Pain. Exquisite, merciless pain pulsed through my skull in waves that seemed to crash against the shores of my consciousness. It wasn't the dull, persistent throb of a common headache, but rather an all-consuming agony that felt as though someone had taken a rusted spoon and was methodically hollowing out my cranium from the inside. I attempted to cradle my head, to somehow physically contain this suffering within the cage of my fingers, but my right arm moved barely an inch before it was arrested mid-motion with a harsh metallic clink.
The sound reverberated through the fog of my thoughts, foreign and deeply wrong. My eyelids, which felt sealed with the crust of an unnaturally long sleep, fluttered open only to be assaulted by a piercing light that sent fresh lances of agony through my optical nerves and into the tender meat of my brain. I squeezed them shut immediately, a soft moan escaping my lips as I drew in a ragged breath that tasted of mold, damp stone, and something else—something ancient and stale that had no place in my world of climate-controlled lecture halls and sanitized gymnasium mats.
Gradually, I coaxed my eyes open again, this time allowing my pupils to contract against the invasion of light. The blurry world around me slowly crystallized into a nightmare of rough-hewn stone walls glistening with condensation, the dancing shadows cast by what appeared to be an actual torch—not electric, not simulated, but genuine combusting flame—mounted in a crude iron bracket on the wall opposite me.
"What… is this?" The words emerged as a croak from my parched throat, barely recognizable as my own voice.
My right wrist was encircled by a crude iron manacle, connected to a length of heavy chain that disappeared into a rusted ring embedded in the wall. The metal was cold against my skin, its rough edges already having abraded a ring of raw flesh where it had clearly been for hours, perhaps days. I tugged experimentally, and the chain rattled with a hollow sound that echoed off the stone walls of what was unmistakably a dungeon cell.
This couldn't be real. This kind of place existed only in period dramas and fantasy games, not in the rational world I inhabited. I, Elias James Harrington, third-year student at Westlake Academy, had been preparing for a calculus exam last night. I had fallen asleep at my desk, surrounded by textbooks and half-empty cups of coffee gone cold.
I had always prided myself on my composure, on the iron control I maintained over my emotions. As Senior Secretary of the Student Council, I was known for maintaining decorum even in the most chaotic situations—budget shortfalls, scandal-ridden school dances, even that disastrous chemical spill in the eastern laboratory wing. My Krav Maga instructor, Sergeant Mikhailov, a former special forces operative with eyes like chips of arctic ice, had once nodded in approval as I disarmed a man twice my size while nursing a sprained wrist. "You have the heart of a soldier," he had said, the closest thing to a compliment he had ever offered anyone.
I had stood on competition mats with blood in my mouth, facing opponents who sought to break me, and smiled through split lips. I had negotiated with school board members and angry parents with the same unflinching calm. Fear was a familiar acquaintance that I had long ago learned to acknowledge and then dismiss.
Yet as my eyes adjusted fully to my surroundings—the rough straw pallet beneath me, the bucket in the corner whose purpose I refused to contemplate, the small barred window high above that let in a sliver of what appeared to be twilight—I felt something rising within me that I had never experienced before: pure, unadulterated terror.
My breathing quickened, each inhale seeming insufficient to fill my lungs. My free hand trembled as I ran it through my hair, which felt longer and more unkempt than it had any right to be. The realization that I was wearing some manner of coarse linen shirt and breeches rather than my navy school sweater and pressed trousers only intensified the wrongness of it all.
"This isn't possible," I whispered, my voice echoing in the small chamber. "This isn't… real."
But the cold weight of the shackle around my wrist argued otherwise. The musty scent of centuries-old stone filled my nostrils with each breath. The distant sound of water dripping somewhere in the darkness beyond my cell door—a massive construction of weathered oak and black iron bands—insisted on the concrete reality of my situation.
I closed my eyes again, focusing on the steady rhythm of my heart, which now thundered in my chest like a caged animal. I had read about this—dissociative episodes, hallucinations brought on by extreme stress or undiagnosed neurological conditions. Perhaps I had fallen ill, and this was some fever dream. Perhaps the cafeteria's questionable Tuesday lasagna had finally exacted its revenge in the form of food poisoning-induced delirium.
