Page 24 of Crown of Thorns (The Initiation #3)

The stairs are surprisingly smooth and silent as I make my way down.

Light becomes scarcer when I reach the basement, but I don’t want to use my flashlight and risk being seen.

Once I reach the basement, I look around.

The place looks empty. Down here, the corridors are also narrow, the walls painted in blood-red and framed with pictures.

My heart lurches in my throat when I recognize the cloaks in those black-and-white snapshots.

Some appear to have been taken over a century ago.

There are many rooms here, offering only cool air dipped in blackness. There are also more corridors. It’s like there’s an entire underground spider web of entrances. Creepy, and clever, because in the old days, the dungeons of castles were also used for storage and for shelter.

Just as I’ve reassured myself there’s no one down here, a door slams shut. I jolt. My insides are jittery; my hands slowly curl into fists.

I shouldn’t be here.

And yet I can’t stop myself from digging deeper.

Against the wall, marking the end of the hall, hangs another painting. A cloaked figure stands, chin dipped, a crow sitting on its shoulder. Its sharp nails dig into the dark material. The words, Liberté, égalité, Fraternité , are carved above them in gold.

I touch the painting and feel movement. It’s another sliding door.

Swapping it to the side, which again goes smoothly, I stare into a black void.

Lifting a hand, I startle when light suddenly flicks on.

It’s a row of electric torches. At the end of it, what feels endlessly away, sits another door.

My heart thumps violently in my chest as I wander straight out, ears ringing and every nerve ending activated.

The corridor is so narrow, there’s only space for me.

No escape. No hiding. The air here smells damp, metallic, like old blood soaked into stone. It clings to my skin, cold and weighty, like breath held too long in the dark.

At the end of the tunnel, a door sits. When I grab the knob tight, I realize I’m trembling.

What is this place doing to me?

A faint light awaits me behind the door.

Immense windows that start at the ground and reach for the stars.

It’s those stars that brighten this place, which is filled with plants.

Some are as high as trees, others are branches with leaves and flowers.

When I suck in a breath, a rich palette of sweetness fills my nostrils.

I've passed this greenhouse before, from the forest, it looked unreal, almost painted into the trees. I never imagined it was connected to the castle. At some point, the tunnel must have climbed without me realizing. Somehow, it feels like I’ve emerged not from below, but into a hidden dream stitched between branches and sky.

There are colourful pillows on the floor. Once I notice them, breaking the perfect, green picture, I see them everywhere.

I carefully wander further inside the glass building.

The immense dome invites in the light from the stars.

There's a podium in the middle, the floor littered with rose petals.

It leaves the stage and disappears in a trail through the trees.

I follow it, passing the windows from up close, until the trail leaves me at something that looks like a rose garden.

A sweet scent welcomes me to an alcove where blankets are spread out on the tiled floor.

Frowning, I bypass them, a chill skimming down my spine.

It feels like I’m walking through someone else’s memory, or worse, their ritual.

Sacred. Private. I don’t belong here, and every step reminds me of that.

There’s a piano in the corner, music sheets prepared on the stand.

Moonlight Sonata by Bach, I read. A masterpiece.

The melody pops up in my head, the slow, tragic melody taking me places I have not revisited for a long time.

This place must be the heart of the brotherhood. Deceitfully beautiful. Sweetly poisonous.

I move past the blankets, the pillows, the piano, deeper into the perfumed hush, trying to make sense of a space that feels too tender to be real.

That’s when I sense it: the stillness folding tighter, the air tensing like it knows what comes next.

A breath held too long. A pressure building in my ears.

The air tenses around me.

I turn. And everything comes to a screeching halt.

A figure stands just feet away, cloaked in black, still as a statue.

My breath catches, shallow, ragged. A cold sweat breaks along my spine, and my fingertips go numb with adrenaline.

The Venetian mask shimmers in the moonlight, their dark eyes already fixed on me, unreadable and still.

My knees threaten to buckle. I don’t move.

I don’t blink. My heart threatens to leap from my chest as I try to find a voice that won’t come.

The silence between us feels ancient, like the air itself is holding its breath.

And here I am.

In trouble.