The towering Gothic castle loomed grand and magnificent, its spires and interwoven domes dizzying to the eye. Sunlight filtered through stained-glass windows, scattering across the ground and casting humanity in a thousand shifting hues.
Yet the place was not gilded in splendor—on the contrary, it was blanketed in dust and cobwebs. Furniture had long since been reduced to ashes, the remnants bearing scars of some great fire. Simply sitting on the ground left their bodies caked in soot that could not be shaken off.
"Goddammit, where the hell is Silvanus?!"
Drake roared. Losing his legs didn't affect him much—he looked as if he could keep shouting for another two hundred years without pause.
Then, the others realized Silvanus hadn't entered this place with them. And Lilith… she was gone without a trace as well.
"Maybe he did go off to marry Lilith," Cocona said, half-joking, half-serious.
