Chapter 11

The stone calls to me. It’s not a sound, not really. More like a low, aching hum under my skin, tugging at the black rose over my heart. Every step I take down the corridor of the Hall of Memories makes that hum sharpen, like a migraine focused behind my ribs. “I shouldn’t be here,” I whisper to no one. The air tastes like dust and old prayers. Archways line both sides of the hall, each holding frozen fragments of lives—sunlit kitchens, blood-soaked fields, children laughing, people...