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Chapter 9 - ~Chapter Eight: Shadows Below~

The afternoon sun filtered through the narrow slits high in the stone walls of the underhall, casting fractured beams across the damp floor. The lower levels of the palace were carved from bedrock and ancient foundation stones, the air always cool and tinged with the metallic scent of rust and rot. Few came down here anymore, not unless ordered. The gallows were no longer for public display, but quiet punishment—a grim, forgotten place buried beneath the palace's finery.

Rowan descended the winding staircase alone, his dress shoes echoing off the stone with each careful step. He knew the guards had rotated for lunch. He'd timed it precisely. The guards at the upper passage rarely questioned him anymore after his ascension, and the ones assigned to the gallows themselves had grown lax over the years. No one cared what happened to the girl locked away beneath their feet—no one but Rowan.

He passed rows of cells, some filled, most empty, the moans of the damned reaching his ears, the iron bars of the cells gaping like black teeth. Shaows stretched long from the flickering torches. Water dripped somewhere in the distance. When he reached the end of the corridor, he paused, squaring his shoulders.

He stepped into the chamber where she was kept.

Lenore.

She sat slouched against the wall, chains draped across her wrists like dead vines. Her hair was longer now, wild and matted in places, framing her pale face like smoke. Bruises painted her skin in dull shades of purple and blue, evidence of the slow erosion the years had carved into her. But those did nothing to dull her beauty. Her now eerie allure.

Rowan said nothing at first, simply watched her, gaze flicking from her bowed head to the way her fingers twitched absently.

He cleared his throat.

Lenore stirred, just barely. Her hazel-blue eyes lifted to his grey ones—no longer burning with fury, but hollowed out and rimmed with shadow. She blinked slowly, as if not entirely certain he was real.

"You shouldn't be here," she rasped, voice like dry parchment and rusted nails.

Rowan tilted his head, almost mockingly. "And yet here I am."

A silence passed between them, brittle as frostbite.

"Come to savor it? My ruin?" she asked, her tone seeping with venom, though the sharpness had dulled with time.

He smiled faintly—an expression filled with something darker than amusement. Satisfaction. Guilt. "Would it matter if I had?"

Lenore turned her face away, jaw clenched, the chains rattling with the tension in her shoulders. "It would be fitting," she said bitterly. "A serpent feeding off of the wreckage it helped create."

Rowan stepped closer, his gaze flicking over the damage time had done to her. His voice was low, almost fond. "You know, they say the Bloon Mood will be brighter this year."

He looked around the gallows, disgust in his eyes. "A shame you won't get to see it from down here."

"That's what you believe," she muttered.

He didn't flinch. Instead, he crouched just slightly, not close enough to be within reach but close enough that she could see the weariness at the corners of his eyes. "It would be easier to give up, Lenore."

She looked at him then, truly looked. Her hatred hadn't cooled—it had matured. Hardened. But beneath it lay something bitterer still: grief. Regret. She searched his face for any trace of the man who clutched her hand in the orchard and swore he would protect her. Be by her side. Yet all she found was a stranger, steeped in silence and shadows.

"I have," she whispered. "You made sure of it."

Rowan's expression flickered, the satisfaction in his smile dimmed by a brief shadow of guilt—but it didn't leave. If anything, he looked…pleased. Like had confirmed something. Like this exchange had nourished something twisted inside him.

"Rest well, Lenore," he said, the softness in his tone now tinged with cruel finality.

Then he turned and left. Leaving Lenore in her chains.

Rowan emerged from the underhall into the corridor above, blinking as the light changed. A servant boy hovered near the stairwell, clutching a stack of linens. 

Rowan beckoned him over with two fingers.

The boy approached warily. Rowan pulled out a folded slip of parchment from his sleeve and pressed it into the boy's hands before digging in his pocket and pulling out two silver coins and handing them to the boy as he whispered something to him.

The boy nodded, eyes wide. "Yes, my lord."

The boy dashed off quickly after Rowan gave him a sharp look. He tugged his sleeves of his robe straight, smoothed down his doublet, adjusted the brooch of his house Theralis on his shoulder, and rolled his neck to dispel the lingering stiffness. His face, once tight with calculation, smoothed over with noble indifference.

He then turned on his heel and strode toward the council wing for the day's meeting, his steps confident and unhurried. Anyone watching would see nothing more than a councilman attending to state affairs.

He did not notice, however, the figure watching from the archway behind him.

A guard in the shadows, unmoving.

From above, the afternoon light continued to stream in through narrow windows, gliding the marble stone floor with false warmth.

The gallows whispering below.

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