But when I opened my eyes, nothing had changed. The dungeon remained, as solid and unyielding as the stone beneath me. And now, as my senses fully awakened from whatever stupor had claimed them, I became aware of something else: voices. Distant, muffled, but unmistakably human voices coming from somewhere beyond my cell. The language they spoke was not immediately recognizable—it had the cadence of English but with vowels that seemed stretched and consonants that clattered together in unfamiliar patterns.
I strained to listen, to make sense of the sounds, when a new sensation drew my attention inward. It wasn't just my head that ached. There was a deeper pain, a strange hollowness in my chest as though something fundamental had been removed and replaced with something else—something that pulsed with an unfamiliar rhythm. I pressed my free hand against my sternum, feeling my heartbeat through the rough fabric, and was struck by how wrong it felt. Not faster or slower, not stronger or weaker, but somehow… different. As though the very cadence of my life force had been altered.
The realization crashed over me like a wave of ice water: this was no dream, no hallucination. Somehow, impossibly, I had been transported—or transmigrated, as the fantasy novels my roommate was so fond of might put it—to another place. Perhaps even another time. Another world.
A scraping sound from the direction of the door snapped me from my existential crisis. A key turned in a lock with a sound like ancient bones breaking, and the massive door began to swing open with a groan of protest from its hinges. I instinctively pressed myself back against the wall, the chain of my manacle clinking softly as I moved.
A figure appeared in the doorway, backlit by the guttering light of wall-mounted torches in the corridor beyond, their features cast in shadow. They were tall and broad-shouldered, clad in what appeared to be some kind of leather armor with metal plates overlaid at the shoulders and chest. The silhouette was unmistakably intimidating, made more so by the long object gripped in one hand that could only be a weapon of some kind.
"So," the figure spoke, the single syllable carrying an accent I couldn't place, "the outlander finally wakes."
I swallowed hard, feeling the dry click in my throat. All my training, all my composure, all my carefully cultivated confidence seemed to evaporate like morning mist under a harsh sun. Yet something stubborn in me—perhaps the same something that had allowed me to stand my ground in the face of bullies and bureaucrats alike—refused to show weakness before this stranger.
I straightened my back against the cold stone wall, ignoring the protest of muscles stiff from inactivity, and looked directly at where I imagined the figure's eyes would be in the shadow of their face.
"Where am I?" I demanded, pleased that my voice emerged steadier than I felt. "And who are you to call me outlander?"
A low chuckle emanated from the figure as they took a step forward, the torchlight now illuminating a face that was both human and yet subtly not—features that were a touch too angular, eyes that caught the light in a way that made them seem to glow from within.
"Bold words from one in chains," they remarked, moving closer still. "But then, the Seer said you would be different from the others."
Others? What others? The implications sent a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the damp cold of the cell. I was not the first to arrive here, wherever here was. And someone—this Seer—had been expecting me.
The figure crouched down before me, bringing their face level with mine. This close, I could see that what I had taken for leather armor was in fact some kind of scaled material, too supple to be metal yet gleaming with an iridescence that no animal hide should possess. Their eyes were amber, with vertical pupils that narrowed as they studied me.
"I am Karresh, Captain of the Crimson Guard," they said, their voice a rumble that seemed to vibrate the very air between us. "And you, outlander, are in the lowest dungeons of Vathren Keep, at the edge of the Blighted Lands." A smile spread across their face, revealing teeth that were just slightly too sharp to be entirely human. "Welcome to Azmerith, traveler from beyond the Veil. I do hope you find your stay… enlightening."
The word "Veil" triggered something in my memory—a whispered conversation overheard in the library stacks, my roommate's excited babbling about a fantasy novel where the "Veil" separated parallel worlds. But this was no novel. The cold stone beneath me, the weight of the chains, the smell of this inhuman being before me—all were too visceral, too present to be fiction.
