Underground Prison

Dim torchlight flickered across the cold walls of the prison under the Kingdom. Thalia's gaze remained fixed on Lennox, the once respected Librarian now a prisoner of the crown. His disheveled appearance betrayed the man she had once known. He was a scholar, a seeker of knowledge, her friend. Now she could barely recognize the man in front of her.

"Librarian…it's time for you to get up." 

A broken man, with white hair usually tied into a messy knot atop his head that now hung in disarray, looked up at the woman outside his cell from the prison floor. Before this moment, Lennox Loren had always kept his appearance neat and presentable. His gaunt face, broken glasses and battered clothes spoke of his experience in the underground prison. His wrist were red and raw from the shackles bolting him to the floor to keep him from standing. The desert sand hue of his skin held cuts and lacerations all over his body. 

Outside his cell, Thalia stood sentinel. Her obsidian hair framed the sharp feature of her face, a halo created by the dim light reflected off the top of her head. Her cerulean eyes once held a softness for the man before her. Lifting his head to meet her gaze, now he only saw cold. Sharing a silent exchange, Lennox lowered his head again. 

Lennox's voice, raspy and dry, let out a whisper just audible for her to hear.

"Thalia…please don't look at me like that. I'm not used to you being so cold with me." 

Thalia's eyes, sharp and unyielding, flickered with an emotion she had tried to bury. Seeing Lennox in such a state had stung at her.

"If you understand both our positions," Thalia replied, her voice steady, "then please don't make my job harder by keeping the King waiting. Lateness will not be tolerated in the court, especially from a…thief."

Len scoffed. 

His lips then curved into a bitter smile. "Thief doesn't quite have the same ring as 'Librarian.' I suppose it is easier to say."

Stepping into the cell, Thalia's footsteps echoed against the cold stone of the cell walls. Lennox, once a man she held in high regard, now hunched on the floor, beaten and broken. She unlocked the cuffs that bound him to the ground, replacing them with a new set. Lennox could feel there was something different about the new set. Suppression cuffs, designed to quell any latent power he might possess. 

Thalia's gaze lingered on his dishevelled state, the torn clothes, the broken glasses, the raw wrists. The officers had shown him how a proper prisoner of the Kingdom was treated, the marks of their cruelty on full display. 

"The metal in these cuffs feel different from the ones before. Suppression cuffs, I assume?" 

Lennox's voice held a hint of bitterness.

"The Royal Court has deemed you too much of an enigma to be allowed any semblance of freedom around the King. The cuffs are precautionary, to ease the minds of the courtiers. Unfortunately, we still don't know the rank or tier of your stolen seed or its strength."

"Stolen?" 

"Yes, stolen. You out of all people should know how dangerous a seed is. Those not bestowed by the Kingdom and cultivated under royal supervision are considered either stolen or smuggled. If not from the King himself, where else would you find one? Either somebody gave it to you or you stole it, and seeing as you were alone when you were found, the only logical conclusion is to assume-" 

"Assume I am a criminal. Is that what you believe? That I'm a criminal?" 

Lennox lifted his gaze to look directly at Thalia. She met his gaze, her eyes betraying the conflict within. She had learned how to read people during her time in the army, She could see what men and women held behind their stares. What she saw in Lennox, however, was not the look of guilt but rather of defiance. Lennox truly believed himself to be innocent. Unfortunately, she was bound by duty to carry out her orders. 

Thalia and Lennox had known each other since their youth. The village of [[Melcott]], where they had grown up, was found in the southern reaches of the Kingdom and belonged to farmers and lower class workers who toiled in the cool breeze of the sun-kissed fields. The royals had mostly forgotten about it, if not for the fact that Melcott provided the capital with a substantial enough amount of crops each year. Some noble families deemed it a "contribution," a tax paid in golden wheat and sun-ripened fruits. The villagers, it was all for their protection and survival.

All cities enjoyed basic security in the form of walls and watchtowers, the vigilant eyes scanning the horizon. Invaders, wild beasts, and the rare corrupted seed host were readily kept at bay. Being a backwater village in the south, however, the buildings in Melcott were never prioritized. Most either broken or abandoned. The farmlands were what mattered most to the Royals. When a worker had fallen due to age or misfortune, the Royals replaced them with those fuelled by desperation, with earth stained hands and hearts tethered to survival.

