Chapter 8
The isolation was crushing beyond description. He would talk to shadows on the walls, having long conversations with the dancing darkness as if it could talk back. He'd sing lullabies to the rats that scurried through his cell—the only living creatures that didn't flee his presence in terror. He created elaborate fantasies where his parents realized their mistake and came to bring him home, where they would hold him and tell him they loved him and that everything had been a terrible misunderstanding.
But no one ever came. No one except the servants who brought his meager rations, and even they treated him like a dangerous animal that might bite at any moment.
The loneliness ate at him like acid, making him question whether he even existed anymore. Sometimes he would pinch himself just to feel something, to prove that he was still real and not just a nightmare someone else was having.
The physical neglect was systematic and deliberate. The demon servants would "accidentally" forget to bring him food for days at a time, watching with satisfaction as the young prince grew thinner and weaker. When they did remember, the portions were smaller than what they'd give to a common prisoner.
Other times they'd bring water that had been deliberately fouled with dirt or worse, watching with cruel amusement as he drank it anyway because thirst was infinitely worse than disgust. They would stand just outside his cell and laugh as he choked down the contaminated water, their eyes bright with malicious pleasure.
"Look at him," they'd whisper to each other, loud enough for him to hear every word. "The great plague demon, reduced to drinking dirty water like a common animal. So much for demon royalty."
"I heard he cries himself to sleep every night," another would add with mock sympathy. "Poor little monster, all alone in the dark."
Their laughter would echo in his cell long after they'd gone, mixing with his quiet sobs in a symphony of misery that seemed to go on forever.
The worst part wasn't the physical suffering—though hunger and thirst and cold were constant companions. The worst part was the slow, insidious realization that maybe they were right. Maybe he really was a monster. Maybe he deserved this treatment. Maybe his mother had been wise to reject him, maybe his father had been merciful not to kill him outright.
The doubt crept into his young mind like poison, spreading through his thoughts until he began to hate himself almost as much as they seemed to hate him. He would stare at his reflection in the puddles of water on his cell floor and wonder what it was about him that was so terrible, so wrong, that even his own mother couldn't love him.
Days blended into weeks, weeks into months. The boy who had once been Prince Elrien—beloved son, heir to the throne, bright and curious and full of life—slowly disappeared, replaced by something harder and darker and infinitely more broken.
He stopped expecting rescue. He stopped believing in love. He stopped trusting in the goodness of others. The isolation and cruelty had carved away everything soft and hopeful inside him, leaving only the raw, bleeding core of a child who had learned that kindness was a lie and love was just another word for pain.
Until one day, when he had almost forgotten what another voice sounded like, when he had nearly given up on the idea that anyone would ever speak to him again, a ray of hope came.
Though he had no idea she would become his greatest nemesis.
The little girl appeared in his cell like something out of a dream—or perhaps a hallucination born of desperation and starvation. She had bright orange hair that seemed to glow with its own inner fire and deep violet eyes that held secrets older than time itself. Elrien was shocked because no one was allowed to enter his prison. The guards had strict orders that he was to have no contact with anyone except those who brought his meals.
"Wh-what are you doing here?" he began with a voice made hoarse from disuse and parched from lack of clean water. When she turned to face him fully, her features didn't look like anything he had ever seen. She was beautiful in an otherworldly way that was definitely not demonic—too ethereal, too perfect, too alive with power that made the air around her shimmer.
With a slow, dawning realization, his eyes widening despite his weakness, he whispered, "Y-you are a witch."
"Hello, Elrien. I'm Lilith," the little girl said with a bright, warm smile that lit up his dark cell like sunshine. It was the first smile anyone had directed at him in so long that he had forgotten how it felt to be looked at with anything other than fear or disgust.
The sound of his name—his real name, spoken without hatred or fear—was like water to a man dying of thirst. She didn't call him "plague demon" or "monster" or "the thing." She called him Elrien, as if he were still worthy of a name, still deserving of basic recognition as a person.
But to a boy who'd been starved of kindness for so long, who had been broken down to his very core and rebuilt as something that expected only cruelty, even any creature's smile looked like salvation. He had no way of knowing that this moment of hope would ultimately lead to his complete damnation.
In that instant, as Lilith's violet eyes met his own, Elrien felt something he hadn't experienced in months—the possibility that he might not be entirely alone in the world after all.