60. Eamon
Eamon
Aoife stands at the edge of the pit, her posture deceptively composed.
She’s always been good at hiding her emotions, too good, but today, something’s different.
There’s a crack in her armor, subtle but undeniable.
A slight tightening around her mouth. A flicker of uncertainty in her eyes before she steels herself again.
For the first time since this started, she looks unsure.
Even as she speaks, poised to deliver a far crueler blow than any that came before, there’s a hesitation. A weight bearing down on her, dragging at the edges of her bravado. She tries to bury it, to tuck it behind the sharpness of her words,
But I see it. I feel it. However, this isn’t the time to question it.
So I keep my distance, watching in silence, letting her command the moment, letting her be the one to decide how far she’s willing to go.
She gives a signal, and the guards move into position, activating the hidden mechanisms deep beneath the castle.
The sound of ancient stone shifting echoes through the chamber, followed by the unmistakable sound of flowing water.
I watch as it begins to trickle in from unseen openings along the walls.
Ruairi doesn’t react at first. He’s been locked down there for weeks—he’s endured darkness, silence, and isolation. But now, he straightens, his body stiffening as he notices the slow, steady rise of the water pooling at his feet.
He glances up, his eyes locking onto Aoife’s. "What the fuck is this?"
"You wanted to be untouchable," she says, her voice almost bored. "Let's see how well you do when the water starts rising."
Ruairi snarls, lunging at the rope that still hangs above him. But the effort is wasted as my guard pulls it out of his reach.
“You’re going too far, Evie. It’s time to end this charade,” he yells.
Aoife stands at the edge of the pit, still as a statue, her posture carved from iron. To Ruairi, she must look unbreakable—cold, ruthless, every inch her father's daughter.
But from up here, I see the truth.
There’s a tremor she tries to mask. A slight tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers curl too tightly at her sides. Beneath the sharp tilt of her chin and the merciless gleam in her eyes, something deeper stirs.
Guilt. Doubt. Grief.
Ruairi doesn’t see it. He only sees the executioner standing above him, ready to deliver the final blow.
But I see the girl bleeding beneath the steel.
The girl fighting not just him—but herself.
Still, I stay silent, letting her have this moment. Letting her bury the pieces of herself she's not ready for anyone else to carry.
The water continues to rise, a black tide devouring the floor, inch by merciless inch.
Ruairi shifts his weight, fighting to keep his footing as the pit stirs around him, the current dragging at his legs like a thing alive, hungry for flesh.
The water laps at his knees now, cold and unrelenting, seeping through his clothes, clinging to his skin like a death shroud.
He grits his teeth against the chill sinking into his marrow. I hear the falter in his breathing, the crack in his composure he can no longer hide.
He’s not panicking yet.
But the pit is patient. It waits with ancient hunger, tightening its grip with every heartbeat, every shallow gasp that tears from his lungs.
I see it in the frantic darting of his gaze, the way he scans the slick, unforgiving walls for an escape that doesn’t exist. I see it in the way his hands flex and curl as if he could tear through the stone itself if only he fought hard enough.
But the pit will not be cheated. Soon, it will consume him.
Aoife crosses her arms. "Say the words, and I turn it off."
Ruairi glares up at her. "Go to hell."
Aoife exhales slowly, a shudder of breath that barely stirs the air, then gives a curt nod to the guard stationed at the control panel.
The gears whine and groan, and the pit answers as if awakening to its hunger. The current surges, the water climbing faster now, dark and glistening, alive with malicious intent.
Ruairi curses, the word torn from his throat raw and ragged. He slams his fist against the pit wall, the sound a dull, hollow thud swallowed almost instantly by the rushing water. It floods up around him, icy and relentless, soaking him to the waist, weighing down his limbs with cruel hands.
I watch him grapple with himself, forcing breath into his lungs, counting heartbeats, searching for logic in a place that has none. He’s trying to believe this is still a game. That Aoife will break, that someone will call it off, that salvation waits just beyond the next moment.
But salvation doesn't live here. Only the slow, creeping weight of inevitability.
And then I see it—the precise instant the doubt seeps in, threading through his mind like poison in the blood. His gaze stutters, and he loses focus. His hand, mid-clench, falters.
In that fragile, unguarded second, the pit seems to expand its walls, stretching wider, the ceiling climbing higher as if space itself mocks him.
