Page 183 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

He let it win. Gave himself to it.

It was so much easier than living with what he’d done. And staying in this cell ensured he never did it again.

He should have taken Emmeline’s blade and ended his own life. That would have been the most surefire way to guarantee no one else suffered. But he was a fucking coward. He’d hoped for a moment she might have seen the pleading in his eyes, the desperation he let claw through the darkness, and do it for him.

It was better that she didn’t.

He could handle his own demise. He could hold the rubble together as he had all these years. It was what he was building toward anyway—his inevitable doom that an hourglass somewhere was ticking down toward, slowly but surely.

But he couldn’t handle hers. He couldn’t be the ruin of Emmeline DeLeoste, the woman who was made of starlight that the world tried to force into darkness. He wouldn’t cast shadows on her when she could craft the stars and Fates themselves.

He could not ruin her.

There was no way to track time in this infernal cell. His mind was slowly tipping toward madness, anger and hysteria stirring with each hour.

Perhaps that was how this all began. With madness descended from an ever-present isolation. At least pondering that would fill his time for…however long. It was a puzzle in and of itself, trying to unravel what came first. The insanity or the solitude.

But he had never experienced real isolation, had he? He ran his thumb over the spot where the ring his father had given him once sat, lost somewhere in the chaos following Nico’s death. Misery would be his shadow now, filling the void someone else had once walked.

His entire life, Roremar had never been truly alone. Not in the way he’d thought, at least.

And he didn’t know what was worse.

“Round and round we go,” Roremar whispered to the shadows.

He swore they whispered back.

Food always came, but it wasn’t scheduled. Just regular enough to not alarm him when boots echoed down the corridor. It was served with water, some of which he used to keep clean.

They never spoke to him, never even made sure he was restrained against the wall. He’d proven he wouldn’t try to escape for the fleeting seconds the bars opened. He just laid sprawled on his back, staring at the ceiling and recounting the events that led him here.

This time, when the boots stopped outside his cell, there was no metal clanging as the tray was set inside the door and the lock refastened. No footsteps retreating to join the world above.

Still on his back, he rolled his head toward the bars, eyes well-adjusted to the dark by now.

An amused exhale slipped from his lungs as he saw who waited there, turning his gaze back toward the low, cramped ceiling, studying the pattern of the stones. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to speak with you,” his uncle said.

“How long has it been?”

“Three days,” Aldryn told him.

Three days. At least Emmeline and Desmond hadn’t come back. Des had kept the promise they swore in that final silent exchange. Perhaps they’d given up on him, too. For the best.

Uncle Aldryn didn’t sit. He didn’t grip the bars as Emmeline had or hold a vigil beside Roremar’s cage. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, glaring down at his nephew with all the derision Roremar deserved.

“So the Revels…”

“In full swing now.”

At least he didn’t have to attend them. All his life, he’d dreaded the festival. Each year, it felt like knives digging into his mind, his memory, an invisible, acute torture formed specifically for him. Being locked away was good for something besides caging him.

Sighing, he sat up, his body creaking from the stone floor as he crossed his legs. Falliare’s navy cloak was pristine, not a speck of the grime that coated these cells reflected on the esteemed Temple Master. The pin clasping the velvet shone in the flickering torches, the Lyra sigil carved in silver a reminder of what was at stake.

But that wasn’t what caught Roremar’s eye. It was the precise shade of the fabric—one his uncle always wore.

“You left your cloak at Desmond’s mother’s,” he accused, voice flat. “Saw it there a few days ago.”