Crimson Veil Wax Melt

The moon hung heavy & bruised over the orchards of Valerius Manor. In the heart of the winter frost, a single tree bore fruit—cherries as black as dried blood, weeping thick, syrupy nectar. The story tells of a bride who waited for a lover who never returned from the mist. On her wedding night, she traded her white lace for a shroud of deep red silk, staining her lips with the juice of the forbidden fruit to keep the color of life within them.

As the clock struck midnight, she paced the iron-wrought balcony, her veil catching on the thorns of the climbing ivy. She plucked the fruit with trembling fingers, crushing the skins until the pits fell like teeth onto the stone floor. Each swallow was a vow of vengeance against the silence of the moors. She swore that if he would not return to kiss her living lips, she would become a phantom of such intoxicating sweetness that he would be drawn back from the very gates of the abyss. Now, she wanders the manor as a crimson shadow; where she passes, the air grows thick with the cloying, fermented scent of the orchard, a sugar-spun trap for a soul that never came home.