Then he produces an ornate key and unlocks the collar with a soft click. It springs open, and I stumble backward, massaging my neck where the metal had warmed against my skin.
I stare up at him, completely confused.
“Only cowards use force,” he repeats, turning toward the hall’s far end.
I immediately scan for other exits. There’s a doorway opposite his direction.
“Please—attempt it. Run,” he challenges without looking back. “I will thoroughly enjoy the chase. But then you will be the deceiver. You promised forever.”
He pauses, fixing me with that predatory stare that makes me feel like prey frozen in a hunter’s sights. “I despise liars above all else.”
The venom in his voice convinces me completely as he says, “Follow me,” and sweeps out of the room.
I hurry after him.
Well, at least I’m not on my knees.
But my confidence dims considerably when we approach another spiral staircase leading down—this one much narrower and more ominous than the grand stairway we climbed earlier. The walls here are rougher, carved directly from living rock rather than constructed with fitted stones. Moisture seeps through cracks, creating dark stains that streak down like tears, and the air grows noticeably thicker and more oppressive with each step.
And down.
And down.
And down.
The spiral seems endless, each turn revealing more of the same ancient stone steps worn smooth by countless feet over centuries. Initially, narrow window slits provide threads of daylight—thin beams that slice through the gloom like golden knives. But the deeper we descend, the more we leave all illumination behind. The windows become mere memory, then disappear entirely.
We must be going far underground now—deeper than any normal castle foundation should extend.
No light penetrates this far down. The darkness here is absolute, pressing against my skin like a living thing. I can hear water dripping somewhere in the distance, each drop echoing endlessly through unseen chambers. The air smells of stone and age and something else I can’t identify—something that makes my skin crawl.
We continue descending through what feels like the Earth’s very bones, so many levels that the daylight from stories above becomes nothing more than a distant memory, like recalling summer warmth in the depths of winter.
I reach out to steady myself against increasingly rough-hewn stone walls that are slick with condensation. The cold here transcends anything I thought possible—it’s not just temperature but something deeper, more fundamental. A cold that seems to seep into my very soul.
“Where exactly are we going?” I whisper, my voice barely audible in the oppressive silence that seems to swallow sound itself.
That’s when I hear it.
A much louder version of the distant sound from this morning—a bone-chilling scream so piercing and filled with agony that every hair on my body stands up. The sound echoes off the stone walls, multiplying and distorting until it becomes a chorus of suffering that seems to come from every direction at once. It’s the kind of scream that speaks of pain beyond human endurance, raw and animalistic and utterly hopeless.
“Please tell me you keep livestock down here?” I scramble for handholds on the increasingly slick stone walls, my fingers finding grooves and crevices worn smooth by centuries of seeping water.
“No,” he says simply, his voice carrying easily through the darkness as he continues his relentless descent. The single wordechoes back to me from the depths below, seeming to multiply:No... no... no...
I freeze. Then take a step backward.
“What’s down there?” I hate how the stone amplifies my trembling voice.
“Follow me,” he commands. “Follow or return upstairs and kneel.”
ELEVEN
HANNAH
I shake my head,then remember it’s pitch black and he can’t see. “Neither option.”
“You are not a child,” he growls. “Choose. See what lies below or return above and kneel.”
