The Portrait of Our Damnation *signed*

After accepting a commission to paint an infamous 1800s duke, Isabel expects a challenge… not the feeling that something is very, very wrong.

It starts normally. Reference photos. Historical notes. A stack of the duke’s journals, sent by his descendant so she can “get him right.”

At first, it’s just research. Until she starts reading.

The duke writes like a man in love. And he’s writing about her. Not in a distant, poetic way. In details that are too specific. Too close. Moments she’s never lived. Conversations she’s never had.

But they don’t feel imagined. They feel familiar. Like something she’s forgotten… not something she’s never known.

She brings it up. The descendant laughs it off. Tells her she’s getting too deep into the work. That it happens. That artists lose the line between themselves and what they’re creating.

It should make sense. It almost does. But then he starts showing up more. Checking in. Bringing food. Letting himself in like it’s normal. Like he belongs there. And every time she questions something, he has an answer ready. Calm. Reasonable.

Just enough to make her hesitate. Just enough to make her doubt herself instead.

Because he doesn’t push hard. Not at first. He just… stays. And the longer he stays, the harder it becomes to tell where her space ends, and he begins.

Meanwhile, the journals don’t stop. They get worse. More intimate. More detailed. More hers.

And something in her starts to break open.

Every year, she falls in love with the same man. Every July, she dies. Every autumn, she comes back… with no memory of it ever happening.

Until now. Now it’s bleeding through. The journals aren’t stories. They’re her life. Over and over again.

And the portrait she’s painting...It isn’t just a painting. It’s a way back. To him. To the truth. To the witch who’s been killing her, again and again.

But finishing it means leaving. And leaving means getting past the man who’s made himself part of her life. The one who watches her too closely. Who decides what she needs before she asks. Who smiles like everything is fine… even when it isn’t.

Because the closer she gets to finishing the painting, the more he changes. Less patient. Less gentle. Like he knows what she’s trying to do.

And he’s not going to let her walk away. Not this time.