet earth,
rusted metal,
and something chemical, like old embalming fluid.
Whispers rose from the stone:
*"…another bride…"*
*"…the last one wept here…"*
*"…don't look away when he chooses…"*
Inara squeezed her eyes shut.
"I don't want to hear this."
"You cannot unhear the dead,"
the Groom answered softly.
"They remember every bride."
A whisper slid behind her ear:
*"…don't fail like we did…"*
She flinched—
but there was no one behind her.
Only the wall.
With a face pressed inside it.
The outline of a woman's scream—
frozen mid-echo—
etching itself into the stone like a trapped fossil.
Inara's voice broke.
"What did he do to them…?"
The Groom tilted his head.
*"They vowed too late."*
---
### **IRVINE FIGHTS BACK**
Stone moans filled the chamber,
but Irvine forced himself to stand—
shaking, barely conscious.
He staggered toward Inara.
"Inara… don't let him take any more—"
The Groom didn't touch him.
He only looked at him.
One cold, ancient glance.
Irvine slammed backward into the wall as if struck by a sledgehammer.
His head smacked stone,
vision exploding white.
"Inara—!" he spat blood. "Don't—choose—him—"
The Groom's voice did not rise,
yet the entire room went still:
*"She already has."*
Inara sobbed.
"Only to keep him alive!"
The Groom leaned toward her,
face inches from hers,
beautiful in the most horrifying way.
*"And so he lives."*
Irvine coughed, shadows writhing under his skin.
He felt every second of the vow.
It tightened around his spine like a funeral ribbon.
He whispered,
half-conscious:
"Inara… it's killing me slowly.
He's using the vow to feed off me—don't you see?"
But she had no choice.
If she broke the vow,
Irvine would die instantly.
The Groom had crafted this trap with perfect cruelty.
---
### **THE FINAL GATE CALLS**
The map on the wall glowed brighter.
A path opened on its own—
stone sliding aside like a jaw unhinging.
A narrow tunnel revealed itself,
lined with bones carved into archways,
each bone inscribed with dates.
Wedding dates.
Inara's stomach dropped.
At the end of the tunnel,
distant and echoing,
a bell rang—
*…dong…*
a bride's call.
*…dong…*
a groom's claim.
*…dong…*
midnight approaching.
Irvine forced his shaking body upright again.
He wiped blood from his lips, eyes blazing.
"I'm walking with her," he growled.
The Groom extended an arm across the tunnel entrance,
blocking him effortlessly.
*"You walk no farther."*
Irvine snarled,
a sound he never knew he could make.
But the Groom continued:
*"Your vow is different.
You vowed to return to her.
To fight for her.
To marry her."*
He leaned close,
voice low, cruel, intimate:
*"Mine is older."*
Inara grabbed Irvine's shirt, yanking him back before he did something fatal.
His hands were shaking violently.
His breath uneven.
His pupils blown wide with pain.
"Inara… he'll ruin you," he rasped.
She cupped his face with both hands.
"I will come back to you."
"You don't know that."
"I don't care," she whispered.
"I'm not letting your life be the price for mine."
His eyes filled with tears despite himself.
"Inara…"
The Groom tugged her hand gently—as if leading her to an altar.
*"Bride."*
Her body trembled.
She looked at Irvine for the last time before the tunnel swallowed her.
"Stay alive," she whispered.
He reached for her—but she was already pulled away,
her white dress disappearing into the bone-lit tunnel,
her silhouette shrinking with each step.
---
### **THE WALLS CLOSE IN ON IRVINE**
As soon as Inara vanished from sight,
the chamber sealed shut,
stone forming a barrier like a tomb door.
Irvine slammed his fists into it.
"Inara! INARA!"
No answer.
Instead, the walls whispered again.
Only this time,
they whispered **his** name.
*"…Irvine Raithe…"*
*"…the living groom…"*
*"…the unwanted one…"*
*"…she walks with another now…"*
His breath hitched.
"No. No—she vowed to survive. For us."
The whispers deepened:
*"…but he vowed first…"*
The realization hit him like cold metal:
The Groom's vow was ancient.
Predating the war.
Predating death.
Predating the village itself.
Irvine pressed trembling fingers to the stone.
"Inara… don't lose yourself.
Don't forget me.
Don't let him rewrite what we are."
His shadow flickered on the wall.
Then split.
A second shadow formed behind it—
taller, straighter, crowned.
The Groom's shadow.
Watching him.
Mimicking him.
Claiming his place.
"No…" Irvine whispered.
"No, you don't get to take her."
The Groom's shadow lifted a hand slowly—
and Irvine felt fingers close around his throat.
He choked,
gasped,
dragged himself free with violent effort.
He collapsed to his knees, trembling—
as the wall whispered one last time:
*"…the vow has begun…"*
And somewhere deeper in the tunnels,
far beyond his reach,
**Inara screamed.**
The stone beneath Irvine's knees began to pulse.
