The air thinned. My wrists throbbed against the ropes, and the world seemed to narrow until there was nothing but the fortress ahead.
This wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t a chance.
Someone had planned this—carefully, deliberately. They hadn’t just torn my life apart; they had designed its destruction.
And whoever the fuck they were?—
They would bleed for it.
Chapter9
Salvatore
The wagon shuddered to a halt, the wheels groaning like dying beasts. Chains clinked, wood creaked, and then—silence. The kind that pressed against the ears until you forgot how to breathe.
We had arrived at the end of hope.
The Dreadhold loomed before us. A fortress built into the cliffside, where despair was not a visitor, but a god enthroned. Its walls—black basalt layered with pale limestone—loomed like a wound against the sky, its towers jagged and cruel. Even the wind refused to touch it, dragging thin along the plain like a dying breath.
The horses at the front of the wagon snorted and stamped, flanks glistening with sweat despite the chill. Steam rose from their backs in trembling wisps. Their ears pinned back, eyes rolling white as another low groan seeped from the fortress walls—like the place itself was breathing.
The guards said nothing. They simply moved.
Hands like vices gripped my arms, dragging me down from the wagon. My feet hit the ground hard, knees cracking against packed earth. The hemp ropes that had bound us through the journey were yanked away, only to be replaced by iron.
Chains bit into my wrists—cold, merciless, heavier than guilt itself. Beside me, Lazarus stumbled, his bound hands yanked back as a guard hooked the links between us. The motion hauled me upright as much as it steadied him—a graceless, desperate tether keeping us from crumpling to the dirt.
I lifted my gaze.
The Dreadhold’s gates were made of aged green bronze, their surface scarred by time and by men who had tried to claw their way free. Towers rose on either side like the ribs of some colossal carcass. The smell that rolled from within was unbearable—damp stone, human filth, and rot baked into the air.
The sounds came next.
Not voices. Not words.
But the remnants of them.
Moans that were too long, too hollow to belong to the living. Chains scraping like broken bones dragged across stone. Screams—distant but not imagined—bleeding through the walls in waves that rose and fell with the wind.
Every sound cut through me like iron teeth.
And we hadn’t even stepped inside.
Lazarus’ voice came low beside me, barely more than a whisper. “What did we do to deserve this?”
I swallowed hard, my mouth tasting of rust. “We didn’t do anything.”
A guard’s sandal slammed into my back, driving the air from my lungs. I stumbled forward, the chain between us snapping taut and dragging Lazarus with me. We caught each other by tension alone, swaying, held upright by the iron that bound us.
“You killed your father,” the guard sneered, his words wet with contempt.
The other guards laughed—harsh, empty sounds that rattled inside my skull like stones in a jar. Laughter I’d heard before. Voices I wished I hadn’t.
My father’s voice echoed in them. His scorn. His judgment.
I clenched my jaw until the muscles burned, the pain crawling down my neck like fire beneath the skin. My words came out low, broken at the edges, barely more than breath.
“I told you before,” I murmured. “And I’ll tell you again—I didn’t kill my father.”
