The passage Marcus led me down felt like descending into the bowels of hell itself.
Stone walls that wept moisture in the flickering torchlight, air thick with the smell of despair and old blood.
Each step echoed like a funeral march, and I couldn't shake the feeling that we were walking into something that would fundamentally change me as a person. Or whatever passed for a person when you were technically dead.
The corridor twisted deeper underground than should have been possible, temperature dropping until the air felt like breathing winter itself.
We passed through security doors that looked like they belonged in a medieval torture chamber, which, knowing Marcus, they probably did.
The final chamber was circular, carved directly from living rock. Torches burned in iron sconces, casting shadows that danced like demons on the walls.
And in the center, suspended by heavy iron shackles, was a woman who made my dead heart stop completely.
She looked like Maeve.
