The prison cell reeked of mold and human misery.
Stone walls wept with moisture that had accumulated over decades, creating dark stains that spread like diseased veins across the gray surface.
A single barred window, barely large enough for a cat to squeeze through, allowed thin shafts of dying sunlight to slice through the perpetual gloom.
And here I am, tied with handcuffs, seated on the cold stone floor while looking down with a blank stare, counting ants marching across the grimy stones in their endless procession.
One... two... three...
Did he really abandon me?
The thought drifted through my mind like smoke, weightless and inevitable.
I chuckled softly, shaking my head at my own foolishness.
Of course he did. What else did I expect?
I should have known. I was prepared for this—just not so soon.
I had thought Javrian was a cruel man, and my earlier assumption of him abandoning me after giving me that brief healing under the aphrodisiac's numbing influence... I had dismissed it as paranoia brought on by my clouded mind at the time.
But it turns out it was the truth all along.
Sigh.
Naturally, I wasn't hurt by it.
Maybe because deep down, I had always known this was how it would end. Everyone leaves. Everyone always leaves.
My gaze shifted across the cell to where she was chained.
The wolf woman from the marketplace hung suspended from the ceiling, her wrists bound in heavy iron shackles that forced her arms above her head.
Even her feet were chained to the floor, leaving her in a grotesque spread-eagle position.
Fresh bruises bloomed across her skin like dark flowers—evidence of another beating she'd received after our arrest.
"So," I said, my voice echoing hollowly in the confined space, "why did you punch that imperial guard who arrested me?"
I could still see it clearly in my mind—how this woman had suddenly stood up from where she'd been cowering and delivered a solid punch to the face of the soldier trying to drag me away.
My mouth had literally fallen open in shock before we were both arrested and thrown in here together.
The woman spat on the floor—pthoo—before meeting my gaze with her one visible yellow eye.
"I don't take favors," she said gruffly. "So I returned the hit you gave to that merchant by helping you."
I looked down at the floor where she'd been spitting for the past hour.
The stone was actually wet from her constant expectoration, creating a disgusting puddle that reflected what little light filtered through our pathetic excuse for a window.
Clearly, she had some kind of condition—not the badass, rebellious style one might expect from someone who spits before delivering tough dialogue.
My mouth twitched slightly as I continued staring at the growing saliva pool.
"Do you know there's a difference between a merchant and a royal guard?" I asked flatly.
The woman muttered something under her breath. "That guy wasn't an imperial guard. Just a fake brute trying to use that identity, working under a gang that extracts money and sends it to officials as bribes."
She clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Forget it. You wouldn't understand."
Click
Something connected in my mind like puzzle pieces snapping into place. I instantly looked toward the woman, my eyes narrowing as realization dawned.
"Most of the royal guards in this town are privately hired?" I asked, my voice sharp with sudden understanding. "Like... cosplay artists working under gangs that pay nobles for permission to operate?"
The woman's visible eye widened slightly at my quick comprehension.
If that was true, then this entire border town was essentially lawless—a facade of Imperial authority masking organized crime networks that had bought their way into legitimacy.
"What's the rank of the noble who controls this area?" I inquired, my mind already calculating the implications.
The woman spat again—pthoo—and said with grim satisfaction:
"Theta."
'A Theta?' My blood went cold.
A Theta-ranked noble meant this person had enough influence to operate with near-complete autonomy from Imperial oversight.
But more troubling was the implication—someone of that rank shouldn't be able to maintain such independence without serious backing from the capital itself.
A Theta was still relatively low in the noble hierarchy, certainly not powerful enough to run an entire border territory as their personal criminal enterprise unless... unless someone much higher up was protecting them.
Someone with real power in the Imperial court.
But just as quickly as the political implications began swirling through my mind, I pushed them aside.
What did any of that matter to me now?
I was no longer part of that world.
Those noble machinations, those power games—they belonged to my past life, to Princess Luna Avriantya, who had died the moment she was married off to the branch family at the corner of the Empire within Avriantya's branch Estate.
I shook my head, focusing on the present instead of dwelling on a history that could no longer touch me.
"So," I said, shifting to face the chained woman more directly, "tell me something about yourself."
The woman just looked at me with her one visible yellow eye, her expression as blank as stone.
"Nothing much," she muttered after a long pause, then immediately followed it with another spit. Pthoo.
"Just something," I pressed, genuinely curious about this person who had risked herself for a stranger.
"Why would I tell you anything?" she snapped, her gaze deliberately averting from mine as she turned her head toward the moldy wall.
I narrowed my eyes, studying her profile.
There was something defensive in the way she avoided my gaze, something almost... vulnerable beneath the hostility.
Confused by her sudden shift in demeanor, I shook my head. "You are rude to your savior."
"You shouldn't have saved me in the first place," she shot back, finally meeting my eyes again with a challenging glare. "Why did you do that?"
The question hung in the stale air between us.
Why had I intervened?
I'd been asking myself the same thing since the moment I'd kicked that merchant.
But looking at her now—seeing that same hollow emptiness in her yellow eye that I recognized so well—the answer came with startling clarity.
"Because you look exactly like me."
The words were simple and honest. And for a moment, both of us fell completely silent.
My crimson eyes met her yellow ones across the dim space, and something passed between us—a recognition, perhaps.
An understanding of shared pain, shared numbness, shared abandonment.
We stayed like that for several heartbeats, just looking at each other in steady silence.
Then came that thing— Pthoo.
'I want to hit her.' My face twitched involuntarily at the sound, and I had to remind myself that she couldn't help it.
The woman clearly had some kind of medical condition that caused the constant expectoration.
She wasn't doing it intentionally to be disgusting.
"I would personally suggest you check your eyes, Miss Noble Woman," she said, and her tone was surprisingly genuine despite the harshness of her words. "We are not the same—not in lifestyle, etiquette, nor in comparison to beauty."
My eyes widened in shock.
How had she...?
I was wearing common clothes that Lila had stolen, simple peasant garb that should have disguised any hint of my former status.
My hair was disheveled, my face dirty from the prison cell.
There should have been nothing to mark me as nobility.
Yet somehow, this chained woman had seen through my disguise instantly.
"Aren't you smart?" I asked, blinking in genuine surprise as I waited patiently for her reply.
But instead of answering, the woman just looked at me with that same blank expression.
Then, predictably, she did what just pissed me off.
Pthoo~!