"There's been a mistake," I said, fighting to keep my voice level. "I don't belong here. I'm not who you think I am."
Karresh's smile only widened, the expression never reaching those predatory eyes. "No mistake, outlander. Your arrival was foretold three moons ago. The Arcanum has been… most eager to make your acquaintance."
A distant sound reached my ears then—a rumbling that I first took for thunder before realizing it was too sustained, too rhythmic. It was growing louder, and with it came tremors that I could feel through the stone floor of my cell.
Karresh's expression changed, the smile fading as they glanced toward the small window high in the cell wall. "Curious," they murmured, rising to their full height. "The Scourgebeasts are restless tonight. Perhaps they sense what you truly are."
I wanted to ask what they meant, to demand answers to the thousand questions now swirling in my mind, but the tremors were intensifying. Dust and small fragments of stone began to rain down from the ceiling, and the torch in its bracket flickered wildly, casting grotesque dancing shadows across the walls.I forced my thoughts into something cohesive, ignoring the pain at the attempt, and asked. "Entertain me, then. Its obvious that I am not meant to be here, nor did I ask to be here. So what justifies these chains. I am Unharmed, and you're no doubt well trained with that blade. So what is there to fear from me?" The question was meant to squese out as much information from the man without touching subjects that where not directly related to me.I could have asked about the seer, but that would easily be seen through by this man. I could have asked about the Crimson Guard, but there intended purpose was quite clear. And asking anything about the lands around us would simply be ignored outright, the man obviously not foolish enough to let anything other than what he wanted me to know out.So the best course of action was to gain information that directly related to my fate, and about how prejudiced these people where. With that, I could gain an understanding of what would happen when — or If — I escaped.As the tremors subsided to a low, persistent vibration beneath us, I forced the scattered fragments of my thoughts into something resembling coherence. The pain in my skull protested at this mental exertion, each synapse firing like a nail being driven through tender flesh, but I pushed through it with the same determination that had carried me through championship finals with cracked ribs.
"Entertain me, then," I said, my voice steadier than I had any right to expect. The words tasted foreign on my tongue, as though they were being filtered through some new instrument—my voice, yet somehow altered. "It's obvious that I am not meant to be here, nor did I ask to be here. So what justifies these chains?" I lifted my shackled wrist slightly, the cold iron scraping against raw skin. "I am unarmed, and you're no doubt well-trained with that blade. So what is there to fear from me?"
The question was a calculated gambit, designed to extract maximum information while revealing minimum interest. In the boardroom or on the competition mat, understanding your opponent's motivations was half the battle. I could have inquired about this enigmatic Seer who had apparently foretold my arrival, but such direct questioning would be transparent to someone of Karresh's apparent rank. Similarly, questions about the Crimson Guard would yield little beyond what I could already surmise from their title and Karresh's martial bearing. And any inquiry about the lands beyond this dungeon would be met with swift dismissal—this Captain was clearly too disciplined to divulge geographical or strategic information to a prisoner.
No, my best course was to gain insight into my immediate fate and to gauge the prejudices of these people—whether they were merely cautious of outsiders or harbored deeper xenophobia. Such knowledge would prove invaluable when—not if, I sternly reminded myself—the opportunity for escape presented itself.
Karresh's lips curled into what might have been amusement on a human face, but on their features, it appeared predatory—a wolf contemplating the futile struggles of trapped prey. A low chuckle escaped them, the sound vibrating through the stone chamber like distant thunder.
"I am not a book to be read, boy," they said, placing an armored hand on their right leg as they crouched before me, resting their angular chin upon an open palm. The casual posture belied the readiness I could see in the subtle tension of their shoulders, the perfect balance maintained despite the seemingly relaxed stance. This was a warrior who never truly lowered their guard.
The torchlight caught the scales of their armor, sending iridescent patterns dancing across the damp stone walls. For an instant, I was reminded of sunlight filtering through the stained glass windows of our school chapel, creating kaleidoscopic patterns across the polished oak pews. The memory felt impossibly distant, a fragment from another life entirely.
