Immediately after she gave her orders the knights behind her moved two moving to the cage that held the captives and three begain to Clemson the cave of goblins.
Their movements seemed both perfect and disciplined. They were trained to advance, to cleanse, to destroy threats before those threats could decide what they were.
The boy chained to the altar did not thrash, or plead to be released alongside the others, nor did he look away from the woman who was staring him down.
The goblins continued their retreat, whimpering and scrambling backward, creating a wide, empty circle around the altar as if proximity alone burned them. One collapsed entirely, sobbing into the stone, refusing to lift its head again. They were escaping entirely too slowly that he almost laughed again. Unfortunately for them... the knights were now in between them and the only exist.
Dame Althene Rhys waited for her knights to finish 'cleansing' the room, as they fell in line once again being her she took one measured step forward. Towards him.
She lowered her sword—but did not sheath it—and raised her free hand instead. A gesture of pause, not peace. Her eyes never left the boy.
Up close, the wrongness was clearer.
His only wounds were those around his wrists and ankles where the chains touched and cut into flesh. The chains dug deep into his wrists and ankles, yet there was no blood pooling beneath him. No tremor of weakness in his limbs that would leave one to believe he was in pain. No matter how she looked she couldn't make heads or tails of the situation. While there seemed to be blood everywhere none looked to be the boys.
"Can you understand me?" Althene asked.
Her voice carried easily through the chamber—firm, unshaken, practiced in battlefields and courts alike. It echoed across stones impossible to ignore.
The boy blinked before raising an eyebrow as if it was a bumble question and then blinked again his eyes going wide. "Yes. I can."
The answer landed harder than any scream could have. Its not that she had expected a different one, infact it was exactly what she had thought. Few travelers came this way but she had to know if he was indeed another species from another region. No what was so surprising was his voice. The sound left shivers down her spine but she couldn't pinpoint why. It was a lovely voice but something about it was difficult to describe.
A ripple moved through the knights behind her. Her knights had the same shocked looks on theor faces even those who had been captured showed looks of awe at the sound. The boy however, didn't seem to think anything was off.
Althene tried not to react as best she could.
"Good," she said. "Then listen carefully."
She took another step closer, stopping just outside the circle that held him.
"My name is Dame Althene Rhys. I command the Radiant Order contingent currently standing in this cave." Her gaze sharpened. "I am going to ask you a question. You will answer it if you can. You will not be punished for honesty."
The boy studied her face, as if to discern whether or not she was lying.
"I'll try," he said.
His voice was rough, unused, but steady. No hysteria. No awe or even joy at the potential of rescue. Had he even needed it Althene was wondering. That was… a troubling thought.
"Who are you and what were they doing to you here, what were you doing to them?" Althene rapid fired, and although the questions wamere fairly simple, the answers were not.
The boy's gaze drifted—not to the dead goblins, not to the shattered symbols, but upward, toward the cracked ceiling of the cavern, where faint red residue still clung like a memory that refused to fade.
"I don't remember who I am," he said, and it was an honest answer if not omitting a bit but he continued. "They were using my blood... or something was." He paused then and frowned but no one interrupted no one dared. "What happened to them? Backlash." That was the best way he could explain it.
A knight inhaled sharply.
Althene's jaw tightened, but she did not interrupt.
"Backlash," she repeated quietly.
"Yes," the boy said. "They were connected to it I think. The thing they were praying to got hurt… it passed through them too." His eyes lowered at last, not to the goblins, but to the cracked stone beneath the altar.
Silence followed as that explanation did not sit comfortably with anyone. Althene did not like the way he spoke. It was more than clear that he had done something but the way he worded it made it sound like he had no idea still she did not press... yet. What she was hearing was insane if she chose to believe he actually did do something... This. Is. A. GOD! They are talking about. What could hurt it?
Althene considered him for a long moment.
"You are human," she said carefully. Not a question.
"What else?" the boy asked.
Prehaps is was the disrespectful tone but that answer finally drew a reaction—several knights shifted despite themselves, hands tightening on weapons. The words were echoed unpleasantly in the air.
Althene lifted her hand again.
"Enough," she said, and the movement stopped.
She exhaled slowly.
"And the god?" Althene asked. "The one they were calling."
The boy hesitated.
It was the first real hesitation she had seen from him.
"Gone."
Her eyes did not leave his.
"But you are still here."
"Yes," the boy said.
"Are you a threat to my knights?" she asked. Direct. Clean. No embellishment.
The boy considered the question with unsettling seriousness.
"No." he said. Then he added, "I don't want to be here anymore."
Althene nodded once.
"Then we will proceed carefully," she said. "You will remain bound for now—not as punishment, it will take just some time to remove the enchantments." She explained and he did not protest.
She gestured to the chamber. "We are here to rescue captives," she continued. "They will be freed. You will be removed from this place. You will not be harmed unless you give us reason."
The boy's fingers twitched once against the chains.
"Am I… a captive?" he asked.
The question was quiet and Althene hesitated. Just for a breath, trying to figure out what he was asking. Wether he wanted to know if they were also her to rescue himself?
"Yes," she said finally. "For now."
He accepted that with a slow nod.
The chains flickered faintly, reacting to nothing at all.
Althene noticed.
She straightened.
"Rest," she told him. "Do not struggle. We will speak again soon."
As she turned to issue orders, the boy watched her go, expression unreadable.
For the first time since the altar had claimed him, someone had spoken to him not as an offering he had fo admit that it was nice talking to another human.