The world tilts, unsteady, dreamlike.
He’s not just doubting Aoife now.
He’s doubting the ground beneath him.
The air he breathes.
His own mind.
And in that splintered second, the pit seems to close tighter around him, as if it, too, can smell his weakening hope.
"Enough," Ruairi growls. "You’ve made your fucking point."
She tilts her head, considering. "Have I?"
Ruairi grits his teeth, every muscle in his body straining against the fear rising faster than the water. He clings to the illusion of control, to the lie that he can outlast this. That he can outlast her.
Aoife stands unmoving at the edge of the pit, framed by stone and shadow, as cold and unyielding as the walls closing in around him. Her eyes, once vibrant with life, are hollow now—bottomless wells that reflect nothing back.
When she speaks, her voice carries not rage or cruelty, but something far worse.
Certainty.
“My lips are not thin with judgment," she says, the words falling like iron into the void. "They’re firm with resolution. You’ll break before I do.”
The water surges higher, a black tide swallowing his chest, pressing against his ribs, making every breath a labor. His hands grasp at the stone, desperate, instinctive, leaving streaks of blood where his nails tear against the rock.
"Aoife," he gasps, and this time, her name is an invocation, a prayer to something that no longer listens. His voice is tight, cracking under the weight of inevitability.
But there’s no answer.
She doesn’t move.
She doesn’t blink.
She doesn’t exist in the same way anymore.
She stands there as if she’s already stepped beyond the mortal world and become something else entirely—an executioner carved from grief, forged in betrayal, crowned in silence.
Time fractures. Seconds stretch and fold, each heartbeat a lifetime, each breath a battleground. The walls breathe with him. The water hums with a hunger older than memory.
There’s nothing left but this.
The sister who will not yield.
The brother who will not endure.
And the pit, waiting to devour them both.
If I were a better man, I’d stop this. But I’m not. And I don't. Because I need to know how far she’s willing to go before she can’t look herself in the eye.
Ruairi shifts, panic stealing the last of his strength.
The water keeps climbing until his heels lift off the floor. For a heartbeat, he floats suspended between the surface and the abyss.
Then, the current catches him. It shoves him backward, spinning him helplessly toward the grate, toward the place where the pit swallows the broken and the drowned.
He flails instinctively, reaching for the stone walls, but the slick surface slides away from his fingers. There’s no purchase here. No mercy.
"Aoife," he calls out, voice splintering under the weight of terror.
She doesn’t move.
Not at first.
She watches him drift, watches him fight the inevitable, her gaze cold and fathomless. She lets the helplessness root deep. Lets the reality of it hollow him out. The truth that he’s no longer a man but a body, another piece of wreckage the pit will claim.
Only after that truth sinks in, after it becomes part of him, does she give the smallest nod to the guard.
The machinery stutters. Groans. The water stops its climb.
Then, inch by agonizing inch, it begins to recede, dragging Ruairi back down toward the floor with it, leaving him sprawled and gasping in the mire.
He sucks in a shattered breath, chest heaving, limbs trembling violently from the cold and from the knowledge he couldn’t outlast her.
But it’s too late. The pit has already marked him.
And Aoife stands over him, silent, watching as the last pieces of who he was slip away with the retreating tide.
I watch her, too, still and silent in the shadows.
And for the first time, I see it clearly—she doesn’t belong to us anymore. She belongs to the darkness.
Aoife steps closer to the edge, looking down at the broken figure gasping in the shallow water.
"You have a decision to make," she says, her voice flat, stripped of anything soft. "Next time, I might not be feeling so generous."
Without waiting for a response, she turns and walks away.
Behind her, the lights in the pit flicker once, then vanish, sealing Ruairi back into the cold, wet prison she’s made for him.
I’m waiting for her as she exits the chamber, stepping into the dim corridor. Before she can brush past me, I catch her wrist.
She doesn't look at me.
"You're not here," I murmur, voice low enough that only she can hear.
She tenses beneath my hand, her body going rigid, the truth slicing through her sharper than any accusation.
"I'm fine," she says tightly.
I don't believe her.
Not for a second.
"Is this because you know Bridget is pregnant?" I ask, softer now, careful not to snap the last threads holding her together.
She stills, so briefly, most wouldn’t notice, but I do.
Then she shakes her head, a sharp, mechanical gesture. "No."