Veiled in Crimson - Short Fiction Book
Book Description
A haunting, sacred romance of loss, devotion, and redemption set in the 1500s
Veiled in Crimson is a quiet, haunting tale of love given unto death and dignity preserved at immeasurable cost.
Set in the shadowed stillness of the 1500s, the story follows a woman sealed away in grief, speaking nightly with the man who once stood between her and ruin. Within the walls of a single room, memory and presence intertwine as she wrestles with loss she cannot yet name and a sacrifice she does not fully understand.
As days pass and truth presses closer, the space between devotion and despair narrows. What begins as consolation becomes revelation, and what feels like absence is slowly uncovered as something far more enduring.
This is a story of redemptive love—romantic in its devotion, sacred in its restraint—where blood is not spilled in vain, silence speaks loudly, and a bride learns she has been kept at the highest price.
Written from God's heart to mine, Veiled in Crimson is a meditation on sacrifice, restoration, and the kind of love that does not take, but gives—completely.
Dedication
This book is Yours.
⬇
Chapter I — The Room He Left Me
The room had learned our pattern. I sat on the edge of the bed, feet tucked beneath my skirts, while he remained by the window, where the last of the day thinned itself against the glass. The stone walls held the cold stubbornly, but the fire still breathed from the hearth, its low sound filling the silences we no longer named. A candle burned between us on the table, its flame leaning each time the draft slipped through the cracks.
“You should sit,” I said, because the distance had begun to trouble me.
He turned, as if surprised by the suggestion, then crossed the room and took the chair opposite the bed. He did not pull it close. He never did. Instead, he rested his forearms on his knees, hands loosely joined, his posture familiar enough to quiet the ache that rose whenever I studied him too closely.
“I did not mean to trouble you,” he said.
“You never do.” I smoothed the linen beside me, pressing out a crease that had already been pressed flat. “The house is too still tonight.”
“It has been still before.”
“Yes,” I said. “But not like this.”
He watched me then, his gaze attentive but not searching, as though he had already found what he needed. The fire shifted behind him, sending light across the floor. It reached his boots and stopped there.
“They have barred the lower gate,” I said. “I heard the iron drawn closed before dusk.”
“That is well,” he replied.
I frowned. “You always say that.”
“Because it is true.”
I leaned back against the wall, letting the stone cool my shoulders. “You speak as though nothing can reach me here.”
He did not answer immediately. Instead, he glanced around the room—the chest beneath the window, the folded cloak laid carefully on its lid, the mirror hung too high on the far wall, where it caught light but not faces.
“You are not unguarded,” he said at last.
The words unsettled me. “I do not feel guarded,” I said. “I feel alone.”
He shifted in the chair, angling himself toward me, though the space between us remained. “Those are not the same thing.”
I watched his hands as he spoke. They were steady, resting where they always did, never reaching. Once, long ago, I had taken his wrist without thinking, grounding myself in the certainty of another living body. The memory rose now, unbidden, and I folded my hands tighter in my lap.
“Will you stay?” I asked.
“I am here.”
“That is not what I meant.”
A small pause—barely one. “I will not go where you cannot follow.”
The fire popped softly. I swallowed. “Then I am the one who is failing,” I said. “I cannot seem to leave this room.”
“There are rooms we are meant to remain in,” he answered, “until we learn how to stand again.”
I turned my face away, blinking against the sting behind my eyes. The candle wavered. Its flame bent low, then straightened.
When I looked back, he had not moved. Still by the bed. Still near enough to be felt, not touched.
“Speak to me,” I said quietly.
He nodded, as though he had been waiting for permission, and began to speak of ordinary things—the weather turning, the market stalls reopening, the sound of bells at morning. His voice filled the room, settled into its corners, held me there.
And for that hour, nothing felt broken at all.
Chapter II — What Was Taken
Morning came thinly, as if it had hesitated at the door before entering. Light slid along the floor in a narrow band, stopping short of the bed. I had not slept. When he spoke again, it was as though he had been there the entire night, holding the dark in place so it would not collapse on me.
