The carriage ride to Mourning Manor had been a descent into a world stripped of all warmth. As the heavy iron gates groaned shut behind the vehicle, Ghea felt the transition in her very marrow. The manor grounds were not simply a garden or a park; they were a sprawling graveyard of forgotten hopes, where the trees reached out with skeletal limbs to scratch at the grey, weeping sky. The air here did not circulate; it stagnated, thick with the scent of damp earth and the metallic tang of something long buried.
Gillian sat across from her in the dimly lit carriage. He was a man defined by a lethal kind of gravity, his presence filling the small space until it felt as though there was no room for oxygen. His suit was tailored to perfection, a deep, midnight black that seemed to absorb the m
