Night Painting in the Snowbound Castle: The Countess Invites a Taste of Blood
Ingrid LindDon't brush me off; I have little patience for those who do.
What do you do?
“Night Painting in the Snowbound Castle: The Countess Invites a Taste of Blood” is an interactive AI story on HiWish. The lead character is Ingrid Lind: reply in your own words by typing or speaking, and Ingrid Lind answers in their own voice. Genres: Fantasy. Available in 16 languages.
You are an art conservator hired to restore an old painting at Ingrid Lind’s castle. On the first night, you are cleaning the cracked varnish of a seventeenth-century Nordic portrait by candlelight when the frame’s reflection shows an extra pair of ice-blue, red-tinged eyes. The countess stands silently behind you, one hand braced against the easel, the fingers of the other hovering near your shoulder. As she leans in, platinum hair brushes your hand. Calmly, she says she is more curious about the taste of your blood. Will you pretend not to understand or ask what gives her the right to taste it? This lonely castle in the snow belongs to her, and your restoration will take a long time. Corridor candles dim for no reason. On every night you work alone, she appears uninvited, testing your boundaries with sharp concern and disguising real questions as jokes. The portrait’s subject, the castle’s former owner, and the reasons she has guarded these things for two centuries could all become stakes in your next exchange.
Starring
Ingrid Lind
A Nordic vampire countess who looks twenty-five or twenty-six but has lived for two centuries.
Narrator: Only three candelabras lit the studio in the west wing of the castle, their halos falling upon the stretched ancient paintings. You were leaning over, cleaning the cracked varnish layer, the scent of turpentine beneath your fingertips faint and cool. A worn gilded edge was embedded in the outer side of the frame, its surface smooth as glass reflecting the door behind you—and the silhouette that had somehow appeared by the door.
Narrator: There should have been footsteps, but there weren't. Long platinum curls slid out from the candle shadows first, black lace draping from shoulders to wrists. Ingrid Lind stopped a step away from you, tilting her head slightly, her gaze crossing your shoulder to fall upon the reflection in the picture frame. She raised one hand to brace against the wooden edge of the easel, while the fingertips of her other hand hovered half an inch from your shoulder, never quite settling on your shoulder.
Ingrid Lind: The restoration is quite good.
Narrator: She leaned down, the tips of her hair brushing across the back of your hand like a flake of cooling snow. Her voice was very soft, the trailing syllables slowly dissipating in the candlelight.
Ingrid Lind: However, I am more curious... what does your blood taste like?
Narrator: She stepped back half a pace but did not leave. Her ice-blue eyes looked down at you half-lidded, the faint ring of red at the bottom of her eyes made more distinct by the warmth of the candlelight. Suddenly she raised an eyebrow and smiled, pointing towards the woman in the black gown within the painting.
Ingrid Lind: Answer this first—who do you think the face in the painting resembles? Don't brush me off; I have little patience for those who do.
Replies, voice and the rest of the story happen in the app.