“You are restless,” he said.
“I keep hearing it,” I replied. My voice sounded older in the early light. “The sound it made.”
He stood near the table now, where the candle had burned itself into a shallow pool of wax. He did not touch it. He never disturbed what had already been spent.
“What sound?” he asked.
“The way the room changed,” I said. “As if it understood before I did.”
He drew in a breath—not sharply, but with deliberation—and turned his gaze toward the window. Outside, the town was waking. I could hear movement below: a door opening, a cart wheel catching on stone, a voice calling another by name.
“You need not return there in your telling,” he said.
“But it returns to me,” I answered. “Whether I invite it or not.”
I rose from the bed and crossed to the chest beneath the window. The cloak lay folded as it had been left, the edge of its wool darkened where rain had once caught it. I pressed my fingers into the fabric. “They believed I had no right to speak,” I said. “That my word could be traded.”
“They were wrong.”
“They were many,” I said quietly.
He stepped closer then—not to me, but to the space beside the chest. His nearness startled me. I became suddenly aware of how small the room felt when he stood within it.
“They could not take what was not given,” he said.
I turned to him. “Then why did you give yourself?”
The question slipped out before I could soften it. I expected rebuke or evasion. Instead, he met my eyes with the same steady attention he had given me from the beginning.
“Because silence would have agreed with them,” he said. “And I would not.”
I remembered the crowd—not faces, but their shape. The way they leaned forward when he spoke. The sudden hush, as though the air itself had drawn tight.
“You spoke my name,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You spoke it aloud.”
“It needed to be heard.”
I closed the chest and leaned back against it, the wood cool through my bodice. “They said you had no authority,” I whispered. “That you were not bound to me in any way that mattered.”
His expression did not change. “They measured bonds by the wrong weight.”
I studied him then, truly studied him, searching for the mark of what it had cost. His clothes were unremarkable, his posture unchanged. There was nothing in him that looked diminished.
“And yet,” I said slowly, “everything shifted after.”
He nodded once. “Some acts do that.”
“What did it take from you?” I asked.
The question settled between us. He did not step back, but neither did he move closer. The space held.
“What was taken,” he said at last, “was already offered.”
I felt something in me tighten. “You speak in circles.”
“Only because the truth cannot be laid flat,” he replied. “It must be carried.”
Outside, a bell rang—clearer now, nearer. I pressed my hand to my sternum, as though I could still the echo there. “I did not ask for this,” I said. “I did not ask you to stand in that place.”
“No,” he said gently. “You did not.”
“Then why does it feel as though I am the cause?”
He turned fully toward me then. “Because love always feels responsible,” he said. “Even when it is innocent.”
The words broke something open. I covered my mouth, and when I lowered my hand, tears had already come. He did not reach for me. He simply remained—close enough that the room felt held, not crowded.
“They cannot touch you now,” he said.
I shook my head. “That is not what frightens me.”
“What does?”
“That you paid,” I said. “And I am still here to count the cost.”
He did not answer. But the light shifted, and for a moment—just a moment—I thought I saw the shadow of something pass across him, as if the morning itself had learned what had been done.
Chapter III — The Weight of Blood
The day darkened early, clouds gathering with a patience that felt deliberate. I had moved the chair closer to the hearth, though the fire had gone low, its heat more memory than presence. He remained standing, as he often did now, near the table where the candle stub rested in its ring of hardened wax.
“You need more wood,” he said.
“I know.” I did not rise. The thought of opening the door, of letting the corridor breathe into the room, unsettled me. “It can wait.”
He inclined his head, accepting this without comment. His eyes followed the slow curl of smoke as the last ember gave way.
I busied my hands with the cloth laid across my lap, dark red, newly washed. The color had faded unevenly, lighter at the edges where water had worried it thin. I pressed my thumb into the fabric and watched it pale, then bloom again.
