Calixto's request hadn't been a suggestion. In the North, and apparently here in the Capital, when the Old Lion spoke, the air moved in obedience. He'd told Elric to show Verona the bones of the estate. It was meant to be a gesture of belonging, a silent "you are one of us now," but as Verona stepped into it, the sheer weight of the architecture felt like a physical pressure against her ribs.
It was strange, wasn't it? The way stone and wood could remember a person even when the person was trying their best to forget the stone.
The estate was a sprawling, arrogant beast of a house, draped in the kind of opulence that felt more like a threat than a welcome. Verona walked beside Elric, her silk slippers making almost no sound on the polished obsidian floors. She felt a prickle at the back of her neck, a sharp, jagged sense of déjà vu that tasted like cold tea and unfulfilled expectations.
