The door shut behind them with a final, hollow boom. Iron met stone. The sound echoed down the passage like a coffin lid closing.
And still—
As they moved down the long corridor, as their footsteps echoed through the submerged passages of the underwater dungeons, a sound pursued them.
Laughter.
Faint at first, almost swallowed by the dripping stone and the distant groan of water against ancient foundations. Then clearer as the tunnel carried it forward, the acoustics turning it from a whisper into something that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
A woman's laughter—breathless, broken by pain, yet unmistakable. There was no madness in it. That was what made it terrible. It was deliberate. Knowing. The laugh of someone who had just watched her torturers walk away and found something deeply, quietly funny in their retreat.