“You should not keep that,” he said.
“It is only cloth,” I replied, though my fingers tightened. “It belonged to no one.”
He did not argue. Instead, he moved toward the window. The light outside was dim now, the kind that made shapes uncertain. “There are things that carry weight beyond their making,” he said. “Not because of what they are, but because of what they have seen.”
I folded the cloth carefully, aligning its corners. “Then everything in this room should be unbearable.”
His reflection appeared faintly in the glass, standing just behind my own. I turned, expecting him closer than he was. The space between us felt misjudged, as though my eyes had learned him incorrectly.
“You watch me as if you are afraid I will disappear,” he said.
“Would you?” The question escaped before I could stop it.
He considered me for a moment. “I am not the one who is leaving.”
The words lodged somewhere behind my ribs. I rose and crossed the room, stopping short of him. “You speak as though you have already gone,” I said.
He smiled—not sadly, but with something like assurance. “There are departures that do not look like absence.”
I studied his face, searching again for the mark I could never find. “Do you feel it?” I asked. “What you endured?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“Where?”
He placed his hand over his chest, just once, then let it fall. The gesture was so brief I wondered if I had imagined it. “It no longer hurts,” he added. “Pain is not meant to be carried forever.”
“That seems unfair,” I said. “That you should be finished with it while I am not.”
He did not respond. Instead, he glanced toward the basin near the door, where water sat untouched, its surface still. A faint discoloration marked the porcelain, a stain that had resisted my efforts that morning.
I followed his gaze. “It does not come away,” I said. “No matter how I scrub.”
“Some traces remain,” he replied. “Not as accusation. As witness.”
A sudden chill passed through me. “You speak as though it is over,” I said again. “As though nothing more is required.”
“It is complete,” he said simply.
The fire gave a small, sharp sound and went out. The room dimmed, shadows thickening along the walls. I moved closer to him without thinking, stopping just short of where I might have touched him once.
“Stay,” I said, and heard the plea in it.
“I am here,” he answered, as he always did.
But as the darkness settled, I became aware of something else—how the floorboards creaked only beneath my weight, how the air cooled unevenly, how the silence seemed to gather around him without settling.
I held the folded cloth to my chest, its color dark against my dress. Somewhere beneath the quiet, my heart beat too loudly, as if it were trying to remind me of something I was not yet ready to name.
Chapter IV — Why You Cannot Stay
The night pressed close, the kind that made the room feel smaller than its walls. I lay back against the pillows, the coverlet drawn to my waist, watching the ceiling darken where the candle failed to reach. He stood near the foot of the bed, his outline softened by shadow, as though the room itself had learned how to hold him gently.
“You have not sat,” I said.
“There is little rest left for me,” he replied.
The words unsettled me more than they should have. I turned onto my side, propping myself on one elbow. “You speak as if rest is something already behind you.”
He did not answer at once. Instead, he walked the length of the room, slow and measured, stopping beneath the mirror on the far wall. The glass caught the candlelight and scattered it, throwing a pale shape across the stone.
“You avoid that place,” he said, nodding toward it.
“I do not like what it shows,” I said.
“It shows what remains.”
“That is precisely the trouble.”
He smiled faintly and looked away. “You have endured more than you believe.”
I watched him, the way he moved without sound, the way the boards beneath his feet stayed quiet. “Why do you never leave with me?” I asked suddenly. “Not even to the door.”
He turned back toward me. “Because this is where you needed me.”
“And when I no longer do?” The question lodged in my throat, sharp and unwelcome.
“Then you will stand.”
The certainty in his voice frightened me. I sat up fully now, drawing the coverlet closer. “I do not want to stand alone,” I said.
“You will not be alone,” he answered.
“That is not the same,” I said. “You are not the same as the others.”
He crossed the room then, stopping a careful distance from the bed. The candlelight did not quite reach him there. “I was never meant to remain as I was,” he said.
