(1710)
The torch outside Maya's cell guttered low, casting jagged, quivering shadows across the stone floor. The silence had returned—so thick and complete it pressed into her ears like cotton. She sat curled in the far corner of the cell, arms wrapped tightly around her knees, her throat raw from shouting. Her voice had worn thin. Her curses had lost their echo.
But her rage? That still burned, quiet and trembling beneath her ribs.
She didn't know how long she'd been alone—hours, maybe days. There were no windows in this part of the fortress, no sense of sun or moon. Only that constant smell of rot and iron. The only rhythm that remained was the dull ache in her chest, and the image of her friends' blood still staining her fingers.
Her body was exhausted. Her heart, wrecked. But she refused to cry.
She wouldn't give them that.
Her head lolled slightly to the side, eyes just beginning to drift shut when she felt it—
a shift.
A change in the air.
Footsteps.
Several.
Maya snapped upright, her spine going rigid as the sound grew louder, closer. Leather boots scraped against stone. Armor clinked softly. Torchlight flared more brightly now, bouncing down the narrow corridor like an omen.
Then, the sound stopped. Right outside her door.
She rose shakily to her feet, hands clenched at her sides. The silence stretched again, deliberate this time—taunting.
Then the lock turned.
With a harsh metal groan, the iron door creaked open, revealing three of Luxien's guards, their faces masked by silver helms. None of them spoke. They didn't need to. Their presence was answer enough.
Maya took a step back, instinctively. But she didn't cower.
She stared them down, chin lifting. "Here to feed off me like dogs?" she spat, voice cracking from disuse. "Or are you here to hide behind his orders because he doesn't have the spine to face me himself?"
One of the guards—taller than the rest—stepped forward, silent. She couldn't see his eyes beneath the visor, but she felt them on her, calculating.
Without a word, he reached out and grabbed her by the arm.
She twisted hard, trying to wrench free. "Get your damned hands off me!"
The second guard caught her other arm as she swung blindly. Her fists connected with metal. Pain shot up her wrist, but she didn't stop. She kicked, screamed, cursed, struggling like something feral pulled from a trap.
But she was no match for them.
They dragged her out of the cell with brutal precision, her feet scraping against the stone floor, shackles clanging with every step. The torchlight blurred past her, too bright against her eyes. Her shoulder slammed into the wall as they pulled her around a corner.
"I'm not afraid of you!" she shouted through gritted teeth. "You think this will break me? I've lost everything! There's nothing left you can take!"
That earned her a sudden blow—sharp and low—driving the breath from her lungs.
She crumpled forward, wheezing.
The tall guard grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her upright again. His gloved hand came close to her face—not to strike her, not yet—but to shove a gag into her mouth. The fabric tasted of leather and dust. She bit down anyway.
The third guard—silent until now—leaned in close and whispered near her ear, "Your tongue is sharp. Let's see how long it lasts."
They dragged her through a narrow hallway until they reached a chamber barely larger than a stable. Chains hung from the ceiling. The walls were damp, the floor layered with dirt and dried stains.
They threw her down onto the cold stone with a thud that knocked the air from her chest again. Her knees scraped raw, but she barely felt it.
One by one, they locked her arms in place—shackled high, stretching her shoulders painfully until she could barely shift her weight. They didn't touch her beyond that. Not in the way she feared. But their silence was worse. Calculated. Cruel.
This wasn't about feeding. It wasn't about torture in the bloody sense.
It was humiliation.
Control.
Dominance.
They left her bound and gagged, alone, her body pulled tight in the dim room, unable to rest, unable to breathe without discomfort. Every second stretched like hours. Every breath rattled in her chest.
The door slammed behind them.
Silence returned. But it wasn't the same.
This one was personal.
Deliberate.
And Maya—left to the darkness and the searing pull in her shoulders—understood exactly what kind of monsters Luxien commanded. Monsters who didn't need to break bones or draw blood to make a point.
She dropped her head forward, breathing hard through her nose, sweat beading along her temples. Her jaw trembled against the gag.
But she still didn't cry.
Even now.
Especially now.
——
The moment Maya's body struck the stone floor of the punishment chamber—hard and breathless—Luxien felt it.
It hit him not as sound or image, but as a pull. A sharp, sudden twist in the core of him, as though something invisible had been yanked inside his chest. He stood in his chamber with one hand loosely holding a goblet of fresh blood, its contents untouched, cooling quickly.
The taste had grown dull again. Lifeless.
He stared into the fire roaring quietly in the hearth, jaw tight, eyes unfocused. For centuries, nothing had stirred him. Pain, death, even the slow rotting of his own flesh—he felt it all with the same cold detachment he showed the world. He had become the embodiment of distance.
But now…
A tremor.
Not physical. Emotional. Something ancient and deeply buried flickered behind his eyes.
He could feel her again. Her rage hadn't silenced—it had shifted. Hardened. Beneath the surface of her resistance, pain had bloomed like smoke without fire. Still burning. Still proud. But hurting in a way that echoed somewhere deep inside him, where nothing had lived in centuries.
Luxien clenched the goblet tighter, knuckles white against the silver. Blood sloshed to the floor unnoticed.
Why did he feel her this way? Why now?
She wasn't bonded to him. Not yet. There was no ritual, no tie. No reason for her pain to bruise him like this.
And yet, there it was—like ghost fire licking at the edges of his thoughts.
It made him furious.
He turned away from the hearth and strode toward the tall mirror mounted against the wall. His reflection stared back at him—elegant, inhuman, and… hollow. His eyes, once silver pools of command and cruelty, now flashed with a storm he hadn't invited.
Emotion.
He damned it.
With everything in him.
Luxien turned abruptly, flinging the goblet across the chamber. It hit the wall with a sharp metallic clang, blood streaking down the stone like a wound.
He growled low in his throat, fangs exposed.
No, he told himself. She is not yours. Not this time. You will not feel for her. You will not remember.
And yet…
Still, her pain throbbed inside him like a fading heartbeat he couldn't unhear.
---
Below, in the bowels of the fortress, Maya dangled in the chains, half-slumped, head resting against her bicep. Her arms burned. Her lungs ached from breathing through the gag. Her back throbbed in time with her heartbeat. But her spirit?
It hadn't broken.
It was trembling, yes. But still whole.
She closed her eyes tightly, trying to retreat into her mind, into some corner untouched by the cold and humiliation.
But then—
A warmth stirred.
No, not warmth. A force. Something other. It rose not from her thoughts, but from the space beneath them. Like an old animal waking from beneath the floorboards of her soul. It curled and coiled, slow and curious.
Her breath hitched.
She didn't know what it was. But it knew her.
Memories flooded her. Not clear, not complete. Just flashes. Her hands glowing faintly in moonlight. Her voice calling down wind from mountaintops. A circle of women dressed in starlight. The hum of language that hadn't existed for centuries.
And him.
Always him.
His voice in her ear, whispering her name not like a threat, but like a promise.
Maya.
She jolted in her bonds.
Her body was weak, but something inside her was rising, unfolding, angry.
The chains rattled. Just once. Slightly. But enough.
Enough that one of the shackles around her right wrist shifted unnaturally—just a fraction—without her moving.
Her eyes flew open.
Did she do that?
She tried again. Not physically—mentally. Her pulse slowed. She focused, even as pain screamed in every limb.
The air around her thickened. Just for a second.
A flicker. A warning.
Her blood was not normal. She had always known that, deep down. Something ancient lived in it. Something older than even Luxien's kind.
It wasn't magic, but remembrance.