Elena drifted in and out of consciousness, never fully awake, never fully gone.
Pain anchored her.Cold wrapped around her.The dungeon cell breathed damp air against her skin like a living thing.
Her ribs throbbed in a slow, deep pulse — not the ache of a bruise. No. This was sharper. Meaner. Familiar in an unwelcome way. Likely fractured. Maybe two.
Every breath stabbed.
Her head pounded in waves, each one breaking behind her eyes. Concussion. Mild to moderate. Fantastic. She mentally added it to the growing list of "things trying to kill me this week."
Her wrists burned where the iron bit into them, skin scraped raw, tender.
She curled forward as much as the chain allowed, cheek resting against her knees, breathing shallow, trying not to slip under.
Voices drifted through the stone corridor like ghosts.
"…delay the transport… Emperor's orders…"
"…she's not to be harmed further…"
"…until the ritualist arrives…"
Ritualist.
Elena's stomach dropped.
They weren't rushing. That was bad. Very bad.
If the Empire wanted to move her quickly, that meant urgency.
But delay meant preparation.
She forced her eyes open, blinking through the throbbing haze.
"Okay," she whispered. "Not ideal."
Her voice was cracked, barely there.
She tried to sit upright — pain lanced through her ribs so sharply her vision burst into white spots. She gasped, squeezing her eyes shut until the world steadied again.
When she opened them, she scanned the room. She still had nothing.
The chain was too short. The bars too thick. Her body too damaged.
But she wasn't helpless. She refused to be helpless.
She shifted onto her side, wincing, pressing her fingertips along the floor, testing the chain's length again — just in case, as though physics might have changed out of pity.
The metal clinked loudly.
Footsteps echoed down the hall. She froze.
The commander — the one who struck her — passed the cell with two soldiers. She recognized his gait before she saw him. Heavy. Confident. Cruel.
"We hold here another day," he said. "The Emperor wants her alive when the ritualist arrives."
A soldier lowered his voice. "And the prince?"
"Far from here," the commander growled. "He won't reach the border for days."
The men walked on. Silence crept back in.
Elena slumped again, exhaustion dragging at her bones. Her head tipped forward as the fog of half-sleep wrapped around her again.
Her mind slipped — not toward fear this time, but toward memory.
Warm sunlight on her kitchen counter.A chipped mug of matcha latte in her hands.Her phone buzzing with too many messages from her residents.The familiar fluorescent lights of the hospital corridor.The smell of antiseptic.The hum of routine.Her overworked, overstretched life.
She saw herself in scrubs, hair in a messy bun, gulping matcha at 11 p.m. while reviewing patient's medical chart and deciding whether she had time to pee.
She remembered sitting in the staff room, half-asleep, telling a colleague:
"I just want one day. One day where nothing dramatic happens."
She almost laughed now.
She closed her eyes, letting the memory wash over her like a warm blanket.
Her old world. Her old life. Predictable. Stressful. Ordinary.
And now she was chained underground in a hostile empire, concussed, freezing, praying that the man infuriating enough to consume her thoughts would not die trying to reach her.
Her breath hitched.
Would he come?
But Mirenya's words whispered through her mind like poison:
He grows bored of attachments.
Elena's throat tightened.
Not him, she thought fiercely.Not with this.Not with me.
She forced her eyes open, staring at the bars of her cell.