“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, strained.“I know nothing about a Noctyss poison.”
A lie.
A weak one.
But it was all he had.
Salvatore’s laugh followed—cold as a tomb, the sound of death scraping stone.
“You are living proof of the Noctyss poison,” he hissed.“I can smell it.Feel it.It’s lodged in your broken, misshapen bones.”
A pause followed—slow and cruel, heavy with unspoken threat.
“Your society was powerful once—herbs, fear, reputation.Until your wife died.”
His voice darkened, each word dipped in venom.“So I’ll ask again—who created the poison?”
Silence stretched, razor-thin, every breath a risk.The air around us was a noose.
“It was Lord Hassan,” my father said.
A lie.
A shield.
Cast over me like armor I didn’t deserve.
My eyes widened, breath faltering, heart lurching in my chest.
Why?
Why would he protect me—after everything between us?
Our relationship—a tangled tapestry of control, rebellion, and pain—suddenly bore a single thread of sacrifice.
I pressed closer to the door, peering through the narrow crack.My fingers were ice-cold, my breath held hostage, my soul trembling in its cage.
Salvatore stood still.Unmoving.Yet the air shivered around him, as if reality itself recoiled before him.
Then he spoke?—
Low.Venomous.
“No...it was not Lord Hassan.The alchemist was a woman.”
His head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing like a predator scenting blood.
“Where is your daughter...Elizabeth?”
My breath caught, the world spun sideways.
“She’s dead,” my father answered, his voice hoarse.“She didn’t make it.”
Silence.
A beat of stillness that stretched the air razor-thin.
Then Salvatore screamed—a sound of pure rage and inhuman fury, the kind that fractured stone.
