The Hollowborn prisoner sat bound in chains of silvered steel, his cracked skin leaking black ash where the metal touched.
He did not speak. He did not breathe in the way living things did—only a slow, pulsing shiver of darkness rose and fell beneath his ribs, as if something far away was keeping him alive.
The chamber was lit only by the flicker of three braziers. It smelled of burned incense and blood.
Lyra stood at the center, hands clasped behind her back to still their tremor. She had fought Hollowborn before—burned them, shattered them—but never held one long enough to question it.
Looking at him now, she wasn't sure he was a "him" at all.
Kael paced at her side, the way a wolf circles before it strikes. His shoulders were tense, his eyes still carrying that electric silver-blue storm from the battle. But there was something else now. A faint shadow at the edges of his gaze, a weakness in the way he held himself.
He was hurting. He thought she couldn't see it.
