“Lorian. James.”
My pulse quickened. Lazarus stiffened beside me.
The guard’s gaze found us, flat and cold.
“Are you joining the trials?”
It wasn’t a question.
I opened my mouth—but nothing came out.
Lazarus did not hesitate. “We are.”
The guard’s lips twitched—something between acknowledgment and mockery.
“Then step forward.”
The others parted as we moved, the crowd of prisoners watching us with fascination. Chains rattled. Breath fogged the air.
The Dreadhold watched too.
I could feel it.
In the way the walls seemed to lean closer, in the rhythm beneath the stone.
The prison was alive.
And it was hungry.
A figure stepped onto the raised platform.
Morgrath Severen.
His presence hit like a wave of black tar—thick, suffocating, impossible to escape. His shadow stretched long across the frost-hardened ground, curling toward us as though it meant to claim every last soul.
He wore black the way other men wore flesh. It wasn’t fabric. It wasn’t armor. It moved when he didn’t—alive, whispering in the wind like it hungered.
The yard fell still. Even the air seemed afraid to move.
When Severen spoke, his voice carried easily, low and meticulous, each word a command.
“You are here,” he said, “because you crave freedom.”
The word echoed against the walls, thin and hollow beneath the colorless sky.
“You want to escape this hell. This grave you made for yourselves.”
He paused, letting the silence draw tight, every breath heavy and visible in the cold.
“But freedom,” he said softly, “is not given.”
He stepped forward, his cloak gliding after him like night learning how to move.
“It is earned.”
His tone hardened, piercing the gray air. “And the price you will pay is steep.”
He began to move along the line of prisoners, his gaze sweeping over them—slow, methodical, searching, as if he were dissecting each man without ever touching him.
