I saw the maid pinning my blind daughter down, pressing her fingers deep into her throat while the child vomited and

Chapter 1: The Sanctuary of Shadows

I have always believed that history is written by the survivors, but my life has taught me a far more bitter lesson: history is written by those who pay attention. For years, I lived as a king in a fortress of my own making, thinking that wealth was a shield and silence was a sanctuary. I called it the Blackwood Estate, a sprawling monument of obsidian stone and manicured gardens nestled in the damp, fog-laden hills of the Pacific Northwest. I built it to be a tomb for my grief and a cradle for the only light left in my life—my daughter, Lily.