The dungeon beneath the Royal Citadel was built for ugliness.
Everything about it seemed designed to strip shape and dignity from whatever entered.
The stones sweated with dampness. Rust ate at the bars in reddish streaks. Old straw rotted in corners untouched for years. The torchlight was dim and jaundiced, turning every face it touched sickly and warped.
It was a place where men became less than men.
Which made Sora look profoundly unreal inside it.
When the guards shoved open the final cell and ordered him in, even the prisoners already half-asleep in the neighboring bars stirred at the sight.
He stepped over the threshold without resistance.
Black leggings.
Dark hoodie.
Sleeveless turtleneck visible beneath.
Soft black hair falling over pale skin untouched by the grime around him.
And a face that seemed almost violently misplaced in a place like this.
Too symmetrical.
Too delicate.
Too cleanly made.
Like someone had taken a painting from a palace hall and dropped it into sewage.
One of the guards removed the mana shackles only after the bars slammed shut.
Blue suppression sigils lit faintly beneath the floor.
Sora flexed his wrists once.
Then walked to the far corner and sat down.
Quietly.
His back rested against stone.
One knee drew up.
One arm draped over it.
Head tilted slightly downward.
He looked neither frightened nor angry.
Only distant.
As though his mind had followed none of him into the room.
The guards lingered.
One muttered under his breath, "Looks too pretty to be the beast."
The other snorted. "Pretty things rot too."
Then they left.
Bootsteps faded.
Silence settled.
For approximately thirty seconds.
Then a low whistle came from the opposite cell.
"Well, well."
Sora did not look up.
Another prisoner shifted into torchlight.
A broad, ugly man with prison tattoos and a split nose.
He stared through the bars openly.
"Hells," he said. "Thought they were bringing in some demon. They brought in a noble's doll."
Laughter rose from farther down the corridor.
Another inmate stepped closer.
Then another.
Faces began appearing between bars.
Greedy.
Crude.
Interested.
Because monsters were one thing.
Beautiful things trapped in cages were another.
Sora remained motionless.
He heard them.
Registered them.
Allowed the noise to drift over him without entering.
One of the men clicked his tongue.
"Hey, sweetheart."
No response.
"Can it hear?"
"Course it hears. Look at those ears."
"Maybe it doesn't talk."
"Maybe it only cries."
A few snickers.
Sora's expression did not change.
He stared at a crack in the floor.
The tattooed man grinned wider.
"Those palace guards serious? This little thing's the catastrophic beast?"
"Wouldn't mind catastrophic if it looked at me like that," another prisoner jeered.
More laughter.
Filthy laughter.
Sora closed his eyes.
Not in discomfort.
In absence.
The world had become very far away again.
This was easier.
When the mind detached, words lost weight.
Monster.
Thing.
Pet.
Pretty.
None of it mattered if one simply did not step fully inside the room.
Something soft struck his shoulder.
A crust of bread.
He opened his eyes.
Looked at it where it slid into his lap.
Then let it fall to the floor.
The prisoners laughed louder.
"Oh, it moves."
"Not mute then?"
"Hey pretty boy, did the Heroes get tired of you?"
No answer.
"Lady Thalia finally toss her little pet away?"
That name reached him.
Not enough to move.
But enough that his fingers curled once.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
The men noticed.
"Oho."
Tattoo-face leaned closer.
"It likes that one."
"Hero's favorite, was he?"
"Maybe that's why they locked him down here. Lady knight got done playing."
Crude whistles echoed.
Sora inhaled.
Slowly.
Exhaled.
His face remained perfectly still.
He did not defend himself.
Did not threaten.
Did not even lift his head.
It was almost unnerving, how completely passive he remained.
Like he had accepted every insult directed at him as background noise.
Which only encouraged them.
Because men like this mistook stillness for weakness.
The wiry prisoner three cells down grinned, showing broken yellow teeth.
"Bet she liked having something this pretty follow her around."
Laughter.
"Maybe she kept him kneeling."
More laughter.
"Maybe Lady Thalia likes strays with nice faces."
The corridor howled.
Someone banged a cup against bars.
Another inmate spat a vulgar suggestion into the dark.
And then—
the wiry man laughed so hard he had to brace himself on the bars before adding,
"Or maybe she got sick of looking at him and dumped the little bitch where he belongs—"
Sora lifted his head.
Everything stopped.
It was not dramatic.
He simply raised his face.
And the dungeon went dead silent.
Because his eyes—
were glowing.
Not reflecting torchlight.
Glowing.
A deep, saturated crimson burning from his pupils outward like embers catching dry paper.
The effect against his pale skin was almost unnatural.
Beautiful in the same way lightning was beautiful right before it killed someone.
The wiry prisoner's grin faltered.
Tattoo-face stepped back from his bars instinctively.
Sora rose to his feet.
Slowly.
His movements had become too smooth.
Too precise.
Black mana began leaking from beneath his shoes, spreading over the floor in thin, smoke-like ribbons.
The suppression sigils flared.
Then shrieked.
High magical screams tore through the corridor as the wards strained under pressure they had never been designed to contain.
Sora said nothing at first.
He just stood there looking at them.
Looking at all of them.
The prisoners who had laughed.
Whistled.
Spat.
Mocked.
His expression remained eerily calm.
That was the worst part.
There was no wild rage twisting his features.
No snarl.
No bared teeth.
Just those burning red eyes and a face too beautiful to belong to anything merciful.
When he finally spoke, his voice came soft.
Dead soft.
"Say her name again."
No one moved.
No one breathed loudly enough to be heard.
The wiry prisoner swallowed.
"W-we were joking—"
A black tendril exploded through the bars.
It wrapped around his throat before the sentence ended.
Sora's glowing eyes did not blink.
"I know."
And then the screaming began.