Chapter 622: Beneath the Castle Where Silence Screams
That night, Sophia did not return to her room.
Her mother did not allow it.
Instead, she was taken beneath the castle that sat alone atop the hill, its silhouette carved against a sky that no longer felt like night but something heavier, something watching.
Sophia had never known a place like that existed.
Not beneath the world she understood.
Not beneath anything she had ever been allowed to see.
The stairs spiraled downward for so long she lost sense of time, her small hand held tightly as she was led deeper and deeper into stone that grew colder with every step.
The place did not feel like a part of the castle.
It felt like something that had been buried and left to rot.
Chains.
Iron.
Blood.
And something worse than all of it combined.
Sophia stopped walking.
Her feet refused to move forward.
Her eyes adjusted slowly, and when they did, she saw him.
A man.
