Chapter 13: The Terrace Above the Sea

Elliott pushed open the transparent double doors in front of us and stepped outside first, keeping one hand on the glass while glancing back at me as if silently telling me to follow. I walked past him, and the moment I crossed the doorway, a rush of open air brushed against my skin. The breeze carried an odd mixture of warmth from the afternoon sun and cool freshness that reminded me of untouched trees after rain. My hair lifted lightly around my shoulders, and I found myself inhaling deeper than I had since waking inside this mansion.

When the glass doors clicked shut behind us, I lowered my eyes and realized I was standing on a terrace unlike anything I had ever imagined. Instead of polished marble or stone flooring, the entire patio was covered in thick, perfectly trimmed green grass, soft and vivid enough that it looked as though someone had lifted a private garden and suspended it above the world. I slowly raised my gaze and was met by an enormous uninterrupted view of the ocean stretching far beyond what my eyes could comfortably take in. Blue water glittered beneath the heat of the sun, the waves rolling in endless motion until they dissolved into the horizon. There were no nearby buildings, no neighboring houses, no signs of ordinary life anywhere in sight, only sea, sky, and the faint distant sound of water moving somewhere below.

“This was our grandparents’ favorite part of the house,” Elliott said quietly.

I turned and saw that he had already moved toward the iron railing, both hands resting on it while his eyes remained fixed on the view in front of us. Something in the way he stood there made him look briefly disconnected from his usual loud and ridiculous self, and because the silence between us felt different, the question left my mouth before I had enough time to swallow it.

“What happened to them?”

His shoulders shifted slightly, but no answer came.

I immediately shook my head. “It is fine. You do not need to tell me. I know I have no right asking about things that are personal.”

Elliott exhaled and looked back at me. The smile that formed on his lips was there, but it lacked the careless brightness he usually wore, as though he had put it on out of habit instead of feeling.

“Come here,” he said.

His tone was lighter now, almost deliberately so. I walked toward him and stopped beside the railing, placing both my hands on the iron bar while facing the ocean. For several seconds neither of us spoke. The wind kept moving around us, carrying the scent of salt and fresh leaves, and beside me I could hear Elliott let out a quiet chuckle.

I turned my head and looked at him. His eyes were still on the horizon, and his lips remained curved, but after spending enough hours with him, I had begun noticing that not all of his smiles meant the same thing. Some were exaggerated and foolish, some openly teasing, and some looked like this, present only because he did not seem to know what else to wear over whatever he was actually feeling. I did not know him well enough to claim understanding, but I knew enough to recognize when a person was trying not to stay too long in a painful memory.

I looked back in front of me and let my gaze travel over the ocean again. The scenery really was stunning, beautiful enough to make someone forget everything for a while if they were free enough to admire it. From this angle the white line of the shore looked deceptively near, and the waves appeared gentle, almost inviting. But the longer I stared, the stranger the perspective became. Something about the way the wind struck my face and the angle of the distant trees made me lean forward.

I looked down.

The sight made my chest tighten.

Far beneath the terrace, towering trees swayed under the wind, their tops looking much lower than they should have if this were an ordinary seaside patio. Beyond them stretched the shoreline, and the waves I had thought were merely nearby were crashing at a distance that suddenly felt alarming. I straightened too quickly and turned to Elliott.

“Are we in a very high place?”

He looked at me, and his usual grin returned. “You are beginning to understand.”

I stared at him, then looked ahead once more. That answered several things at once. The clouds that had seemed unusually close to the glass ceilings earlier, the enclosed greenhouse-like halls, the strange architecture, and the way every outside view felt both open and unreachable all made sense now. This mansion was not simply built near the sea. It was built high above a large portion of the island, almost like a private fortress watching over everything below.

The realization did nothing pleasant for my nerves. Escaping a mansion was one thing. Escaping a mansion positioned this high while surrounded by sea was something entirely different, and although I refused to let panic settle in, I could not deny that the challenge had just grown larger inside my head. Still, height meant there had to be descending roads, servant routes, delivery entrances, or some kind of access point hidden somewhere in this monstrous place. No structure this large existed without ways in and out.

I turned to Elliott, ready to ask another question, but before I could speak, the glass doors behind us opened.

Both of us looked back.

A large man wearing a black shirt and an earpiece rushed outside, breathing hard enough that his chest visibly rose and fell. Sweat had soaked through the cloth around his neck and shoulders, and he bent for a moment with his hands braced on his knees as though he had run a great distance before reaching us.

Elliott immediately stepped away from the railing and approached him. “What happened, Den?”

The man lifted his head, cast one quick glance in my direction, then straightened his posture.

“Isaac escaped the cage, sir.”

My brows pulled together.

Escaped.

The cage.

The words hung heavily in my mind while Elliott’s body visibly stiffened.

“When did it happen?” he asked.

“Just now.”

I remained where I was, watching the two of them. I did not know who Isaac was, nor what sort of cage required that phrasing, but the implication settled uneasily over me. Someone else was being confined here. Someone else had managed to break free. Whether that should have comforted me or frightened me, I could not yet tell.

Elliott nodded once, then turned his head toward me. His face softened into a more manageable smile, though urgency still sat in his eyes.

“I have to deal with something important,” he said. “Thraia will come fetch you. Wait here for a moment.”

I nodded slowly.

He turned and walked back through the glass doors with Den following close behind him. As the larger man moved, my eyes instinctively caught the back of his neck, and I froze.

There, just below his hairline, was the same tattoo I had seen before.

A serpent coiled around a sword.

My heartbeat stumbled as memory rushed in too clearly. The two men from the underground bar, the ones who had dragged me from that dark room and escorted me toward the auction hall, had worn that exact same mark on their skin. I kept staring at the closed doors long after Elliott and Den disappeared, and this time the uneasiness spreading through me felt colder because it no longer came from guesses alone. The men who served inside this mansion were the same men who had been stationed in that illegal place, which could only mean that whatever role Reign had played in my so-called rescue, he had not entered that auction as an outsider at all.