The dungeon reeked of mildew and rusted iron. Each breath Elias drew was thick with the sour tang of mold and unwashed bodies, and every sound seemed to echo too loudly in the cavernous dark. The heavy door had slammed shut behind him hours ago—or was it days? Time blurred without light.
He had tested the iron bars, shaken them until his palms bled, but they held fast. The walls were damp stone, sweating with water that dripped in slow, mocking rhythm. His only companions were the rats, bold enough to scurry across his legs as if he were already a corpse.
When food came, it was a wooden bowl shoved under the bars, its contents a pale gruel that tasted like ash. The guard who slid it toward him had snarled something in a harsh tongue. Elias had answered instinctively, voice hoarse:
"Where am I? What is this place?"
The guard had not replied. Or rather—he had barked words that meant nothing to Elias, consonants clashing, vowels too sharp. The man's sneer had carried more meaning than his speech: you don't belong here. Then the torchlight had vanished, leaving Elias in silence again.
It was then, as he slumped against the wall, that he felt it.
A faint pulse beneath his shirt, right over his heart.
His fingers traced the outline of a mark burned into his skin. He didn't remember ever being branded, but the flesh was slightly raised, etched with a shape he could not see in the dark. And as he touched it, he thought—just for a heartbeat—that he heard a whisper. Not with his ears, but inside his skull. A wordless murmur, like an echo in an ancient tongue.
He pressed his palm harder against it, desperate for clarity. But the voice faded, leaving only the chill of damp stone.
"Hallucinations," he muttered. His voice cracked from dryness. "I'm losing my mind."
Across the hall, something stirred.
A gaunt figure pressed against the bars of the opposite cell, eyes gleaming faintly in the dark. His hair was matted, his skin stretched tight over bones. The guards had shoved food toward him too, but unlike Elias, he hadn't touched it. He only stared and muttered endlessly to himself, as if speaking to someone only he could see.
When he noticed Elias watching, his grin split wide, revealing rotted teeth. He leaned closer, pressing his forehead to the bars, and rasped in a broken chant:
"Kael… vren'tor… diesha…"
Elias blinked. The words scraped against his ears, meaningless. But then—like a second voice layered atop the first—one word rang faintly in his head. "Die."
His breath caught. He shook his head violently. "No… I didn't understand that. I couldn't have."
The prisoner repeated himself, louder this time. The same jumble of syllables, the same alien cadence. Yet again, a fragment pulsed in Elias' mind as if the mark itself were straining to make sense of it. "Beast."
Elias' skin crawled. He staggered backward until his shoulders hit the stone wall. "What the hell are you?" he whispered.
The man only laughed—a dry, humorless sound. Then, with sudden ferocity, he slammed his palms against the bars, rattling them until his bones seemed ready to snap. His voice rose, guttural and wild, yet through the torrent Elias caught another echo from the mark:
"Soon."
Elias clutched at his chest, half-mad with fear.
"Get out of my head!" he snapped. His shout rattled the stone chamber.
The other prisoner fell silent. His bony fingers curled around the bars as he leaned close, whispering a final string of words Elias could not understand. His eyes burned with a strange clarity in that moment—not madness, but recognition. Then he slumped back into the dark, muttering until his voice was no more than a hiss.
Silence returned, thicker than before. Elias sat with his knees pulled to his chest, heart hammering. He pressed his forehead to the damp stone, forcing himself to breathe. He thought of the wars he had studied back home, the chronicles of kings who had faced despair in dungeons just like this. He had admired their resolve, their iron will.
But here, stripped of food, light, and certainty, he felt less like a historian and more like one of the nameless casualties he had once read about. Forgotten. Alone.
Only the mark kept reminding him something was different. Every few breaths, it pulsed faintly, as if alive.
When next the door creaked open and torchlight spilled into the hall, Elias scrambled upright. Shadows stretched across the stones as boots clattered on the floor. A guard approached, dragging something heavy that scraped against the ground.
The torchlight caught the shape—a chain.
The guard barked words Elias could not understand, pointing the torch toward him. The mark under Elias' shirt burned hotter, and again he thought he heard an echo, pulling one word out from the torrent of foreign sounds.
"Work."
Elias swallowed hard. The chain rattled as the guard unlocked his cell.