Darkness clung to the dungeon walls, damp and suffocating. The air was thick with rot, and the faint drip of water echoed endlessly in the hollow silence. Elden lay on the cold stone floor, his body a broken shell of what it had been. His wrists were raw from the shackles that had bound him too tightly for too long. His ribs jutted out beneath his tattered shirt, and his throat burned with a thirst that no amount of water could ever quench.

  He closed his eyes, though it made no difference in the lightless void. The pain in his body was constant, gnawing at him like a hungry beast. But it was nothing compared to the ache inside his soul.

  They had asked him questions—so many questions. King Hazrael’s voice was calm, almost kind, as he demanded to know everything about Aerin. Her power, her bloodline, her weaknesses. The king’s methods were insidious, alternating between promises and punishments, breaking Elden down piece by piece. He had withstood the torment for as long as he could, but everyone had a breaking point.

  He couldn’t even remember what he had told them anymore. The lines between truth and lies blurred when the pain grew unbearable. Every word he spoke felt like another knife in his back, another betrayal of the girl he had once sworn to protect.

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  The girl he had betrayed long before Hazrael had taken him.

  Elden let out a shuddering breath, his lips cracked and dry. He hated himself more than he hated his captor. This cell, this torment—he deserved it. Every lash, every moment of agony, every drop of blood he’d shed for the king’s amusement. It still wasn’t enough to atone for what he’d done to Aerin.

  Her face haunted him. Not the hardened warrior she had become, but the girl she’d been when they first met—bright-eyed, full of fire, with a smile that could light up the darkest corners of his world. He’d destroyed that light. He’d taken her trust and shattered it, piece by piece.

  And now, lying alone in the dark, he felt the weight of every mistake pressing down on him, heavier than the chains that had once bound his wrists.

  Footsteps echoed down the stone corridor, slow and deliberate. Elden tensed, though he had no strength left to fight. The guards came at random intervals, sometimes to drag him to King Hazrael, sometimes just to amuse themselves with his suffering. But as the steps drew closer, a new fear twisted in his chest.

  Not because of what they might do to him, but because of what he might do to Aerin.

  Deep down, beneath the pain and regret, a seed of something dark had been planted. King Hazrael’s voice whispered in his mind, subtle and insidious, weaving doubts and desires he didn’t want to feel. Elden clenched his fists, his nails biting into his palms. He wouldn’t break. Not again.

  But as the cell door creaked open, he wasn’t so sure anymore.