Zellheim's dungeon lay below sea level, the darkest dead end in the entire city.
The strictest regime of solitary confinement was enforced there.
Obsidian walls divided the space into isolated squares, granting every prisoner a suffocating measure of "privacy."
The air reeked of mold, rusty iron, and stale excrement. Only the fluorite embedded in the walls gave off a sickly green glow, bathing everything in an unhealthy haze.
Water trickled down the walls.
Drip.
Hector knelt on a stone bed strewn with straw.
His silk shirt was filthy, its collar torn, exposing collarbones as pale as paper.
Yet his back remained perfectly straight, his hands folded over his knees and his eyes tightly shut, as though he were performing his daily meditation in a quiet room at the Marquis's Manor rather than sitting in a cage awaiting trial.
Suddenly, the heavy scrape of chains came from the neighboring cell, breaking the deathly silence.
Rough curses and the dull thuds of colliding bodies followed.
"No! Don't touch me! You lowborn-no, please! Don't take me away! My father is a marquis! I have money! I can write letters for you... don't kill me! Mother! Father, save me!!"
In the darkness, Hector leaned against the cold wall and gave a cold laugh as he listened to the receding cries, their pitch twisting with fear.
It had taken him only a day to recognize the fool next door as the commander of the Empire's long-overdue reinforcements-Kaden Valentine.
The very same imperial major general whose arrogant letters had promised to "crush the rebels."
Hector's tightly closed eyelids twitched.
Deathly silence descended again, heavier than before.
What did being taken away mean? Interrogation? Or... execution?
His forced composure swiftly unraveled before the fear of the unknown.
Hector felt as though countless ants were crawling over his