Chapter 537: The Building That Should Have Been Empty I

Chapter 536: The Building That Should Have Been Empty I

The wind moved through the dry grass in long whispers, bending the brittle stalks against one another. Somewhere far off, a bird cried once before falling silent again. The land beyond the road stretched empty and dark, broken only by scattered stones and the occasional crooked tree clawing its way out of the earth.

At the top of one such hill stood a building.

From a distance, it looked abandoned.

The walls were blackened with age and lacquer that had long since lost its shine, the structure sitting atop the ochre stone like something left behind by a world that no longer remembered it. Its windows were shut tight.

No lanterns burned in the upper floors.

No voices drifted from the halls.

Only the faint wind moved through the cracks in the old stone.

Yet Tobias knew the place was not empty.

He could feel it even before they reached the steps.

Something about the silence was wrong.

Beside him, Annabeth walked with her wrists bound in iron cuffs. Her shoulders were straight despite the chains, her expression calm in a way that almost looked stubborn. Nathan followed just behind her, the old man’s steps slower but steady, the iron around his wrists clinking softly with each movement.

Victoria walked ahead of them.

Her pace was unhurried, the hem of her gown brushing against the stone path as though she were taking an evening stroll rather than escorting prisoners.

Two guards followed closely behind her.

Neither spoke.

Tobias kept his head lowered slightly as they approached the building. His ribs burned with every breath, the cuts across his arms still leaking through the makeshift bandages wrapped around them. The wounds were real enough. Victoria had seen them herself.

Thankfully, that had been enough to convince her.

The moment they arrived at the castle earlier, she had taken one look at him and laughed in delight.

"You actually did it," she had said then, circling him slowly like someone admiring a prize animal. "For once, someone brings me something worthwhile."

She had wasted no time in taking him to this building. Tobias had to admit he was curious as to what they were doing here. He had thought Victoria would immediately take Annabeth and Nathan to the dungeons below the castle, the one she had taken him to previously. He did not expect she would take him to a different building.

Tobias lifted his eyes briefly as they reached the entrance.

Up close, the structure looked even worse.

The wood of the doors was cracked and darkened with age, the metal hinges rusted in places where rain had eaten through the iron. The stone steps leading up to it were uneven, their edges worn smooth by time.

It looked like the kind of place that should have collapsed years ago, and yet it stood.

Tobias had memorized the way here, just in the event that he needed it. Every step had been memorized. Every turn, every pause too.

Victoria pushed the doors open without hesitation.

The hinges groaned loudly.

Inside, the air was warmer.

Torches flickered along the walls of a narrow corridor, their light reflecting faintly against marble floors that looked far too clean for a building that appeared so abandoned from the outside.

The contrast was quite unsettling, and he wondered just what could be going on in a place like this.

Dust clung to the outer walls of the manor, yet inside the stone gleamed faintly beneath the torchlight.

Someone had been maintaining this place, and carefully too.

Victoria continued forward as though she had walked this corridor a thousand times before.

Her bangles chimed softly with each step, and the guards followed her without question. One thing Tobias was beginning to understand about the west was that anything Victoria wanted, she got. And no one dared to refuse to obey her.

Tobias pushed Annabeth forward gently when she slowed for a moment, guiding her deeper into the hall.

Nathan walked beside them silently.

The old man’s eyes moved slowly across the walls, taking in every detail.

At the end of the corridor, Victoria stopped.

She turned toward the right wall and pressed her palm lightly against the stone.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then there was a quiet click.

A section of the wall shifted inward with a dull scrape of stone against stone, revealing a narrow opening that had not been visible before.

Tobias felt his stomach tighten... it was a hidden compartment.

Victoria glanced back at him with a faint smile.

"Open it wider," she said to him.

Tobias didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward without hesitation and pushed against the stone panel. It moved slowly, revealing a spiraling staircase descending into darkness below.

Cold air rose from the passage, and he noticed the air smelled faintly of iron.

The stairs reminded him a bit of the ones he had seen in the castle, and now he was wondering if this was leading to a different dungeon.

The torches above cast long shadows down the steps as Victoria began her descent.

Tobias followed.

Annabeth and Nathan came after him, the guards bringing up the rear.

The staircase twisted downward for longer than Tobias expected.

Each step echoed faintly beneath their feet.

The deeper they went, the colder the air became.

By the time they reached the bottom, the sound of dripping water had begun to echo somewhere beyond the walls.

The passage opened into a dungeon. Tobias wasn’t surprised that it was a dungeon. In a way, he had been expecting it to be one.

But this one was a tad bit different from the other ones. The one in the castle had been large and crowded, filled with black blood and smelling badly, but this one was different.

It was quieter, much quieter than what he expected. The prisoners pretended not to even know that Victoria had walked in. And they were few too.

Rows of iron cells lined the walls, their bars thick and old, yet polished from years of use. Torches burned low between them, casting dull amber light across the stone floor.