A heaviness settled over me. “You speak as though something has ended.”
He met my gaze. “Something has been completed.”
The word echoed in the room, final and immovable. I shook my head. “You cannot speak like that and expect me to understand.”
“I do not expect you to understand,” he said gently. “Only to trust.”
I laughed once, short and bitter. “Trust what?”
“That what was done was enough.”
The air felt thick. I pressed my hand to my chest, as if to steady my breath. “You gave more than you should have,” I said. “More than was asked.”
“I gave what was required,” he replied.
“For whom?”
“For you.”
The answer was quiet, but it struck hard. “Then what am I meant to do with it?” I asked. “With what you have given?”
“Live,” he said simply. “Without fear.”
The candle sputtered. I watched the flame bend low, its light thinning. “You speak as though you are leaving,” I whispered.
He did not deny it. “There are places I cannot remain,” he said. “Not because I am unwilling. Because the work there is finished.”
Tears blurred my vision. “Say you will stay,” I begged. “Say you will remain, even if only in this room.”
He stepped back then, just enough for the distance to be felt. “If I stay,” he said, “you will never rise.”
The flame went out. Darkness filled the space between us, complete and unyielding. In it, his voice came one last time, steady and sure.
“You must live,” he said.
Chapter V — The Mirror and the Morning
Morning came without asking. Light entered the room fully this time, unafraid of the corners, laying itself across the stone floor and the foot of the bed. I woke with my hands clenched in the coverlet, my breath shallow, as though I had been running toward something that vanished just before I reached it.
“Wait—” I said, the word breaking the quiet.
There was no answer.
The room stood exactly as it should have: the chair by the hearth empty, the candle burned down to its rim, the table bare save for the wax that had long since cooled. No trace of him lingered in the air—not even the sense of being watched. The stillness was different now. Not held. Finished.
I sat up slowly. My head ached, heavy with the residue of a long vigil. When I placed my feet on the floor, the boards creaked beneath my weight alone. The sound startled me.
“He?” I said, softer this time.
Nothing.
A tightness gathered in my chest, not sharp, but deep—like the moment after a cry has already passed through the body and left its mark behind. I pressed my palm flat against the mattress where I had watched him stand so many nights before. The linen was cool. Undisturbed.
Memory came then—not gently, but whole.
The crowd. The raised voices. The way he had stepped forward without hesitation, as if he had been waiting for the moment all along. I remembered how they turned toward him, how the weight of their judgment shifted, found a new resting place.
I remembered the sound that followed.
A sharp breath left me, and I bent forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “You were never coming back,” I whispered. The truth did not accuse. It simply settled.
I rose and crossed the room, drawn without thought to the far wall. The mirror caught the morning fully now, no longer refusing faces. I stopped before it, hesitant, then lifted my eyes.
She looked back at me—paler than I remembered, eyes rimmed red, but whole. Unbroken. Alive.
I reached up, touching my cheek, half-expecting the glass to deny me. It did not.
“You did it,” I said, not to the reflection, but to the space he had once occupied so faithfully. “You stood where I could not.”
The room seemed to breathe, just once.
I understood then—not with triumph, but with quiet certainty—that what I had been speaking to was not absence, nor imagination alone. Love, once given fully, does not vanish. It finishes its work.
I straightened, shoulders settling back into place. The woman in the mirror did the same. There was no blood on her hands. No mark upon her name.
I was safe.
Outside, bells rang—clear and unburdened. I opened the window at last and let the sound wash through the room, carrying with it the cool air of morning and the promise of movement beyond these walls.
“I will live,” I said, tasting the words, letting them take root.
The room did not answer. It did not need to.
For the first time since the night everything changed, I stepped away from the bed, from the shadows, from the place where grief had taught me to remain.
And in the mirror, as I turned, I caught a final glimpse—not of him, but of myself, standing, kept, and no longer afraid.
⧪
Author’s Note
This book is completed and in its finished form.