Page 12 of Jayson
“This place is—” She stops herself. Tries again. “It’s not safe down here. It’s—cold. It smells like mildew and…”
She doesn’t say it. But I hear it anyway.Death.
I reach the bottom and flick the light. A single bulb hums to life overhead, casting a pale yellow glow across the stone floor and walls. The basement is mostly empty—just old furniture covered in white sheets, dust thick in the air, and shadows that press too close.
She wraps her arms around herself, her voice trembling now. “Please don’t leave me down here. Please.I’m cold.”
I turn to face her. She looks too small. Too breakable. But I can’t afford to be soft. Not now. Not with what she saw. There’s too much at stake-a whole fucking empire to consider, and I can’t be the one who lets it crumble to the ground.
“Move,” I say, voice low enough to cut glass. I guide her past the staircase into the service corridor, stone walls sweating with damp. The air grows colder the deeper we go, the scent of mildew wrapping around us like a grave.
At the corridor’s end, the cell waits: rust-bitten bars, a concrete floor stained with sins I don’t care to name. My father kept his problems here. Sometimes they walked out. Sometimes they didn’t.
She stops at the threshold, hugging herself. I can smell the fear on her skin—sharp, metallic, all-consuming.
“I can’t stay here,” she says. “I’ll lose my mind. Please—I’ll doanything. Just don’t lock me down here by myself.”
Her voice splinters on the last word, and she grabs my arm, fingernails digging into my sleeve like she’s trying to anchor herself to me. Her eyes are glossy with panic, with something rawer than fear—abandonment. It hits me like a deeply buried memory.
“I’ll bring some blankets,” I offer, because cruelty without reason is sloppy. And I’m not sloppy.
“That’s not what I need.” The words whip out, sharp and brittle. Then softer, breaking: “Don’t lock me in there. Please.”
A memory slams into me—smaller hands than hers clawing at these very bars, begging in the dark. I swallow hard, shoving it down where old ghosts belong, but the punch in my chest lands anyway.
This is the cost of the throne, I remind myself. Mercy is expensive, and I’m already in debt.
“This is where you stay,” I say, voice rough.
Her grip slips. She looks defeated. And then I close the door. The key scrapes. The hinges groan. But even as the door slams shut between us, steel biting into steel, her sob cuts through the air like a fucking blade. Not soft or delicate. Brutal. Raw. The kind of sound that should gut a man if he had anything left to lose.
I turn away anyway. Let it echo. Let it haunt. I’ve made worse bleed for less.
Upstairs, I don’t speak. I sit in the hallway, stare at the wallacross from me like it holds the answers I seek. My hands are laced with nerves and won’t stop twitching.
I tell myself it was the only choice. She saw too much. Her silence isn’t a promise; it’s a gamble. But I can’t keep her in that cellar forever.
The weight of what I’ve done presses down, heavier than anything ever handed to me. She doesn’t belong in this world. She doesn’t belong in mine. And yet, here we are. Back in the house where all my nightmares sleep. And I just brought her to meet them.
6
KEIRA
The cell is cold. Stone and silence and stale air pressing in on all sides. But I’m colder.
It sinks into my bones, this chill—more than just the lack of heat. It creeps under your skin and stays there. It’s the kind that isn’t just about the room—it’s about what brought you here. What’s been taken. What’s beendone.
No windows. No clock. Just the steady tick of time bleeding out, and the weight of not knowing what your future looks like.
The blanket around my shoulders does nothing to stop the shivering, but there’s no-one to complain to. I sit curled on the narrow bench against the wall, staring at the rusted bars like they’re some ancient artifact instead of my current reality.
It smells like damp earth down here—like the foundation itself is soaked in stories dying to be told. The dark feels alive. Heavy. Watching. Waiting. The walls sweat with it. The floor breathes with it.
Secrets don’t just hide here—they settle. Curl into the stone like veins. And whatever’s been buried down here? It’s been down so long, it doesn’t even bother clawing to the surface anymore. But I can feel them. The ghosts. Not the kind thatrattle chains or slam doors—but the quiet ones. The kind that justwatch, waiting for someone else to join them. And right now, they’re looking at me like I might be next.
A soft shuffle echoes down the hall—barely there, but enough to drag me back to alertness. My head lifts, slow and cautious, every muscle on edge.
She moves slow, like time has finally caught up to her bones—but there’s nothing weak about the way the old lady carries herself. Her spine is straight despite the walking stick. Her eyes are sharp. She appears to be the kind of woman who once ruled a room with a whisper and still could, if she felt like it.
