Madame Lula sat hunched in the corner of her cold, damp cell, her fingers tracing absentmindedly over the grimy stone floor. The cell was small and suffocating, with barely enough room for the wooden cot on which she had been sleeping fitfully since her arrest.
A single iron-barred window, high above her head, allowed a thin shaft of light to penetrate the darkness, casting shadows that danced on the walls like sinister specters.
The room was a far cry from the luxurious chambers she had once ruled over in the Velvet Moon Pavilion. Her elegant gowns had been replaced by a simple, rough-spun dress that chafed against her skin. Her hair, once meticulously styled, now hung loose and unruly around her face.
The once-powerful woman was reduced to a shadow of herself.
Despite her disheveled appearance, her expression was still sharp, calculating, and wary. It still held that sharp gleam of survival.
She wasn't a woman easily broken.
