Page 184 of Severed Heir

The air reeked of blood and char. A dim torch guttered in the corner, casting long, flickering shadows across the cramped interior. Callum turned slowly from the door he was guarding deeper inside. His blade gleamed. His mouth curled into that familiar, smug sneer.

“Stay out of this, false heir,” he said.

I nearly flinched at the name but forced my spine straight. “We’re still connected,” I said, stepping forward. Desperation bled into every word. “Naraic... he’s still bonded to him. If you hurt him, it’ll destroy everything.”

Callum took a step toward me, and I felt it then, that invisible tether between Naraic and me quivering like a thread pulled too tight. My skin prickled. My breath caught in my throat.

“He’s still in there. Please, Callum.”

For a moment it was silent.

Then Naraic’s voice slammed through the bond, harsh and unforgiving.“Why are you lying?”

Callum laughed. “And I’m supposed to care?”

He wanted me gone. And he wasn’t going to stop until I was broken enough to leave willingly.

I looked up at Callum. “Please,” I said, my voice cracking. “I just want to see him.”

He didn’t answer. Just turned down the hallway without a word.

I stepped after him, one hand braced against the wall to keep steady. “You don’t have to torture him,” I said quietly. “Please.”

“Torture?” a voice echoed mildly through a second door.

Charles emerged from the shadows, calm as ever. “Quite the opposite.” He tipped his head toward the room behind him. “You want to talk to him? Fine.”

I paused at the threshold, heart racing. “Are you going to kill him?”

Charles didn’t answer right away. The torchlight hit the hollow of his cheek, throwing harsh shadows across his face.

“That depends,” he said finally. “On what you see. And whether you still believe he’s worth saving.”

Then he turned and disappeared into the room, leaving the door open behind him.

I followed.

The moment I stepped inside, the breath left my lungs. Klaus was shackled to a table, hunched over. His nails were torn down to the quick. Blood spattered the wood in erratic strokes, each smear more frantic than the last.

He was writing.

Words scrawled in red stretched across the surface. They weren’t random. They were sentences. Pleas. Accusations. Names.

I turned to Charles, nausea curling in my gut. “You bastard.”

“He demanded a quill,” Charles said flatly. “We refused. So, he used what he had.”

Klaus sat bound, arms crossed tightly over his chest. His breathing was ragged, unsteady. But his eyes locked on mine with wild intensity. “She claimed my dragon,” he snarled. “Stole my power. Fucked my best friend.”

His mouth pulled into a jagged smile, lips splitting over bared teeth. The gold in his eyes was gone, replaced by sunken pits—dark and hollow. Just like Mother's had been in the end.

“What’s next, little sis?” he hissed. “Shall I write your death? Archer’s?”

“Klaus,” I whispered, stepping closer, each breath harder to take. “This isn’t you. You love me.”

His voice turned sharp. “I told Mother I would die. And she sent me anyway.”

The chair rocked beneath him, the legs scraping against the floor in a slow, rhythmic tilt, like a cradle turned wrong.

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