Rey had never seen this part of the castle before.
The air changed the moment she stepped into the Alpha's wing, as Raina had directed. It was heavier, charged, as if the very walls were holding their breath. Her footsteps were muted by a lush black carpet that stretched endlessly ahead.
The corridor was nothing like the rest of the castle; it was darker, colder, and steeped in wealth and silence. Walls of polished obsidian stone rose high on either side, broken only by columns and high-arched windows draped in thick velvet. The air was cold, but not from temperature, from silence. A silence that felt carved from stone and left to rot.
The sconces lining the walls were gilded, shaped like wolf heads with gaping mouths, flames flickering from within their throats. Their glass eyes follo
