Semua Bab SHADOW OF VOW'S: Bab 111 - Bab 116

Alessia Volkov The ancestral manor hadn’t changed. Not in structure, not in scent. It stood there, imposing and cold, just as it always had with its towering stone façade, iron-framed windows, and arched wooden doors that still groaned in protest every time they opened. The same quiet creaks in the staircase whispered from the past. The same cold marble floors stretched out beneath me like a frozen river of memories. The same towering portrait of our mother hung above the grand staircase her solemn eyes following my every move, just as they had when I was a child. Eyes that once comforted me now seemed to judge. Or mourn. But something had changed. Not the house itself the bones of it were as stubborn and unyielding as ever but the air. The atmosphere. It was hollow now. Quiet in a way that didn’t feel peaceful, but empty. As if the walls themselves were grieving. Or perhaps bracing for what came next. I stood in the entryway, just beyond the threshold, wrapped in a coat too heavy

Nikolai Volkov The days had blurred into each other like ink spreading across wet parchment messy, uncontrollable, permanent.Sunlight bled in through the tall windows every morning like a cruel joke, casting warm gold over cold marble floors she no longer walked on. The manoir, once a fortress of discipline and steel control, now felt too loud with emptiness. Every wall echoed with silence, a kind that rang louder than any scream. I used to find comfort in the solitude, in the stillness. Now, it mocked me.Every room screamed her name.Every hallway echoed with memories.Her laughter.Her footsteps.Her scent, still clinging to the air like a ghost refusing to leave.Since Alessia left, I hadn’t been the same. I wasn’t sure I ever would be.I haunted the corridors like a man condemned, dragging my feet like I could still feel the weight of her absence trying to suffocate me. I ate only when the gnawing in my stomach outmatched the ache in my chest. I slept only when my body collapse

Nikolai Volkov The days no longer dragged. They tore through me like bullets, relentless and precise, punching holes through whatever semblance of control I still had. There were no gentle mornings. No slow stretches of time to collect myself. Only the blur of responsibilities, the noise of an empire that didn’t care if its king was breaking beneath the weight of an empty bed. If I slowed down, I’d feel it again. The void. The screaming silence of a house that used to echo with her laugh, her footsteps, her defiance. The way she used to slam doors and then kiss me like it was her favorite form of punctuation. The warmth of her body tucked into mine at night. The way she whispered my name in the dark, as if she wasn’t quite ready to believe she’d found someone to say it to. Alessia. My wife. My fury. My fire. My undoing. She still hadn’t called. No texts. No messages. No divorce papers. But no return either. And somehow, the not knowing was worse than anything else. Wo