The ninth underground level of the Imperial Capital's dungeon was a deep prison that light never touched.
There was no smell of dust in the air, only the acrid mingling of damp, rust, and rot.
Mottled moss covered the walls. Blood had long since seeped into the cracks between the stones, congealing into black patterns like some grotesque heraldic emblem.
Joseph Caradi had once been a spirited Frontier Noble of the Northern Frontier.
Now all that remained was a mass of flesh stripped of dignity, skin, and human shape.
He curled up in an iron interrogation chair, his hands suspended, his ankles tightly bound in rusty chains. His wounds had festered and filled with pus; even a crow would not have spared him a second glance.
His head hung low, his hair clumped into black cords. There was no telling whether they were coated in muddy water, blood, or tears.
"Go on, Lord Joseph."
The interrogator on his right approached with a smile, his mouth twitching to expose gums twisted out of alignment by burns. "This is already your fourteenth confession. We'd like to hear the fifteenth."
Joseph did not answer.
He merely lifted his swollen eyelid and looked at those scar-covered faces.
The other interrogator sauntered forward, reached out with his prosthetic hand, and ripped away a small piece of flesh that had yet to scab over.
"Ah... aaah-"
Even the dungeon seemed unable to fully echo his screams. The sound was too familiar; even the stone walls had grown numb to it.
Pain could only make him repeat words he had already spoken countless times.
At first, he had still been able to think through his screams:
Who betrayed me?
What part did that Louis play?
But by now, Joseph had stopped thinking. He wanted only one thing: