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Chapter 7 - ~Chapter Six: Beneath Iron and Ash~

Four years later, present day, 5 months until the Blood Moon

The gallows stank of mildew, rust, and forgotten souls.

Lenore sat chained to the stone wall, her arms bound above her head, the cold iron biting deeo into her wrists. Moonlight filtered through the slats of her cell from the ceiling, casting thin silver bars across the filth covered floor. Around her, other prisoners shifted in restless sleep or quiet agony, their moans and coughs a constant lullaby of misery.

She no longer flinched at the sounds. They were as natural now as her own breathing.

Four years in this pit, and her spirit hadn't broken.

 The pain had been endless. Her days were measured in beatings from not only whips, but at the mercy of wayward guards looking for an outlet of their frustration, in spoiled bread and sour water, in the echo of screams that weren't always her own. Her back bore the scars of lashes meted out for the crimes she hadn't committed, her flesh marked with the cruelty of nobility and guards alike. The wounds healed in twisted lines, but the memories hadn't faded. Not even slightly. Her dress in tethers, fabric that clung uselessly to her now small frame. 

Her breasts hung low, half-covered, and exposed to the biting cold of the cells that sat below the palace.

She had been the age of seventeen when they chained her here. A mere girl. Now, she was something else entirely.

Lenore's hair, once silky strawberry-blonde and pinned in noble coils, hung in wild, tangled waves down her back, darkened and dirty from neglect. Her skin, once ivory and warm with life and love, was now pale and bruised, dirt smudged across her hollow cheeks. Her eyes were dimmed by exhaustion but not extinguished.

Inside her, something coiled. Waiting.

She had survived on the thin thread of fury, on the bitter taste of injustice that never left her tongue. Some days, she'd spoken aloud to the walls, to her aunt's spirit, to the bloodied memory of Rowan's face when he'd accused her those years ago. Other days, she had stayed silent, saving her voice for the moment it would matter most.

They had tried to make her forget who she was. But pain had the opposite effect.

The guards have grown complacent. One of them, a man who looked to be in his thirties with sharp eyes and a cautious demeanor, had started to linger by her cell. His gaze slithered over her like oil. He thought her harmless, reduced.

Let him think that.

The Blood Moon was soon to come.

She knew it was coming. She could feel it, deep within her, a place she did not know. It was in the way the air tasted—charged almost, like a storm building behind the sky.

The same cursed moon that had risen above her ruin would rise again.

But this time, Lenore would not be the one who bled.

She shifted in her chains, feeling the familiar pinch at her wrists, the crack of old scabs reopening. She welcomed the pain.

Somewhere beyond these walls, the nobles are dancing and scheming. Rowan still lived behind polished words and courtly lies. The princes—Severin, cold and crue; Corvin, sharp-eyed and unreadable; Darius, distant and silent—they had returned to their lives.

But Lenore had been left behind. Caged. Forgotten.

Until now.

She tipped her head back against the stone, letting the moonlight ghost across her face.

'This is not the end.'

The Blood Moon was coming.

And so was she.

~

Far above the dungeons of the gallows, the palace loomed in quiet splendor beneath the velvet sky.

Severin stood on the northern balcony of his room, the kingdom of lycans stretched out beneath him, its rooftops silvered by moonlight. His eyes, pale and neutral, lingered on the distant outline of the gallows tower—a shadowed blemish against the beauty of the kingdom he and his brothers would one day rule.

He hadn't thought of her in months. Not truly. But now, as the Blood Moon approached once more, whispers had begun to stir in court like wind through dry leaves.

Lenore.

Her name returned like a stain that would not fade.

His jaw tightened. Four years, and still the court hadn't fully silenced her memory. There were always those who debuted, who whispered behind gloved hands. About the blood. The blade. The trial.

About Rowan.

Severin exhaled slowly, fingers curling around the edge of the balustrade.

He had done what was required. The punishment had fit the crime. At least, that's what he had told himself. What they all told themselves.

But even now, with the truth buried beneath years of dust and decree, something about it sat wrong in his chest.

He would never admit it, however. Not aloud.

And especially not to Corvin or Darius.

The wind shifted, carrying with it the distant clang of bells from the harbor beyond. He turned his head slightly, his gaze returning to the gallows tower.

Something was coming. He could feel it. Not dread, not fear—just inevitability.

The Blood Moon was underway.

And perhaps with it, something buried.

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