Chapter 169: Where Shadows Choose Their Words
This part of the garden had long since fallen out of favour.
Once, it had been a place of quiet promenades and careful laughter, where nobles wandered beneath trimmed hedges and spoke in tones measured for polite company. Now, it stood abandoned, claimed by silence and time. The hedges had grown unruly, the paths uneven beneath creeping roots, and the statues—once pristine—wore cracks like secrets they had kept too long.
No servants came this way.
No attendants lingered near its borders.
And so, it had become useful.
Three figures stood within the shadow of an overgrown archway, their forms concealed beneath dark cloaks that blended easily with the dimness of the hour. The moon hung high above, pale and distant, its light filtering weakly through the tangled branches overhead.
For a while, none of them spoke.
They listened instead.
To the wind.
To the quiet.
To the assurance that they were alone.
