“A monster.”
The words strangled me, pressing into my chest like an invisible weight.
Emily must hate me.
A part of me agreed—how could she not?
My body throbbed as I tugged against the iron restraints, the jagged metal biting deeper into my wrists. The pain was grounding and welcome—a physical punishment for the sins repeating in my mind.
Then—
Movement. A presence.
Through the murky haze of my suffering, afigure emerged.
Dancing Fire.
The man I called father.
He had taught me everything—how to hunt, track, and survive.
We had ridden together, lived together, bled together.
And now?—
He glared at me.
Towering. Seething. His presence crackled with fury.
“What do you want?” I rasped.
Dancing Fire stepped closer, his form impossibly large, looming, stretching beyond human proportions, filling the space until he was in the dungeon.
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain myself before leaving me,” he hissed. His voice was like wind through dead leaves—rustling, unforgiving.
A blade glinted in his hand.
“You were the only son I had.”
He lifted the knife?—
And thrust it toward my heart.
“But you left me.”
I thrashed against the chains, panic surging through me.
“No, no, no!” My voice cracked. “It wasn’t like that! I had to leave!”
But the past didn’t care.
It held me in its grip—merciless—refusing to let me go.
And still, the ghosts whispered.
Still, the guilt devoured me whole.
A thousand men raised their arms and lashed me with their whips.
