Scene 1 – The Awakening
Kael's eyes snapped open to darkness.
Not the shifting, violent black of the storm, but something worse—stillness. The silence pressed against his ears until he could hear nothing but the frantic beat of his own heart.
He tried to move, but his arms jerked to a stop. Metal clinked. Chains.
Kael's breathing hitched as his hands strained against the bindings. Cold iron bit into his wrists, pinning him to something unseen in the dark. He pulled harder, the scrape of metal echoing into the void, but the chains didn't give.
Then he heard it.
A whisper. Fragile, trembling, but achingly familiar.
"…Kael?"
His chest seized. "Elena?"
The darkness shifted. A faint glow sparked ahead—pale, sickly light bleeding across the floor. And in that glow, Kael saw her.
Elena knelt a few feet away, shackled in shadow-forged chains that wrapped her wrists, her waist, even her throat. Her hair clung damp to her face, her eyes unfocused, glassy.
