{IRIS}
We walked through the empty halls—Sebastian ahead of me, his posture stiff, his footsteps silent.
Mine were softer, uneven, echoing faintly against the cold stone floor. For once, the mansion did not breathe. It did not whisper. It did not watch me.
For the first time since I stepped foot here, the castle felt truly . . . unnervingly quiet.
The silence pressed against my ears until they rang. I could hear the rhythm of my heart—fast, skittering, frantic. I knew Sebastian could hear it too, with his sharp senses and colder-than-ice gaze.
But he did not comment.
He did not even look at me.
And perhaps that was why everything felt so hollow.
Nothing mattered anymore.
Not the training.
Not the lessons.
Not the rules carved in blood.
Because at the end of it all—
I was weak.
And I would always be weak.
I opened my mouth to say something—to break the suffocating silence—when—
Thud.