"But I'll entertain you," Karresh continued, "because you're the first outlander that doesn't quail in fear." Something that might have been respect flickered briefly in those amber eyes. "The reason you are being held here is because you outlanders are dangerous. Too dangerous for the Empire to let dogs with uncontrolled power roam free."
The word "dogs" was spoken with such casual contempt that I felt my jaw tighten involuntarily. I had faced prejudice before—being one of the few scholarship students at Westlake had taught me how quickly polite smiles could hide vicious disdain—but there was something different in Karresh's tone. This wasn't personal animosity; it was institutionalized othering, the kind that reduced entire groups to less than human. Or, I supposed, less than whatever Karresh's people considered themselves to be.
"And don't act like you aren't a skilled fighter, boy," they continued, eyes narrowing as they studied me with renewed interest. "I can see in your stance alone that you are ready to attack at a moment's notice."
I hadn't realized I had shifted my weight slightly, my free hand positioned to block or strike, my feet planted in the defensive posture Sergeant Mikhailov had drilled into me through countless painful hours. Even chained, even disoriented, my body had instinctively prepared itself. The realization was both comforting and disconcerting—my training remained, but it had also betrayed me, revealing capabilities I would have preferred to keep hidden.
Karresh leaned forward, and something emanated from them that transcended physical intimidation. It was a palpable aura of power, a pressure that seemed to compress the very air between us, making it thick and difficult to breathe. Every instinct screamed at me to recoil, to press myself against the wall, to show submission before this predator. It took every ounce of will I possessed to remain still, to meet those inhuman eyes without flinching.
"So, from this moment forward," Karresh continued, their voice dropping to a silken whisper that somehow felt more threatening than any shout, "you will obey the orders of my men. You will not sleep, eat, or shit without permission."
The crude word felt incongruous with the strange formality of their earlier speech, and I wondered if it was deliberately chosen to emphasize my reduced status. The thought made my blood simmer, but I kept my expression neutral, a skill honed through years of facing down imperious teachers and belligerent opponents.
"And most importantly," Karresh added, their face now so close I could feel their breath against my skin—hot and strange, carrying the scent of something spiced and unfamiliar—"don't attempt to use any form of unregulated magic. If you do anything in relation to it, your head will be removed before you even get the first word out."
Magic. The word hung in the air between us, heavy with implication. Not technology mistaken for sorcery, not parlor tricks or illusions, but actual magic—spoken of with the casual certainty of one discussing rainfall or sunrise. And more significantly, the implication that I was capable of wielding it.
The hollow sensation in my chest pulsed once, painfully, as though responding to the word. I resisted the urge to press my hand against my sternum again, unwilling to show any reaction that might be interpreted as confirmation.
"Magic," I repeated, the word foreign yet strangely comfortable on my tongue. "You believe I possess magic." It wasn't a question, but a careful restatement, buying me precious seconds to process this revelation.
The captain's smile widened, revealing those too-sharp teeth once more. "Not believe, outlander. Know." They straightened, rising to their full height, the movement fluid despite the weight of their armored form. "Every one of you who crosses the Veil carries the taint of unbound power. Some never learn to use it; those are the fortunate ones. They live out their pitiful lives in service to the Empire, their blood diluted through generations until the dangerous strains are bred out."
The casual eugenics underlying this statement made my stomach turn, but I kept my expression carefully blank.
"Others," Karresh continued, "discover what flows through them, undisciplined and raw. Those are the ones who cause… incidents." They gestured vaguely upward, and I wondered if they were referring to the strange tremors that had subsided to a low, continuous vibration beneath us. "The Arcanum exists to prevent such occurrences, to harness what can be controlled and eliminate what cannot."
The implications cascaded through my mind like falling dominoes. This wasn't just imprisonment; it was quarantine. Evaluation. I was being held not just as a stranger, but as a potential weapon or resource. The realization was both terrifying and oddly empowering—they feared what I might be capable of, which suggested capabilities beyond my understanding.
