(Lucian’s POV)
The castle was breathing.
At least, that was how it felt.
Lucian halted in the grand corridor, every candle shuddering as if the stones exhaled with him. The air throbbed. The walls hissed. He almost heard his name drifting on the drafts.
Lucian...
His skin crawled. The voice wasn’t Angel’s; it was too old, too cold.
He spun, every shadow stretching toward him like a reaching hand. “Who’s there?”
Only silence answered, followed by a low hum that rose from the floors, vibrating through his boots, crawling up his spine.
He’d grown up hearing that the Golden Keep had a memory, that it remembered the laughter and screams of its kings. But this was something else. This was hunger.
Your blood is the key, the whisper said.
Lucian stumbled backward, heart slamming painfull
