And, Sol shivered between her two kings.
The ripening was here.
The moon was waiting.
And she was already burning for everything that came next.
Chapter forty-five
A Prison for Burning
Kenji
Enough.
The word burned through my skull as I descended the stone steps into the prison beneath my mansion.
Enough with the snakes.
Enough with the betrayal.
Enough with decades of my father's poison seeping into every corner of my world while I was too blind to see it.
Enough.
With fire in mind, I had designed this prison with Reo.
The walls were reinforced concrete coated in heat-resistant ceramic tile—the same material used in industrial furnaces. The floor sloped toward drains that fed into an underground filtration system. Massive ventilation shafts lined the ceiling,engineered to pull smoke and the stench of burning flesh up and out before it could choke the air.
No windows.
No natural light.
Just harsh fluorescent bulbs that cast everything in a clinical, haunting glow.
This was where enemies came to burn.
This was where traitors came to scream.
And tonight, four people I had cared for would be in the furthest cell in the back of the prison, chained to the walls, and waiting for me to decide if they would live or die.
Reo walked on my right, his footsteps echoing against the concrete in steady, measured beats.
Hiro flanked my left, his presence quieter but no less lethal.
The corridor stretched before us—a gauntlet of iron bars and empty cells. Most stood vacant, their doors hanging open like hungry mouths. The few that were occupied held people I didn't bother to look at.
Not yet.
Not until I reached the ones who mattered.
An armed Scale kept guard every five feet. Each time they spotted us, they bowed.
A whimper slithered out from one of the cells as we passed.
Quiet.
Desperate.
