The cell tilted. The floor swam.
“I left her,” I whispered, the truth souring in my mouth. “And now I’m here—rotting in this gods-damned pit—and she’s gone.”
A tremor ran through me, my whole body shaking. My shoulder burned, the pain blooming down my arm, searing through my bones.
“I’ll never see her again,” I gasped.
I looked at him through blurred vision, the shadows splitting and warping.
“You got what you wanted,” I said, voice breaking apart. “Your father’s dead.”
Tears finally came, bitter and hot, cutting through the dirt on my face.
“I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t bury her. I left her alone.”
My voice wavered. “And now I’ll rot here with the same gods who let her die.”
The silence that followed was unbearable. It filled the cell—thick, heavy, grief made sound.
I folded into myself and whispered, half to him, half to the dark, “She died hating me.”
“Lazarus—”
Salvatore’s voice cracked. It wasn’t sharp or proud; it was fragile. The sound of a man breaking quietly. His eyes glistened in the half-light, and for a moment, he looked less like my friend and more like someone made hollow by his own sins.
“Tell me the truth, Salvatore.”
My pulse thundered, each beat an accusation.
“Did you kill Helena?” My voice barely carried. “Her lovers. Your father.”
He went still.
The chain between us stilled too, its clink swallowed by the air. His jaw tensed. His breath hitched.
That silence told me everything.
Then his lips parted, and his voice bled out, thin and shaking.
“I did,” he whispered. “I killed them. Helena. Her lovers. But I didn’t mean to. I was just…” He swallowed hard, his voice fraying. “I was so angry.”
The words struck like a thrown stone. I could feel my heartbeat in my teeth.
“Angry?” I said, the word hollow, foreign in my mouth. “That’s your excuse?”
“You don’t understand!” His voice broke, loud in the small cell, bouncing off the walls. “Do you know what my father did to me that day?”
His hands clenched, bronze cuffs grinding against the limestone floor. His whole body shook, the chain around his neck rattling softly. “He beat me until I couldn’t stand. Spat on me. Called me nothing less than the dirt beneath his sandals. Said I had disgraced the Lorian name.” His breath came in ragged bursts. “I was already broken, Lazarus. Already fucking broken.”
He pressed his palms to the ground, the tremor in his arms barely contained.
“I went to Helena’s house,” he said, quieter now. “I just needed something. Someone. Anything that didn’t hurt.”
He drew in a shuddering breath. “When I got there…” His words trailed into a whisper. “She was in bed with two men.”
His head bowed low, dark hair hiding his face. “Not one. But two.”
He laughed once—a hollow, joyless sound, like air escaping a dying fire.
