Roland walked into the room with a confident, rhythmic stride, his fingers gripped around the silver neck of a wine bottle as if he were holding a scepter over a kingdom of ruins. He leaned against the doorframe, draped in that suffocating arrogance that always made the room feel too small. A jagged, cold smirk pulled at his lips.
"Back so soon, my love?" he purred, his voice thick with a cruel vanity. "I knew the silence of this tomb would be too much without my shadow. I've brought some wine—bitter, just like the vows we traded. Shall we drink to how we've both rotted in this place?"
Silence was his only answer. The air in the chamber was thick, curdled with a sickening smell—a mix of damp earth and old dust. He hadn't expected a corpse to speak, but a faint sound—a soft, rhythmic rustle of the bedsheets—made the breath freeze in his lungs.
