Olivia’s POV
The doors closed behind us with a weighty thud, the echoes stretching down the stone corridor long after the guards had stepped aside. My hand was still clasped tightly in Lucas’s, but neither of us said a word as we walked.
The council’s hallways were carved from ancient stone, tapestries heavy with dust lining the walls. The air smelled faintly of old parchment and smoke, as if the building itself remembered every trial, every whispered bargain made inside it. It felt like walking through the belly of a beast that wanted to swallow us whole.
The guards led us to our chambers—lavish, far too ornate compared to what we needed. A fire already burned in the hearth, casting shadows across velvet drapes and polished wood. When the door shut behind us, the silence was suffocatin
