The hours bled together inside the stone cell. Emily had no way of knowing how long she'd been locked in the suffocating darkness. Her throat was raw from crying, her body aching from the cold floor. Every sound of dripping water, footsteps above, the echo of laughter carried down from the rituals, gnawed at her nerves until she thought she'd splinter apart.
And then, without warning, the silence shifted.
The faint scrape of boots against stone. A pause. Breathing, low and steady, too deliberate to be accidental. Emily's head snapped up, her heart hammering. The torch outside her cell flared as if stirred by some unseen draft, throwing long shadows across the bars.
Breckt Rezco leaned against the iron bars with the patience of a predator, his golden eyes gleaming faintly in the gloom. He didn't move, didn't speak, just watched her.
Emily scrambled back until her spine pressed into the wall. "Why are you here?" she whispered, her voice hoarse.
His expression didn't change. For a long moment, he simply studied her, the way someone might study a carving they couldn't yet decipher.
Finally, his voice broke the silence, "You don't belong in this place."
Her throat tightened. "Then help me out of it."
One corner of his mouth twitched, almost a smile, but too grim to ever be mistaken for kindness. "It's not that simple."
Her desperation flared into anger. She crawled forward, her fingers wrapping around the cold iron. "You're one of them. You could tell them to stop. You could—"
"I could do nothing." His words cut like steel. "I'm as bound as you are. Don't mistake my chains for freedom."
Something inside her cracked. "Then why come at all? To watch me fall apart?"
For the first time, his eyes flickered. He leaned closer, the dim firelight catching on his sharp features. "Because you're different, and because if you're not careful, you'll end up like the rest."
Emily's stomach lurched. "Like… Elena?"
At her friend's name, Breckt's jaw clenched. A muscle jumped in his cheek. He didn't look away this time. He didn't soften. But there was a storm behind his eyes she hadn't seen before.
"I told you," he said quietly. "I was once what you are. Flesh. Blood. Choices."
Emily's breath caught, remembering his earlier confession. It still sounded impossible, but the gravity in his voice made it harder to deny.
She swallowed. "If you were like me… then what's my choice?"
His hands curled around the bars now, the iron groaning faintly under his grip. He leaned so close she could feel the whisper of his breath against her skin.
"I don't know," he admitted, and for the first time, there was no certainty in his voice. No cold mask of command. Just raw, bitter truth, "But I know this, your name, your face… I wasn't told those things. And that frightens me more than anything else."
Emily stiffened, realization slamming into her. He didn't know her. Not her name, not who she had been before all this. To him, she wasn't Emily, she was just the chosen girl.
Her fingers slipped from the bars, trembling. "So I'm just… a piece on their board to you, too?"
Breckt's gaze sharpened. "No." His voice was low, almost a growl. "Not to me."
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to hold still. Torchlight flickered. Chains rattled faintly in some distant corridor. And standing between them, the cage, the hunger, the unspoken weight of things neither dared to name.
Then footsteps echoed above, closer this time. Breckt straightened, his composure snapping back into place. He took one final, piercing look at her before stepping into the shadows.
Emily reached for him instinctively. "Wait!"
But he was already gone, leaving only silence, firelight, and the hollow echo of her own heartbeat.
She pressed her forehead against the iron, her breath shuddering. She had no answers, no escape, and no way to stop the ritual that loomed closer with each passing hour.
And yet, against her will, his words clung to her: Not to me.