Aria's breath caught in her throat as her eyes moved from cage to cage. Each was a monument of suffering, the golden ichor dripping in slow streams that glowed faintly before pooling into runes carved into the black stone floor. The ichor pulsed once, then sank into the stone as though the prison itself drank it in.
The figures suspended within the chains looked almost peaceful at first glance, as though asleep, but the closer she looked the more her stomach twisted. Their wounds were fresh, glistening with golden trails that would not close, no matter how much divine strength lingered within them. The chains dug into their flesh, burning marks that seemed etched into their very essence.
She shuddered as her gaze fixed on one cage in particular. Within it hung a young man with hair like molten bronze, his eyes closed, his chest rising in shallow, trembling breaths. Every drop of ichor that fell from him seemed to dim the faint light that clung to his body.