I glanced down at my shackled wrist, noting for the first time the strange symbols etched into the metal. Not decorative, but purposeful—the way they caught the torchlight suggested they might be more than mere engravings. Suppression, perhaps? Containment?
The persistent ache in my chest suddenly made more sense. If what Karresh said was true—and despite the fantastical nature of it all, I found myself believing them—then perhaps what I was feeling was the absence of something newly part of me, temporarily bound by these arcane restraints.
"I see skepticism in your eyes," Karresh observed, head tilting slightly. "That is common among the newly arrived. You cling to the laws of your old world, unable to accept the truth of this one." They reached toward the torch bracket on the wall, and with a casual gesture, the flame leapt from its cradle to hover above their palm—not burning them, but dancing obediently above their scaled skin.
I failed to suppress a sharp intake of breath at the display. No hidden mechanisms, no sleight of hand, just the impossible made manifest before my eyes.
"The Empire has learned through bloody lessons what happens when outlanders discover their gifts without proper guidance," Karresh continued, closing their fist and extinguishing the flame as effortlessly as one might snuff a candle. "Some manifest elemental affinities, others communion with beasts or whispers from beyond the veil of death. Some few—the most dangerous—can alter the fabric of reality itself." Their eyes narrowed. "The Seer believes you might be of this last category. That is why these precautions are necessary."
My mind raced, processing this information while maintaining an outward calm. Reality alteration? It sounded absurd, yet I was sitting chained in a dungeon in another world, conversing with a clearly non-human entity who had just manipulated fire with a gesture. The boundaries of absurdity had been significantly expanded in the past few minutes.
"And if I told you the Seer is mistaken?" I asked, keeping my voice level. "That I have no knowledge or experience with… magic?" The word still felt strange on my tongue, but less so than it should have.
Karresh regarded me for a long moment, their amber eyes unblinking. "Then you would be treated as all potential threats are treated—contained until your nature reveals itself, one way or another."
Something in their tone suggested that such "revelation" might be actively encouraged rather than passively awaited. I suppressed a shudder.
"And if the Seer is correct?" I pressed, watching Karresh's face carefully for any reaction.
A new expression crossed their features—something almost like hunger, quickly concealed behind professional detachment. "Then you will be brought before the Arcanum for… evaluation. Those deemed controllable are bound to service. Those deemed uncontrollable are bound in other ways." Their gaze flicked meaningfully to my shackle. "More permanent ways."
The statement hung in the air like a blade, its threat unmistakable. The weight of it settled over the damp cell, mixing with the acrid scent of torch smoke and ancient stone. I allowed myself a single, measured breath before inclining my head in a gesture that might be interpreted as acquiescence or at least comprehension.
"I thank you for this information, Captain," I said, my tone carefully modulated to convey respect without servility. I leaned back against the rough-hewn wall, feeling each individual protrusion of stone press into my shoulder blades, and deliberately allowed the tension to flow from my muscles like water. My hand uncurled from its instinctive half-fist, fingers splaying against the damp floor. "So, what's next?"
The calculated relaxation of my posture was a technique Sergeant Mikhailov had taught us—the appearance of submission could be as powerful a tool as resistance in the right circumstances. "Your opponent will lower their guard when they believe you have accepted defeat," he had instructed, his accent thickening as it always did during the most crucial lessons. "This is when they are most vulnerable."
Karresh's scaled lips curled into what could only be described as a smirk, amber eyes gleaming with the satisfaction of a predator who believes their prey has accepted its inevitable fate. The subtle shift in their posture—a minute relaxation of their shoulders, a fractional widening of their stance—told me everything I needed to know. They believed they had broken through my resolve, that I had accepted the reality of my imprisonment and the limitations of my circumstances.
In that moment, something crystallized within me—a cold, hard certainty that I had never experienced before. A knowledge, bone-deep and irrefutable, that Captain Karresh of the Crimson Guard was a dead man walking.