Lennox and Thalia's childhoods, in contrast, were filled with laughter and wonder. Together they played in sunflower fields and explored empty buildings, their friendship blossoming as they made the whole of Melcott their playground. As they grew older, however, life had taken them each on separate adventures.

Lennox's life had taken a slower turn of events. Being the son of scholars, Lennox dreamed of becoming one himself. His family, unfortunately, were unable to cater to the needs of a child and abandoned him in pursuit of forbidden knowledge only found beyond the Kingdom. Thalia had remained with him, becoming one of his closest friends in the process. Other than his shabby and run-down home, the dusty shelves of the village library became his sanctuary. 

He often wondered what lied beyond the borders of the Kingdom, his curiosity yearning for knowledge beyond Melcott's furrowed fields. Lennox, a boy with once ink-stained fingers, had become a scholar and later found himself working at the kingdoms Royal Library. The more he knew and studied the secrets of this world, the less time he had to think about his own troubles. 

The situation he found himself now however was the only thing on his mind. 

At 22, Thalia Bardot stood at the precipice of greatness. Rising through the ranks in the army, she could now call herself a First Lieutenant and had become a candidate for the Royal Corps selection. General Moss, a well known and respected veteran of the army, would personally train those chosen for the elite force. They would become the silent guardians of the Kingdom. Thalia's rise was more than ambition, it was a promise to her family. To provide them with a better life. The villagers hailed her as a hero and pinned their hopes on her ascent.

Now their paths converged once more. Thalia, now an agent of the Crown, stood before the man she had once raced through sunflower fields. Her duty was clear: apprehend the thief and bring him before the King. 

Thalia closed the latch on the new handcuffs, cold and unyielding, marking him as both prisoner and enigma. Thalia, torn between duty and memories, stood outside his cell. She couldn't bare looking at him any more. It was all too confusing for her.

"I don't know," Thalia confessed. "If you're innocent, justice will prevail. I believe in justice," she replied softly. "And justice demands answers. Surely the Royals will at least hear your plea." 

Lennox's gaze, filled with defiance before, now only held resignation. He knew the Royal Family guarded their secrets fiercely, especially about matters concerning a seed. He could tell they would keep any information about seeds from leaving the kingdom by any means necessary. 

"Yeah, surely." 

Lennox echoed, his voice a fragile thread in the echoes of the prison.

Thalia stood outside the cell, her heart a tempest of conflicting emotions. Lennox, once her childhood companion, now lay beaten and broken. Duty weighed upon her as a First Lieutenant, on the cusp of joining the Royal Corps. Her family's hopes rested on her shoulders, and she could not afford to falter. Yet, guilt gnawed at her. 

She just couldn't wrap her head around the fact that Lennox had been branded a thief. Seeds were not mere magic. They were the essence of desire. A force of creation. Rare and potent, they held the power to shape destinies. A street urchin, if seeded, could become a force of nature, a tempest, a wildfire, a cataclysm. But without proper guidance, that power would corrupt and consume them. This was a level of carelessness that seemed out of character for Len. He wasn't the type to chase power for his own sake.

And yet, she knew him better than most. If he truly wanted power, he could have easily been in her position instead. He could have wielded her strength, risen to her position, he just chose not to. Len had paved her path, his knowledge and friendship propelling her rise. His insight into her abilities had shaped her own journey. Her strength was not only hers, and she knew that. 

That was why it was difficult for her to use the same strength Lennox had helped her cultivate against him in any form. Now, Thalia faced her own predicament. Help Len and jeopardize her future, or obey and keep her head down. For now, she chose silence. She couldn't risk aiding a thief for no reason. 

She knew his innocence, sensed it in the depths of his eyes, but the circumstance itself was too damning for her to make a move. 

"Help him to his feet. We need to leave." 

Thalia commanded, her voice steady despite the turmoil within. 

Thalia's heart weighed heavy as she watched the guards lift Lennox from the cold floor. Securing his wrists, still raw from the unforgiving cuffs, the guards dragged him toward the exit. Len did not resist being dragged, on the contrary, it was the gentlest way he had been handled in days, 

a silent acceptance of his fate.