Not vibrate—pulse.
As if a heartbeat buried under centuries was finally waking again.
Thump.
…Thump.
...Thump.
Irvine's breath hitched.
His vision blurred at the edges.
"Inara…" he whispered, clutching the wall. "Come back…"
But the chamber answered him with a sound that wasn't hers:
*"…she won't…"*
Irvine flinched. "Shut up."
The whisper grew sharper, like bone scraping metal:
*"…she belongs to him now…"*
"No."
His fingers clenched until the knuckles split. "NO."
The wall responded—not with words, but with **images**.
Shadows shifted inside the stone like silhouettes behind frosted glass.
A bride.
Hands bound.
Veil torn.
Neck tilted back in surrender—or fear.
Then another bride.
And another.
And another.
Their faces blurred, but their mouths formed the same silent plea:
*"…turn back…"*
*"…don't follow…"*
*"…he does not kill the groom—he empties him…"*
Irvine's stomach twisted. "What does that mean?"
The wall answered with a cold, guttural whisper:
*"…he takes everything in you that loves her."*
His breath froze.
That was the price.
Not life.
Not death.
But the hollowing out of every emotion that tethered him to Inara.
A living shell.
A breathing corpse.
Groom without love.
"No—no—no—" Irvine pressed both palms against his temples, shaking violently. "You can't—he can't—"
His shadow flickered again on the floor.
But this time the Groom's shadow didn't just stand behind it.
It stepped **into** it.
Irvine's limbs jerked.
His pulse stuttered.
An icy laughter filled the chamber.
He dropped to all fours, gasping.
"Get out—GET OUT OF ME—!"
For a moment, his voice wasn't entirely his.
Half-Irvine.
Half-Groom.
A horrific blend.
And far down the bone-lit tunnel, Inara—walking beside the Groom—stumbled as if she felt the same shift.
She clutched her chest.
Her vision dimmed.
She tasted blood where there shouldn't be any.
"Irvine…?"
The Groom glanced down at her, amused.
*"When you take the Groom's hand, you take his story."*
Inara shivered. "I'm not taking his story. I am only surviving."
*"Survival is a form of surrender."*
She glared, refusing to let fear win. "You can't rewrite who I love."
The Groom merely smiled.
*"Every bride said the same."*
---
### BACK IN THE CHAMBER
Irvine dragged himself upward using the wall as support.
His veins pulsed black for a heartbeat, then cleared again.
He was fighting—
but losing ground.
"Inara…" His voice cracked with desperation. "Hold on to us. To what's real. Don't let him fill your head."
The walls hissed:
*"…she walks his path…"*
*"…she breathes his air…"*
*"…soon she will speak his vows…"*
"NO SHE WON'T!"
Irvine punched the wall so hard his knuckles split open.
Blood smeared across ancient symbols like a new offering.
The stone responded—
Not with whispers.
With **a memory**.
The chamber darkened.
The ceiling dissolved.
And Irvine suddenly stood in the past.
A fragmented vision:
A bride trembling at an altar.
A groom—tall, regal, alive—offering his hand.
War roaring outside.
Villagers chanting.
Fear thick in the air.
The bride whispered:
*"I vow to save our people."*
The groom whispered:
*"I vow to save you."*
But the moment they touched hands—
the altar cracked.
The ground split.
Something ancient clawed its way through their vows.
A ritual gone wrong.
A love bond turned into a curse.
A groom twisted into a monster.
Irvine gasped as the vision snapped.
His chest burned.
His pulse hammered.
His mind reeled.
He understood now.
The Groom wasn't always a monster.
He was a man forced into ritual—
forced to become the eternal gatekeeper.
A groom who never finished his wedding.
A groom whose bride died before saying "I do."
A groom who waits for every bride
hoping she is the one
who will finish the vow
and free him.
Irvine staggered backward.
"No," he whispered. "You don't want Inara. You want an ending."
The chamber darkened—
as if agreeing.
But the Groom's shadow rose again behind him.
*"…or a replacement…"*
Irvine's heart lurched.
The Groom didn't just want a bride.
He wanted **his place back**.
He wanted Irvine's slot in destiny.
And he was already taking it.
Irvine felt the vow tightening again, twisting under his ribs.
His breath hitched.
"Inara…" he whispered to the sealed stone door. "Don't let him inside you. Don't let him take—what's ours—"
His voice broke.
The whispers answered for him:
*"…midnight is coming…"*
*"…she walks further away…"*
*"…and you are fading…"*
A crack ran down the chamber wall,
splitting the stone like a wound—
as if the ritual clock had struck its next moment.
And miles deeper underground,
where Inara walked beside the Groom,
her steps faltered as she felt the same crack open inside her chest.
The vow
was claiming them
both.