The thought should have horrified me. In my seventeen years of existence, I had never contemplated taking another's life, not seriously. Even in the heat of competition, when adrenaline surged and instinct took over, there had always been lines I wouldn't cross, boundaries set by civilization and my own moral compass. I had broken bones, yes—a competitor's wrist during the regional finals last year had snapped with a sound like green wood breaking, a sound that had haunted my dreams for weeks after. But that had been an accident, a miscalculation of force and angle.
What settled in my chest now was different. Deliberate. Cold.
If Sergeant Mikhailov were here, unbound and in his element, he would have already ended this creature's existence. I had seen him demonstrate a neck snap once, on a training dummy—the motion so swift and economical it had seemed almost gentle, belying the devastating finality of what such a move would do to a living being. "Sometimes," he had told us, his ice-blue eyes scanning the room, "killing is not about anger or even survival. It is mathematics. Subtraction that results in the greatest chance of mission success."
I had found the statement chilling then. Now, I understood it with perfect clarity.
I was not my instructor. I lacked his glacial detachment, his ability to discard all considerations save those that served his immediate objective. I had always prided myself on maintaining my humanity even in the most trying circumstances—it was what separated me from the legacy of my father, whose ruthlessness in business had left a trail of ruined lives in its wake.
And yet, as I gazed at Karresh's inhuman face, at the casual cruelty etched into every angle of their features, I recognized with startling lucidity that this was indeed a situation where the equation was simple: kill or be killed. Or worse—be used, controlled, "bound to service" for whatever nefarious purposes this Empire and its Arcanum might devise.
The hollow ache in my chest pulsed once, painfully, as though in agreement with this dark resolve. I would kill this captain. Even if it meant my own death, I would not allow this creature to deliver me into a fate worse than death. The certainty of this decision settled over me like a mantle, heavy but somehow right.
"What's next," Karresh repeated, seeming amused by the simplicity of my question. They straightened to their full height, the scales of their armor catching the torchlight in hypnotic patterns. "Next, outlander, you will be evaluated. The Arcanum has sent one of their Assessors—they arrive tomorrow with the changing of the moons."
The casual mention of multiple moons—as though this were the most natural thing in the world—further emphasized the alienness of my situation. I filed this astronomical detail away, another piece in the puzzle of this new reality.
"Until then," they continued, "you will remain here. Food will be brought—eat it or don't, it matters little to me. The shackle is enchanted to allow necessary movement but will tighten should you attempt anything… untoward." They gestured toward the bucket in the corner with an expression of distaste. "Make use of the facilities as needed. My guards will not enter unless you give them reason."
They turned toward the door, the movement fluid despite the weight of their armor. The scales along their spine caught the light in a cascade of color that would have been beautiful were it not attached to such a monstrous being.
"One last thing," they added, pausing at the threshold without looking back. "The Seer spoke of your arrival specifically. Said you would be different—'the one with two souls,' were the words. I don't pretend to understand the ramblings of oracles, but I've learned not to dismiss them." Now they did turn, fixing me with those predatory eyes. "Whatever you might be planning in that clever mind of yours, remember—we were prepared for you before you even arrived."
With that parting statement, they stepped through the doorway. The heavy oak door swung shut with a finality that reverberated through the stone chamber, the sound of the lock engaging like the period at the end of a death sentence.
Alone in my cell, I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing—in for four counts, hold for seven, out for eight. The meditation technique had seen me through pre-competition anxiety, family conflicts, and the crushing pressure of academic excellence. Now it served a darker purpose: to center me, to clear my mind for what would undoubtedly be the most consequential planning of my life.
"The one with two souls," I whispered, pressing my free hand against my sternum where that hollow ache persisted. Was that what I was feeling? Not the absence of something, but the presence of something additional? Something that didn't belong to me?
The persistent vibration beneath the stones had ceased, I realized suddenly. The silence that replaced it was almost more unsettling—expectant, like the hush before a thunderclap.
