The Dark Castle
Contrary to popular belief, the Dark Castle was not something he had traded with someone in a deal. Nor had it been given to him along with his new powers on that day in the woods.
No, the Dark Castle was something that – as strange as it sounds – he had built himself, brick by brick, using the times he had shut himself from others as his building material.
When his wife left.
When the village people ridiculed him.
Every time someone called him a coward.
Every time his son pushed him away, ashamed.
Every time he lied about how he had injured his leg in the Ogre War.
At first, the Dark Castle was only in his heart. Or rather, in his chest, around it.
And the day he broke the deal with Baelfire the walls around his heart could no longer be contained in his body.
The building grew around him over night, tall and magnificent, right there at the clearing where he had let go his boy's hand just hours before.
When he woke, it did not seem strange to him that he suddenly found himself surrounded by thick stone walls. After what he had done, it seemed fair to him that he should spend eternity locked in a prison that was the product of his own, dark, twisted self.
After some time he began to regret that he had not turned into stone himself.