The dungeon cell was a tomb of stone and silence.
Gerffron hung suspended by iron cuffs bolted high on the wall, wrists raw and bleeding where the metal had worn through skin. His legs had gone numb hours ago; the guards had made sure he could neither sit nor stand properly. Blood from the beating Gorgina had given him had dried in dark streaks across his chest and face. Every shallow breath sent fresh pain through cracked ribs.
He had lost track of time. The single torch outside the barred door had burned low, then been replaced by another, then another. No food. No water. No visitors. Only the distant echoes of shouting from the upper levels — nobles still screaming for their money, guards running, the empire cracking under the weight of the chaos he had unleashed.
Gerffron closed his eyes and let his head fall forward.
The pain in his body was nothing compared to the ache in his chest.
Styrmir was free.
That single truth was the only light left in the darkness.
He had done it. He was able to keep at least one promise. The boy who had waited ten years in chains was somewhere beyond the border now, safe with Acquikth's acquaintance, beginning the long road to healing.
Gerffron smiled through cracked lips, the taste of dried blood sharp on his tongue.
Worth it.
All of it — the beating, the chains, the loss of everything he had pretended to be — was worth it.
Exhaustion finally pulled him under.
The dream came soft at first, like warm rain on dry earth.
He was back in Kolkata.
The air was thick with the scent of monsoon rain and street-side chai. The narrow lane outside his family's small apartment building was alive with the sounds he had grown up with — the distant honk of auto-rickshaws, the laughter of children playing cricket in the alley, his mother's voice calling from the kitchen window.
"Deepak! Beta, come inside before the rain gets heavier!"
He looked down at himself. He was young again — twenty-two, but the old version. Black hair, slightly tanned skin, the simple white shirt and jeans he used to wear to college. No emerald eyes. No mousy brown hair. No gold wedding ring cutting into his finger.
Just Deepak Sehwal.
He walked up the narrow stairs, the familiar creak of each step under his feet bringing tears to his eyes. The door to their tiny two-room flat was open. His mother stood at the stove, stirring dal in a steel pot, her sari pallu tucked at her waist, the small red bindi on her forehead slightly smudged from the heat.
She turned and smiled at him — that tired but radiant smile he had missed so much it hurt.
"Arre, you're all wet! Go change before you catch cold. Your father is still at the shop, but he'll be back soon. I made your favorite — aloo paratha for dinner."
Deepak stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her without warning. She laughed softly, patting his back.
"What is this? Did something happen at school today?"
He couldn't speak. He just held her tighter, breathing in the smell of her — turmeric, rosewater soap, and the faint trace of the Parle-G biscuits she always kept in her purse for him.
His father came home later, the same quiet sigh escaping him as he removed his shoes at the door. The same gentle hand ruffling Deepak's hair.
"Beta, how were your exams? Still first in class? Don't let that Birsha cousin of yours beat you again this time."
The dream shifted.
He was in school again — the same corridors where Birsha had ruled like a king. But this time Deepak wasn't afraid. He walked past the group of boys who used to laugh at him, past the computer lab where the worst night of his life had happened, and kept walking until he reached the scholarship board.
His name was at the top.
The scholarship offer from a good B-school of Hyderbad.
His mother was crying happy tears when he told her. His father hugged him so tight he could barely breathe.
"You did it, beta. You're going to make us proud."
The dream blurred again.
He was at the airport.
The same day.
The same moment.
But this time, when something made him push off from the terrace toward the speeding pavement of his B-school, Gerffron turned.
He saw Birsha's face clearly — the same face that now belonged to Gorgina Wadee.
He never jumped from that terrace.
He woke up gasping in the dungeon cell.
The iron cuffs bit deeper into his wrists as his body jerked. Pain flared through every bruise, every cut, every cracked rib. The torch outside the door had burned even lower. The shouting from above had quieted to a low rumble.
Gerffron hung there, chest heaving, tears mixing with the dried blood on his face.
India.
Home.
His parents.
The life he had lost because of one push from the cousin who now wore a duke's title and slept in his bed.
The dream had been so real he could still smell his mother's dal on the stove.
He closed his eyes again, but the dungeon refused to let him go back.
Instead, new memories came — uninvited, merciless.
The computer lab night.
The cold tiles.
Birsha's laughter outside the door.
The way his friends had turned away the next day.
The scholarship letter that had been his only escape.
The truck.
The wedding vows in a body that wasn't his.
The first touch of Styrmir's cold fingers through the bars.
The way Styrmir had whispered "I'll wait for you."
Gerffron's breath hitched.
He was twenty-seven years old in this world now.
Styrmir was still eighteen — broken, sold, but free.
Five years.
He had to survive five years.
He had to stay alive long enough for the boy to grow into the man who would return as an emissary.
He had to endure whatever Gorgina, Teivel, and the Queen threw at him.
Because somewhere across the border, Styrmir was alive.
And one day, he would come back.
Gerffron lifted his head and stared at the iron bars of his cell door.
The pain in his body was nothing.
The pain in his heart was fuel.
He smiled — small, sharp, and unbreakable.
The King's disappointment.
Gorgina's heartbreak.
Teivel's rage.
Queen Lashina's private manhunt.
Let them come.
He had already died once.
He could survive anything now.
In the darkness of the dungeon, Gerffron Wadee — formerly Deepak Sehwal — closed his eyes and dreamed again.
Not of escape.
Not of revenge.
Of home.
Of his parents.
Of the boy he had once been.
And of the man he was becoming.
The fire inside him burned steady and bright.
Five years.
He would wait.
He would endure.
And when Styrmir returned, the empire that had tried to break them both would finally understand what it meant to face two souls who had already survived hell.
The night stretched on.
The snow kept falling.