Chapter 72 Jules
Jules
The doors of the Crimson Spires loom in front of me—black iron traced with sigils I recognize now—symbols that once frightened me but now feel achingly familiar.
I push them open and find…nothing.
No guards…no servants…no torchlight.
The vast foyer yawns before me, hollow and silent, like the ribcage of a dead beast.
My footsteps echo too loudly on the obsidian floor.
The sound bounces back at me, warped and lonely, and that’s when I notice the dust—it coats everything.
The grand pillars…the carved balustrades.
Even the enormous chandeliers hanging overhead, dull and dark, look dusty—their ruby crystals clouded as if no one has polished them in years.
My heart starts to pound. This isn’t right. This can’t be right.
When I left, the Crimson Spires were alive—servants moving silently through the halls, guards stationed at every entrance, warmth and firelight and Lucian’s presence woven into the very walls.
Now it feels… abandoned, like a mausoleum.
“Lucian?” My voice sounds small in the vast space. It vanishes before it can come back to me.
I move farther inside, my long skirt brushing against the dusty floor as I look for the elevator.
The place where it should be—where I remember it—holds nothing but bare wall and cracked marble. No doors…no controls—just blank stone, as if the elevator was never there at all.
A knot of panic tightens in my chest. Where is everyone? Where is Lucian? How can I find him if this whole place is deserted?
I turn in a slow circle, dread crawling up my spine. Have I doomed myself to a dead world where I’m the only living thing? What if time passes differently here than in the Human world? What if the few days I spent back home have been centuries here?
What if all my dreams were of the past and Lucian is already dead and gone?
Fear claws at my throat, sharp and sudden—I can’t stop it anymore.
I stand in the middle of the foyer and scream his name.
“Lucian! If you can hear me, I’m looking for you! Help me find you! Use your blood magic.”
The words tear out of me—raw and desperate. They echo in the vast space over and over, growing fainter every time.
As the echoes die, I strain my ears listening. The silence presses in harder— thick and suffocating. I can hear my own breathing now—too fast, too loud.
Then—a sound. It’s not a voice…not quite.
It sounds like a faint groan of stone shifting somewhere deep within the Spires.
I freeze as the air shivers, just barely, like a breath passing over my skin. I don’t see magic—but I feel it—a distant tug low in my chest, like a thread pulling taut.
This way, I think and I’m not sure where the thought came from. I can feel it now—the connection between me and Lucian. It’s so faint it’s barely there, but when I concentrate, I can sense it pulling me.
I follow the sensation down a side corridor I don’t remember ever taking before. The walls here are narrower, the ceiling lower. The dust is thicker—my shoes scuff through it with every step.
At the end of the corridor, half-hidden behind a fallen tapestry, I find a door.
It’s not grand like all the other doors in the Spires. It’s old and wooden and reinforced with iron bands rusted nearly black.
I push it open—it creaks like a door in a haunted house. Inside it, a stairwell yawns upward.
My stomach drops as I look up…and up and up.
The stairs spiral endlessly above me, disappearing into darkness so thick it swallows the light spilling in from the corridor. The stone steps are uneven, worn down by countless feet over what must be centuries.
I don’t know what this passage is, but I can tell that it’s ancient…and that no one has used it in a long, long time.
I crane my neck. How many stories is it to the penthouse?
I don’t know. But I do know one thing—I won’t stop until I find Lucian.
I hitch my skirt up, grip the railing, and take the first step…then the next, and the next.
My calf muscles start to burn almost immediately. My breath comes faster. The stairwell is cold—the air thin and stale, but beneath it all I can feel something else—him.
Lucian is waiting for me. Faint and fading but still there.
I hope.
“I’m coming,” I whisper fiercely into the dark. “Just hold on.”
And I keep climbing.