Chapter 35 : Homecoming

Ayda's POV In the brief time I've come to call Castle Lykaia home, I'd never seen the castle go dark. A miasma had fallen on Castle Lykaia like a funeral shroud, wraith-like, as it drained the castle of whatever life still lingered in its halls. For a moment, I was worried, frightened that Narcissa had managed to do the unthinkable with her cult, and once I'd opened the door, I'd be confronted with my worst fears. I could still smell the blood, the sanguine rust, staining the servants' quarters. The bodies littering the floor like broken dolls, women who'd meant quite a lot to me in the scant few weeks I'd come to know them. The castle loomed over Nicolette and me, still dressed in the garb of young men for protection. How peculiar it was that when I'd entered these gates, I'd been gripped by a similar mind-numbing fear, although the reasons were different. Had it really been not so long ago, less than a month even, that I stood upon this very thres