The Valdemar estate looked different from underground, colder and crueler.
Bastián dragged me through the lower corridors without speaking while two guards followed several steps behind us. Stone walls swallowed the sound of our footsteps; the deeper we went beneath the estate, the heavier the air became, damp with earth and rusted iron.
My wrists still burned from the restraints while the Bond pulsed faintly between us, strained raw after the chapel. I could feel his anger through it now in sharp flashes of violent control layered over something dangerously close to betrayal, but he kept it locked down.
That frightened me more than rage would have.
We stopped outside a thick iron door reinforced with steel bolts. One of the guards stepped forward immediately and unlocked it without qu
