*Whispers of Vengeance*
The air in the dungeon was thick with the stench of damp stone and blood. The cold seeped into their bones, and every breath they took tasted of decay. It had been weeks since Kael, Aelina, and Nyra had seen the light of day—weeks since they had felt the warmth of the sun on their skin. Their bodies were thin, ragged—barely human—but their minds, their souls, had been molded by far worse things than hunger.
Each of them had their own way of surviving the horrors of the House of Thorns.
Kael, ever the eldest, had learned to hold his silence. His gaze was heavy, like the weight of all the suffering that had been inflicted upon them. Nyra, the quiet one, never wept, but her eyes had lost their spark—like a candle that had burned out long ago. Aelina, the youngest, was different. She still whispered to the rats in the dark corners of the cells, her voice soft but haunting, as though her soul was wrapped in shadows.
But none of them spoke the truth aloud. None of them dared.
The *Shadowmother* had made sure of that.
Her magic wrapped around their minds, twisted their memories, and bound them to the very stones they were forced to kneel on. It was magic they could never break, not unless they learned to master their pain—and that was the only lesson they'd ever received. Her power was both physical and psychological, stripping away everything but their deepest fears. She had broken their spirits, their trust, and their very identities, and now they were nothing but empty shells.
She watched them with cold disgust as they suffered. There was no twisted joy in her eyes, no maniacal smile—only a faint sneer, as if their screams were a minor nuisance. But beneath her stillness, the siblings knew—she was laughing. Not with her lips, but with her indifference. With every disgusted glance. With every silence that followed their pain.
They were passed from shadow to shadow—gods, demons, humans, beasts—all taking their turn to break what innocence remained. Their cries faded into silence, their eyes hardened to stone. What was once fragile became furious.
No one was spared in their memory. The cruel laughter of women. The hungry eyes of men. The cold indifference of onlookers. It all blended into a pit of rot they called childhood.
But as the years passed, and the torment never ceased, something inside the siblings shifted. In the silence of the red room, something started to stir—something stronger than their pain. The bond between them grew unbreakable, a shared hatred, a silent vow that they would never allow themselves to break.
Each cry, each blow, each humiliation became fuel for something greater. They could feel the growing fire within them—a slow burn of fury and resentment. The grandmother might have seen them as nothing but broken toys to be discarded, but with every passing day, they were growing stronger, even as she tried to strip them of their humanity.
The pain had shaped them, yes, but it had also transformed them into something more dangerous. Something she would regret.
The siblings had learned to block out the pain, to bury their screams deep inside, but it was impossible to forget the eyes—the hungry eyes of men, the cruel laughter of women. It all bled together in the darkness.
Even here, in this pit of despair, something began to stir. A flicker of defiance, an ember of rage hidden beneath the layers of suffering. As the years passed, their eyes cried tears that dried before they even had the chance to fall. Slowly, painfully, their gaze hardened into stone. What was once fragile became furious.
No one was spared in their memory. The cold indifference of the onlookers, their empty stares as the siblings were torn apart, faded into the background, becoming just another layer of suffering. The true horror was not the physical pain—they had learned to endure that. The real horror was the loss of themselves—the erosion of their identity and their innocence.
It was not just the physical torment, the endless humiliation. It was the sense of hopelessness—the feeling that nothing would ever change, that they would always be nothing more than broken, shattered things.
But even in that dark pit of despair, something had started to shift. A flicker of defiance. A quiet whisper of vengeance.
As they lay in the dark, the air thick with the stench of their suffering, *Kael's voice broke the silence, low and deadly*:
*"Let's make a plan to kill her."*
The words didn't echo—they sank, like a stone into still water.
Aelina raised her eyes. Her voice was dry. "She'll see it coming. She always does."
"Not if we use what she taught us," Kael replied. "Her spells. Her cruelty. Turn it back on her."
Nyra's eyes gleamed faintly in the dark. "Then we'll learn. We'll become worse than what she thinks we are."
They didn't smile.
They didn't cry.
But the silence that followed wasn't empty.
It was full of fury, and fire, and a promise that one day, the *Shadowmother* (grandmother) who broke them would finally feel fear.