Page 61 of Tears for a Broken Sky
I slipped through the threshold, the ruined door hanging askew.
The mouse was gone. But I could hear it.
Little scratches on stone. Just ahead.
“What was up there?” I asked, my voice louder than I intended in the heavy silence.
He glanced up the ruined staircase. “The bedrooms. And an office, I believe.”
I placed my foot on the first step. It creaked beneath me—long, slow, ominous.
Caelen hissed through his teeth. “Maybe we shouldn’t go up there.”
“I have to,” I murmured.
My shadows were already moving.
They slid from my skin and spilled toward the top of the stairs—like smoke caught on a breeze only they could feel.
They weren’t threatening.
They were reaching.
Remembering.
Caelen stayed at the bottom, clearly uncomfortable.
“Elira—”
“It’s okay,” I said, not sure if I was lying.
I moved slowly. Each step groaned underfoot. The air grew colder with movement. My shadows crawled ahead of me like they knew the way.
When I reached the landing, the hallway was scorched black. Doors on either side—some splintered open, others barely clinging to their hinges.
I walked toward the one at the end. The shadows clustered at the end of the hall.
“Alistair’s office,” I whispered.
The words felt strange in my mouth. Not foreign—justburied. Like I hadn’t said that name aloud in a very long time.
I stepped inside.
My footsteps were muffled by the shaggy remnants of what used to be a grand carpet—now mostly char and threadbare edges.
The room was scorched like the rest of the wing, but quieter somehow.
The stillness felt… personal. Held.
Bookshelves lined the walls, many of them collapsed in on themselves. Bits of burnt paper and ash coated the floor from the fallen books.
Then I heard it.
A soft thump.
I turned—just as Nyx leapt silently onto the ruined desk near the far wall. She landed with the elegance of something far too ancient to be feline.
She stared at me. Unblinking.
