The Shadow Prison had a way of swallowing sound.
No wind. No distant voices. No dripping water. Just the soft rasp of my own breathing.
Kaelith lounged against the far wall of the cell like this was a luxury suite and not a dungeon carved out of nightmares. He hummed some old song under his breath, tapping a rhythm on the stone with one pale finger.
Carlos sat on the bench opposite me, elbows on his knees, head bowed. He wasn’t fully sleeping, not like a proper vampire day-rest, but he wasn’t fully here either. His eyes were half-lidded, focus turned inward, somewhere between memory and oblivion.
I crossed my arms and paced again, counting every step, every tile, every line of the warded bars. There had to be a way out. There was always a way out.
Kaelith stopped humming. “Stop pacing
