He paired the words with a wink, vanishing into a sift of obsidian as the throne room buckled under the darkness.
His warning lingered—that this was not an end, nor a mercy. Merely that the fire he left behind had only just begun to burn.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Verena
IF THE ENDLESS PAIN DIDN’T KILL ME, the damn dripping would.
That ceaseless flow was like a knife point tapping directly against my forehead.
Time no longer belonged to me. It warped, turning on itself until each breath felt eternal, or like my last.
Reve came often, his words slipping past me now, dissolving before they could even land.They had lost their shape, their edges, even their sting.
Most days I drifted out of my body and let him talk to the stone. Other days, I searched for the curse through the basement of my mind, waiting for its hiss to rise and strike.
Whatever magic was laced through the shackles smothered it completely.
I had once imagined that might feel like freedom. It didn’t.
Sometimes, when the soundless dark crowded too tight, I built a meadow in my head—tall grass waving against an endless deep blue sky, hills blooming with colors no mortal eye could hold.
She was always there, the woman I’d dream of, stroking my hair with phantom fingers, humming the same low tune.
I knew she wasn’t real. But gods, I needed her.
Because no one else was coming.
Now, all I had was stone.
I traced its grooves with cracked nails and split fingers, memorizing each rough line until it felt like a map of my survival.
Proof that I was still here. Not free, but alive.
There was no sunlight to warm me, no sky to breathe. Only the stagnant stench of blood and rot. And the dark. My only witness, my only embrace, since the lantern outside my cell had long since gone cold.
If Callum shared the same pit of swallowed light, I didn’t know. I tried not to think of him. Or his screams. That path only led to Gemma. And my heart couldn’t survive that truth.
Not yet. Not ever.
My fingers went slack, sliding to the floor at my sides. Should I pray? Would it even matter? After everything I’d done, after the damage I’d left behind, would any God still listen?
My skull tipped back against the wall, too lightheaded to hold upright. I was tired. Bone-deep tired. My chin dipped again, falling forward as my mind slid into a dreamless drift.
The sound that tore me out of it was the click of metal as the lock to the door turned. Pain arced up my spine in waves under my skin, a groan breaking inside me but never reaching the air.
Reve had already come today. I hadn’t slept since.
Why was he back?
Maybe this was it, the final visit. He’d pried everything he could from me and now he’d finish the work, scatter me into pieces until there was nothing left to save.
Elva.
Her name rose in me like a wound. Her soft hands, her quiet heart, she wouldn’t last a day in this pit. Panic flooded my chest, choking out breath, a tide of black water closing over my head. They would kill me and throw her down here instead.
No. No.No.