I opened my eyes and studied my surroundings with renewed purpose. The cell was approximately twelve feet square, the ceiling arched and disappearing into shadow above the reach of the torchlight. The small window high in the wall admitted a sliver of what appeared to be twilight, though whether dawn or dusk I couldn't determine. The straw pallet beneath me was surprisingly clean, free of the vermin I would have expected in such a setting. The bucket in the corner was similarly well-maintained—unpleasant in purpose but not in condition.
These were not the accommodations of someone expected to die. These were the quarters of someone valuable, at least temporarily.
I examined my shackle more closely, tracing the strange symbols etched into the metal with my free hand. They seemed to shift under my touch, not physically but perceptually, as though my mind couldn't quite grasp their true form. The chain attached to it was long enough to allow movement around most of the cell, including access to the bucket and the straw pallet, but not long enough to reach the door.
"Enchanted," I murmured, testing the word. Yesterday—or what felt like yesterday in my old life—I would have scoffed at such a concept. Now, having seen Karresh manipulate fire with a gesture, I accepted it as readily as I would accept the statement that water is wet.
If magic existed here, and if—as Karresh claimed—I possessed some capacity for it, then perhaps there was more to my situation than mere imprisonment. Perhaps there was opportunity.
The hollow sensation in my chest pulsed again, stronger this time, almost like a second heartbeat offset from my own. I pressed my hand harder against it, and for an instant—brief but undeniable—I felt something respond. Not physically, but on some level I had no vocabulary to describe, as though something within me had recognized my attention and acknowledged it.
"Two souls," I whispered again, a chill running down my spine that had nothing to do with the damp cold of the cell.
Before I could explore this disturbing sensation further, the sound of footsteps approached from the corridor outside—lighter than Karresh's armored tread, but purposeful. I quickly resumed my position against the wall, adopting the posture of defeated acceptance I had shown the captain.
The lock turned with that same bone-breaking sound, and the door swung open to reveal a figure much smaller than Karresh—humanoid but clearly not human, with skin the pale blue of a winter sky and hair like spun silver despite their youthful appearance. They carried a tray with what appeared to be food and a clay vessel that presumably contained water.
"Sustenance," they announced, their voice melodic but emotionless. "By order of Captain Karresh."
They approached cautiously, placing the tray within reach of my chain but well beyond my immediate grasp. Their movements were efficient, practiced—they had performed this duty before, likely with other "outlanders" like myself.
As they straightened and turned to leave, I spoke, keeping my voice soft and unthreatening. "Thank you."
They paused, looking back at me with eyes entirely black, without discernible iris or pupil. "The courtesies of your world have no place here, outlander." Their tone wasn't cruel, merely factual. "Save your breath for your evaluation tomorrow. You will need it."
With that cryptic warning, they departed, the door closing behind them with that same oppressive finality.
I waited until the sound of their footsteps had faded completely before moving toward the tray. The meal consisted of a coarse brown bread, a small portion of what appeared to be stew with unidentifiable meat, and some form of root vegetable, steamed and seasoned with herbs I didn't recognize. The clay vessel contained water, as I had suspected—clear and, when I cautiously sipped it, surprisingly sweet.
Poison seemed unlikely—if they wanted me dead, there were far more efficient methods available to them. Still, I ate and drank sparingly, unwilling to dull my senses with either hunger or overindulgence.
As I chewed the surprisingly palatable bread, my mind returned to the cold certainty that had settled within me. Karresh would die by my hand—this was no longer a question of if, but when and how. The how was problematic, given my current constraints, but the when presented more immediate concerns. This "evaluation" scheduled for tomorrow could change everything, potentially removing me from this cell and placing me in circumstances even less conducive to escape or retaliation.
I needed to understand more—about this world, about what I supposedly was, about the "magic" I allegedly possessed. Knowledge was power, and in this moment, I was sorely lacking in both.
The persistent hollow ache in my chest throbbed once more, as though in response to my thoughts. And this time, I didn't shy away from it. Instead, I closed my eyes and turned my attention inward, reaching toward that strange sensation as one might reach toward an unfamiliar animal—cautiously, respectfully, prepared to withdraw at the first sign of danger.