Time in Locron slowed after the army departed, the days dragging with a strange, airless heaviness. At first, Olivia welcomed the quiet. She had once believed silence to be the only thing the estate could offer her—a refuge from arguments, from emotions, from the exhausting presence of others.
But silence, she discovered, could rot.
Within days, the stillness of Locron no longer felt peaceful. It pressed against her from every corner of the manor, settling into the halls like dust no servant could sweep away. The estate itself seemed altered in Mathias's absence, too large and far too empty, as though something vital had been ripped out of its heart.
