Chapter 613: The Color of Obedience
Content Warning: This chapter contains themes of psychological abuse and abuse of a minor.
There are punishments that leave bruises.
And then there are punishments that do not need to touch the skin at all.
Sophia would only learn much later that the worst kind were the ones that made you agree to them.
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The cell was cold.
Not dramatically so—no visible frost, no dripping icicles clinging to stone—but a deep, bone-level chill that settled into her bones and refused to leave.
It was small.
Smaller than her room beneath the castle.
Smaller than anything she had ever been allowed to choose. Even their old cottage was bigger than this.
A single narrow slit in the wall allowed light to enter, thin and uncertain, like the world itself was reluctant to look in.
Sophia sat with her knees pulled to her chest.
She did not cry at first.
She only waited.
Because surely, this was temporary.
