All Chapters of Chains Of The Heart: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

The first thing Rowan noticed was the damp.It clung to his skin, heavy and cold, sinking into his bones like mold that couldn’t be washed away. The air smelled of wet stone, of iron, of things that had been left to rot in silence.He tried to move, but the ropes cut into his wrists, biting deep enough that he could feel the sticky crust of dried blood. His ankles were bound, too. A rough blindfold pressed against his eyes, cutting off the faint light he could sense flickering somewhere far above him.He didn’t need to see to know he was underground.He could feel it — the way sound bent differently down here, echoing against stone, swallowed by soil. It was a kind of quiet that hummed in the ribs, an endless, suffocating stillness.There was a drip of water somewhere. Slow. Measured. Like a heartbeat that wasn’t his.He flexed his fingers — or tried to. “If you’re going to kill me,” he rasped, “you could at least skip the dramatics.”A soft laugh came from somewhere to his right. Too

The dungeon smelled of old iron and older fear, a clean cruelty honed for a previous war. Rowan hung suspended from iron cuffs, arms stretched until his shoulders screamed; his toes brushed stone in a useless reminder of standing. Every breath tasted of metal and cold water.Rowan hung from iron cuffs, arms stretched overhead, toes barely kissing the stone floor—not enough to stand, just enough to remind him what standing used to feel like. Blood threaded down his forearm in thin, deliberate lines. Not slashes of rage—no, these were discussions carved into flesh.Two Cross torturers circled him like tailors fitting a suit, bickering with the casualness of men debating wine pairings.“I still say we start with the fingers,” one mused, tapping a blade against Rowan’s knuckles as if testing ripeness. “Delicate. Personal. Nathan will recognize them instantly.”The other scoffed. “Too predictable. We should begin with something he kissed. A shoulder, perhaps? Romantic, isn’t it? Let the bo

The world around him had begun to unravel.Sounds warped first—voices stretching and bending like molten metal poured into the wrong mold. The torturers’ laughter no longer sounded human; it slithered in his ears, echoing with the shape of serpents.Rowan blinked hard, trying to anchor himself, but the edges of reality bled and blurred. His body hung limp, trembling violently with every heartbeat. The pain was no longer a single point—it was everywhere, buzzing beneath his skin, in his bones, in his teeth, in the hollow of his lungs.His thoughts scattered like startled birds.Nathan… Nathan, don’t look… don’t open it… don’t—The image of Nathan’s face twisted in his mind—sometimes smiling the way he used to in the dark between whispered confessions, sometimes staring at him in horror, holding a blood-soaked silk bundle with his seal carved into it.“I shouldn’t have…” Rowan whispered, voice cracked and tiny. “I shouldn’t have marked myself. I made it a weapon. I put a target—on us—”

For a horrifying second, Damian couldn’t breathe.His vision flickered. The tunnels tilted—too narrow, too dark, too slow—and Rowan was burning alive in his mind, forced into rut, drowning in instinct and shame and pain he didn’t understand.Nathan felt it too—through him. And on his own.If Damian failed, Nathan would shatter.His lungs refused to pull in air properly. He dragged a hand over his face, pushing back the panic threatening to claw up his throat.Get up. Stand. Move.He forced his spine straight. Forced his voice steady. Forced himself to be the king Nathan needed—because if Nathan was somewhere shaking apart under the weight of Rowan’s agony, then Damian had no right to crumble.“For Nathan’s sake,” he muttered, barely audible. “This is the least I can do.”He marched forward, jaw locked so tight it ached. The guards followed him.They reached a dead end—or what looked like one. A forged-steel door reinforced with iron bands and glyph-etched plates blocked the way. Old m

The world swayed around Rowan like a fever dream.Nathan’s scent — or what his ruined mind needed to believe was Nathan — wrapped around him like a lifeline. He clung to it, breathed it in, desperate to anchor himself to something that wasn’t pain or shame or the fire tearing through his veins.But the longer he inhaled, the more the illusion… frayed.He expected warmth. Gentleness. The quiet, steady pulse of home.But this scent… underneath the familiar thread… was cold steel. Command. Power. A king’s scent. A predator’s.Not Nathan.His fingers twitched. Not in aggression — in realization.No.No, no, no—The fog in his head thinned just enough for reason to force its way through like glass digging into skin. The shape holding him resolved into sharp lines, darker scent, broader shoulders.Not Nathan.Damian.Rowan went utterly still.A soft, broken sound slipped out of him — not feral, not angry — something much smaller. Like the muted sound of someone folding in on themselves. His