Elaria’s scream echoed into silence.

Her body hit the ground with a violent jolt, but this time the stone beneath her was colder than death. The air was wrong—still and heavy, yet thick with whispers, as though the walls themselves breathed. She tried to sit up, but the chains binding her wrists and ankles held fast, pulling her against a pillar carved from vertebrae taller than a castle spire.

Her chest heaved. Her pulse thundered.

“Draven…” she whispered, voice breaking.

But the ...