Laughter, cruel and mocking, broke the silence that followed. Balthazar crawled from the shadows like a wraith, his eyes gleaming with mirth as they found Raul’s disfigured visage.
“Oh, look at you!” he sneered, his voice dripping scornfully. “You’re hideous. Your face burned to a crisp. A fitting look for someone who’s spent his life playing with fire.”
“Shut up!” Raul growled, his voice hoarse but brimming with fury. His one good eye glared at Balthazar, blazing with rage and humiliation.
“Who did this to you?” Balthazar prodded further.
“Reyna,” Raul spat, the name leaving his lips like venom. “She’s insane. Dangerous. Fucking crazy. I had captured her before I acquired Marcellious. She may have the face of an angel, but she’s capable of unspeakable things.
“Once I had my fun with Marcellious—broken him completely—I threw him into a cell with Reyna. That’s when she escaped,” Raul growled, his voice laced with bitterness. “She doused me and my men with some kind of liquid—a poisonous substance that ignited into searing flames on contact. I wouldn’t be surprised if she and Marcellious were lovers.”
“Reyna and Marcellious? Lovers?” I said, disbelief dripping from every word. “Preposterous.”
Raul’s smirk deepened, the scars marring his face twisting with malice. “Oh, but I found her hugging him, whispering everything would be alright. Go on, tell Marcellious’ wife that he betrayed her. Let’s see how loyal they remain.”
A surge of fury bubbled within me, but I swallowed it down, focusing instead on the battles I faced beyond the confines of this wretched dungeon. My newborn child. Olivia. This man’s petty insinuations were nothing compared to the storms raging within the estate’s walls.
I stepped closer to the barriers that separated us.
“You’re lying!” I spat out, unable to contain the disbelief and contempt in my voice.
Raul’s response was a slow, wicked grin that deepened the shadows etched into his ravaged face. His one good eye gleamed with satisfaction, a predator relishing his prey’s unease.
“Lying? You see what she did to my face and my men,” he hissed. “She’s deadly, but who is she? And why isn’t she chained down here with the rest of us?”
His voice dripped with suspicion and malice, the words laced with venom. The stench of sweat and blood thickened the air, mingling with the metallic tang of fear.
I let out a low, humorless laugh, bouncing off the damp stone walls and mingling with Balthazar’s mocking chuckle.
“Are you telling me a woman bested you?” I sneered, my tone cutting like a blade. “How pathetic.”
Regaining my composure, I stared Raul down. “Tell me, Raul. Why did you take Marcellious? Why did you take Reyna hostage? Whose orders were you following?”
Raul seemed to shrink back, his shoulders sagging under defeat. His eyes darted around the dungeon as if searching for an escape, but there was none. The walls closed in, the air thick with tension.
“I don’t know who he is,” he muttered, almost as if speaking to himself. “I just follow his orders. He is a powerful man.”
I narrowed my eyes, stepping closer. “A powerful man? Is he a Timehunter like you—only stronger, more connected? Does he belong to a greater society that wields even more control over time and space?”
Raul’s silence was answer enough, but Balthazar’s sharp voice cut through the oppressive quiet before he could respond. “Why don’t you tell Roman how you are now the only Timehunter left in Italy, thanks to me? I destroyed your pathetic band of vermin on the night of your masquerade.”
His words left a cold silence in their wake. I looked at Raul, his form now less formidable, a lone figure in the grand scheme of our conflict—a pawn discarded after the play.
“Was your society in Italy destroyed by Balthazar?” I asked, my voice low, disbelief threading through each word.
The flickering light of the torches danced across Raul’s hollowed features, casting shadows that stretched like skeletal fingers along the stone walls.
“Yes,” he replied, his tone devoid of the venom it once carried, now hollow and resigned. “But let us set aside the fate of my society for a moment.”
I stiffened, sensing a darker truth about to unravel.
“I came to your cave for a different purpose,” Raul continued, his voice sharpening like the edge of a blade. “To warn you.”
“Warn me?” I echoed, the disbelief twisting into something colder.
Raul’s gaze locked onto mine, a glint of something unreadable flickering in his lone eye. “I’ve informed the Timehunter leader in Anatolia about your possession of the sun and moon daggers. They know your wife and her friends are Timebornes and Timebounds. They will soon be on their way here.”
His words hit like a thunderclap, reverberating through the chamber. My jaw tightened, fury and dread battling for dominance within me.
