Chapter Fifty-One:

  "Visitors in the Dark"

  The cold seeped into Raya’s skin as she lay there, unmoving, face pressed against the uncomforting stone.

  She had wanted to keep the tears flowing, had needed to, but the reservoir inside her had run dry. All that remained was the despair, vast and unrelenting, swimming through her veins like a parasite, filling the hollow spaces inside her. It pulled her deeper into the abyss of herself, a silent scream locked within her chest. The weight of it wasn’t just pressing, it was consuming, as if she were dissolving into the cold stone beneath her, piece by piece, until nothing of her remained but the echoes of grief.

  She exhaled, a slow, trembling breath that barely felt like her own, before forcing herself to move. The action was sluggish, each limb feeling distant, detached, as though she were wearing a body that no longer belonged to her.

  Pushing her face up from the cold ground, she winced as the remnants of her grief cracked against her skin. The dirt clinging to her cheek merged with the salt of dried tears, an imprint of suffering she couldn’t quite wipe away, no matter how absently her fingers tried.

  She caught something out of the corner of her peripheral. Movement.

  Her body tensed before her mind fully registered it, instinct prickling along her spine. Slowly, her gaze lifted. The dungeon was dim, its corners heavy with darkness, the light struggling to reach them, but something was there.

  Eyes. Watching.

  They sat wide and unblinking, barely catching the meager glow from the torchlight outside the cell. Small, sunken things, set too deeply into a face she could not yet fully make out.

  Her throat was dry, but she forced herself to speak, the word escaping in a whisper, foreign to her own ears.

  "Hello?"

  The figure shifted slightly. It was not quite human, though neither was it fully monstrous. The shape hunched in the farthest corner of her cell, its arms drawn close, massive fingers moving, no, fiddling.

  It did not answer. It only watched.

  Raya swallowed hard, pushing herself up further, the rawness in her throat making her voice rough when she spoke again.

  "Who are you?"

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  A slow, deliberate blink. The creature rocked slightly, an almost rhythmic motion, like a child trying to comfort itself. Its fingers never stopped their restless movement, rubbing together as though grasping something that no longer existed.

  The silence dragged, stretching thin, unbearable in its expectancy.

  Then, finally, it spoke.

  "Sad."

  The voice was low, almost too soft, thick with something that wasn’t quite understanding. It wasn’t an answer to her question. It wasn’t anything at all. Just a word, an observation.

  It tilted its head, the movement slow, deliberate, as if testing the weight of the motion. The corners of its mouth twitched, but the expression never fully formed.

  "S’not right…" It murmured, voice uneven, like it was trying to mimic something it once knew. "Not s’posed to be sad."

  Raya’s breath came shallow now. Something deep in her gut screamed at her to back away, to put as much distance between herself and the thing in the dark as possible. But there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. She was trapped with it.

  A dull click echoed from the other side of the cell.

  A section of the wall shifted, scraping stone against stone, and an unseen mechanism groaned to life. A doorway swung open, revealing a passage beyond.

  Two figures stepped into the cell, slightly taller than the first.

  Their movements lacked the aimless uncertainty of the hunched one. Theirs were deliberate, assured.

  "Idiot," one of them snapped, delivering a sharp smack to the smaller one’s head. "You ain’t s’posed to talk to her."

  The hunched figure jerked forward at the sharp smack to the back of his head, a low grunt escaping him as he rocked from the impact.

  His massive fingers clenched and unclenched, moving restlessly against one another even faster now. He hunched down further, shrinking into himself as the two other figures stepped fully into the dim light.

  "Damn idiot," the taller one muttered, shaking his head. "Ya don’t just wander off, ya hear me, Giggles? You think Bash and I got time to be chasin’ after you?"

  "Yeah," the other sneered. "Ain’t like we got rules or nothin’."

  Giggles didn’t look at them. He just kept his gaze low, fingers still working at nothing. His voice came out small, almost like a whisper. "She was sad."

  The shorter one let out a sharp laugh. "Yeah? And you figured what? You’d just sit and watch her cry? You got some weird streak we don’t know about?"

  "You better hope Lord Sterling don’t find out about this," the taller one, Cackle, said, voice carrying something heavier than just irritation now. "Or worse, Hex."

  Raya’s stomach turned at the name. Hex.

  Giggles finally lifted his head, his sunken eyes meeting the taller one’s for just a moment before darting away. "She don’t gotta know."

  "Yeah?" The shorter one, Bash, leaned in, grinning, voice practically laced with amusement. "You tellin’ us how things work now?"

  Giggles made a noise in the back of his throat, low and irritated, but he didn’t argue. Cackle gave him a pointed look and exhaled sharply.

  "Tch. Let’s just go, ain’t worth the trouble."

  Raya remained still, watching as their attention turned fully to Giggles. Whatever had drawn them here, it had never been about her.

  Cackle turned first, stepping back toward the open passage, while Bash, broader and looming, shoved Giggles forward. "Move it. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep that ugly mouth shut."

  Giggles hesitated, his massive fingers working against one another, his body sagging. His gaze drifted toward Raya again, and for a breath, he just... looked. No sneer, no mockery. Just a sadness that almost felt real.

  Then, haunted, lost, he turned and followed. His footsteps dragged, the scrape of his feet lingering like an unspoken apology. The stone door groaned shut behind them, leaving only silence and the echo of their departure to linger in air.