I moved my bare feet across the stone, swinging myself from ledge to ledge. My hands scraping against the stone, causing grazes on my palms and fingers.
Until I reached the corner of the tower that held my room. Ivy crawled thick and wild, the roots sinking deep into the cracks of the stone walls, making it a sturdy ladder for me to use for my descent.
My heart lurched as my weight shifted, the vines creaking but not breaking. Slowly, painfully I began to descend. My muscles burned as I slowly made it closer to the ground. The sounds shifted around me as every move I made became deliberate. Hiding my body from any lights that shone from the windows.
When my feet finally touched the ground again, I let out a sigh of relief. My body sagged forward, my palms pressing into the earth, breathing hard. For a moment I just stayed there, forehead bowed, letting the reality of what I had done settle into my bones. I knew I had crossed another line, but fuck it, I needed to sort this out.
Behind me, Vaetharyn loomed, vast and beautiful. From the outside it looked less like a home and more like a prison carved from the gods. It was a place I had come to know demanded loyalty, obedience and sacrifice.
I straightened slowly, smoothing out the fabric of my dress as I melted to the shadows along the outer wall. Nothing sounded to alert anyone of my escape, the night accepting me without protest.
The silence bothered me more than any alarm would. It felt less like freedom and more like the calm before something found me again. Before I once again became prey of the hunters lingering within the walls.
As much as I wanted to turn and run, I knew it wasn't an option. I had to find Rhael, I had to explain myself. Even if it was only to ease the guilt filled ache inside of my chest. So, I turned back to the castle. Slipping inside and moving through the halls like a ghost. My bare feet padding along the floors.
I told myself I only wanted answers, closure. Proof that I had not imagined a bond, an attraction, that now felt shattered beyond repair.
When I finally reached Rhael’s office I didn't knock before I pushed the door open, not wanting to give him a chance to send me away. Only to find the room disappointingly empty. The fire was cold and the desk, usually stacked with paperwork, was empty.
I had expected to find him there, surrounded by broken furniture, seething still in his rage. Yet there was nothing. Just an empty space that looked cleaner than the last time I had seen him actually working in it.
The only thing different was the small, narrowed door opened at the other end of the room, just beside the desk. Of all the times I had been in the room I hadn't even bothered to look at it. I knew it was there, but it had always been closed, blending into the wall.
I stepped closer, the air from the doorway was cold with a lingering metallic scent that filled my nose and twisted my stomach. I could have shut the door, pretending I didn't see it and go back to my room. I should have done that. Instead of taking a deep breath Istepped into the darkness.
The stairs spiralled deep into the earth, each step carrying me further from safety, and closer to something I knew deep in my gut would only bring pain. The torchlights grew sparse, shadows thickening until the walls themselves seemed to pulse.
Steadying myself on the cold stone wall beside me I drew in a deep breath. Stopping on one of the stairs, straining my ears to hear something, anything in the silence that was slowly swallowing me whole.
Only after a moment did I hear it. It wasn't a scream, not any more. Just wet, broken noises coming from below as if someone was fighting for breath but drowning at the same time. Drowning was impossible, surely there could not be water under the castle.
I quickened my steps pushing myself deeper down the staircase and into the darkness, panic rising in my chest as the worst thoughts rushed through my mind. Rhael laid at the bottom of the stairs, that it was his struggle I could hear.
Finally, I reached the bottom and blinked. My eyes struggled to adjust to the bright white light that flooded the space. But when I finally took in what was in front of me my entire heart sank to the bottom of my chest.
Rhael stood at the centre of the room, in what looked like a dungeon chamber. His back to me. His shoulders bare and slick with blood, his wings unfurled blocking my view of his face.
The dark leather appendages dripped blood to his feet, catching thetorchlight as if I was in a nightmare. There was blood, so much blood, staining his forearms, splattered across his chest and up the walls. Some of it old and dried, the smell of it making my stomach roll.
A body lay at his feet, or at least what was left of one. I clapped a hand over my mouth, trying to stop the bile that rose in my throat. It looked as though whoever it had once been had crumpled onto the floor in exhaustion before they had finally given up.
Although I could not tell what species it had been as the body no longer looked human. Limbs were twisted in unnatural angles, fingers curled inwards as if they were trying to claw their way across the dark floor. The chest of the mangled mess did not rise. Whoever it was had died a long time ago.
The head had lolled unnaturally to one side, chin tipped towards the shoulder. I tried hard to not look towards the face, but I couldn't help it. Their eyes were void of life as they stared glassily into nothing, reflecting the torchlight.
I had seen death before, too much of it for most, but this was different. This wasn't the chaos of a battle or the cruelty of strangers, this was rage in its truest form. The cuts on the body seemed as if they had been done up close, intimate and personal. I swallowed the vomit that rose in my throat. Determined not to announce my arrival by vomiting over the floor.
“Elara,” he murmured, sensing my presence without even turningaround. I stopped my breath stilling in my chest as I watched him turn to face me. The first thing I felt was his fury.
It rolled off him in waves, thick and suffocating, filling the small room until it pressed against my skin like a physical thing. He remained a few paces away. His chest rising and falling too hard, too fast. The air was thick with the smell of iron and smoke, the finality of the fate of the body before me lingering like a reminder of something much more final.
His eyes found me and I knew instantly that this had been a mistake. They were black, the colour almost completely gone, replaced by voids of nothingness.
“You think it is wise to disobey me?” he questioned, the words controlled, quiet. Which made them even more terrifying. I would have preferred for him to scream at me, to banish me from space. Instead, he just stood still, blood drying already down his chest leaving brown and red smudges over tanned skin.
“You locked me in that room like a prisoner.” I swallowed, forcing my spine to straighten even as every instinct inside me screamed to back away.
“You were under guard for a reason. You do not get to decide when my orders no longer apply,” he frowned, taking a step towards me. Fear clawed up my throat with every menacing step he took, but I refused to let it show. Instead, I curled my fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms, grounding myself in the pain.
