Chapter 68: the Man in the Dungeon

The Rosaria Estate was silent, but beneath the stone foundation, the shadows whispered of old crimes and deeper secrets.

In the darkest dungeon, the air was thick with mildew and despair. A torch flickered against damp stone, casting crooked shadows as Lee Rosaria descended into the undercroft like a viper slinking through the dark.

The prisoner sat slumped in chains. A man, perhaps once handsome, now a specter of his former self. Golden hair, streaked with ash-gray, hung in lank strands over hunched shoulders. His skin was pale, eyes hollow and glassy, as though he hadn't seen the sun in decades.

Lee stood before him, sneering.

"You knew about the cliffs, didn't you?" she asked, voice low and poisonous.

He didn't look at her. He was staring into a memory- the memory of her.

Windblown gold hair. Eyes like twilight stars. Her laughter, echoing along the coastal cliffs.

A name tumbled from cracked lips. "Aurora."

Lee snarled. Her nails dug into the man's face as she gripped his jaw.

"Useless," she spat, striking him across the cheek. "Damn you, Alejandro. You're nothing now."

She turned to two Inquisition agents who had followed her down. "Take him. Dump him in the river. No one will know."

They unlocked his shackles. Blood seeped from his raw wrists as they hauled him out into the cold night.

They marched him for miles, to the deep river that carved through the forest. The moonlight struck his eyes, and for a moment, he remembered who he was.

The pistol clicked. A cruel hand shoved him to his knees.

"Pray for absolution, pendejo," one of the agents mocked, raising the gun to his forehead.

Alejandro only smiled.

He whistled—a long, low sound, and with it, golden-yellow magic seeped from his mouth like incense smoke.

Suddenly, shrieking and flapping filled the air. Birds—hundreds of them—burst from the trees, talons and beaks pelting the agents in a chaos of feathers and fury.

A silver hawk flew directly into the inquisition agents, one screaming about his eye.

The pistol dropped.

And Alejandro dove.

The river swallowed him whole, and the night fell still once more.

By the time Lee returned to the estate, already plotting retaliation for the losses at Windswept Manor, the escape reached her ears.

Her rage was volcanic.

She smashed glass, shattered porcelain, and screamed curses that echoed through the marble halls.

There would be hell to pay.