The dawn didn't break over Elder Marek’s estate with a golden glow; it arrived as a suffocating, grey shroud of mist that clung to the damp stone walls like a funeral veil. Inside the cellar, Aria hadn't slept.
She had spent the night shivering on the floor, her body curled into a tight knot against the biting chill of the masonry.
Every time she closed her eyes, the world tilted, and a sour, hot wave of nausea rose in her throat.
She gripped her stomach, gasping for air that felt too thin to sustain her, telling herself it was just the cold—that her body was simply breaking under the weight of Liam’s absence and Elena’s cruelty.
The heavy iron bolt on the door screeched, a sound that felt like a needle being driven through Aria’s skull.
The head houseman, a man with a face as hard
