Lucrys’ good hand shook relentlessly. The break of the needle made his palm firm. His destroyed bones jut into the nerves beneath his skin. "What the fuck happened?" he mumbled. He imagined Amillara's warmth against him, remembered her long black hair. It stretched around him, enveloping him in darkness. He made out the silhouettes in the room. He was on the stone floor away from the makeshift bed. "Wouldn't be much different, anyway," he remarked.

     He stood and walked to the edge of the room, skirting back around to the door of Skaarin's extra office. He tried twisting the knob, but it wouldn’t turn. He punched the wood, causing it to splinter apart, only to find a layer of metal beneath it. He ran his hands down the door and found that the wood grew damp toward the bottom.

     A small pool of water shifted at the base of the doorway, leaking through from Skaarin’s room. Lucrys bent low and put his lips to the pool, sipping from it. A faint taste of iron mixed in with the water. As the familiar flavor of blood ran across his tongue, Lucrys thought of Amillara. He remembered the king’s jaw unhinging as he devoured her terrified form. Lucrys had never seen Amillara with that look on her face. She always tried to smile in front of him. The image of fear settled into his mind. He remembered biting his arms, ripping off his own flesh in an attempt to find her. Remembered how long he’d gone without eating before succumbing to hunger. He couldn’t decide if never eating or eating himself would let him atone for hiding as Amillara screamed in front of him. If anything could redeem him, he’d surely fail. The scars would always remind him of that.

     Lucrys stood and walked through the center of the room. After a couple laps back and forth, he found a grate. He dropped his pants. “I guess you could call just this a courtesy,” he mumbled. After tying his belt, he lay on his stone bed and stared up into the darkness.

     “Why not try to open it?” Amillara’s voice came to him. Calm and reliable, the way she always was.

     “For what reason?” Lucrys asked. “There’s nothing out in the world. This cell is the same.”

     Her hand wrapped around Lucrys gently. She lifted his bad hand to his face. Her body illuminated the room slightly. “Look what he did to you. You don’t want that to continue, do you?”

     “Skaarin didn’t seem okay,” Lucrys agreed. “But I’ve nowhere to go.”

     “We won’t be here,” Amillara purred. “I want out.” She tugged on his hand and stepped away from the slab. “C’mon,” she crooned. Lucrys followed her pull to the grate. He saw her drop through, her light dispersing as her feet hit the floor below. “Come down.”

     He jerked on the bars. The grate didn’t let go, but it was loose enough. He stood, adjusting his grip. He pulled harder, lifting the heavy ironwork from the hole, and then descended into the pitch beneath the cell.

     “Come on,” her voice called again. He stepped forward. As her voice drifted away, he could see torches lighting. The walls proved the years the tunnels stood before Lucrys’ entry. They were worn well beyond the years of the castle walls he’d encountered.

     Lucrys followed the torches as they lit. “Amillara?” he asked. “Why can’t I feel you? Where are you? I don’t like it here.”

     The tunnels were filled with excrement. Darkness loomed before Lucrys in every direction, save for the torches. He could feel the grime beneath his feet, wet sputters squishing beneath him with each step. The cracked walls scraped against his skin as he dragged his hand along it. In the distance, he saw the torches stop lighting. The tunnels intersected, small bridges uniting them. He crossed a bridge to the left and followed the unlit hallway for a while.

     Across a broken bridge, he saw another doorway. He jumped over the crack and tried the door. The knob turned easily enough, but the door was stuck against the frame. Lucrys slammed his shoulder into it until it opened, tearing his shirt and leaving splinters across his flesh.

     “Mil?” Lucrys entered the room. He followed the wall until he wrapped back around to the door. He couldn’t feel torches on the walls. The room was circular, with the same cracked stonework as the tunnels. Lucrys traced the wall again, and then walked toward the center. A brick shifted from his step as a blue design appeared on the floor. He kneeled, but the design vanished.

     KDulinj slabs glowed dimly from the walls, barely lighting the room in an icy, ominous blue. There was a chair in the center, a few feet from Lucrys. He walked to it and placed his good hand on the frame. He traced a silhouette’s form. It was tall and cold. He ran his hand along the ground, following its break. A stone sliced through his hand, stinging him. He lost his breath. The room felt colder and his hand pulsed as pus oozed from the cut. Something was watching him.

     He grasped the rod and pulled it from the floor, then made to turn around. The rod was heavy and his movement slowed as he twisted. A cold bit at his hands, forcing him to drop it. The kdulinj brightened as the rod reconnected with the break in the floor. Lucrys saw it clearly now, a massive lance repositioning itself within the withered stone. Behind the lance, sat upright on a throne, was a rotten human corpse with a crown drooping over its head.

     “Alucin?” Lucrys asked. He leaned in closer. He remembered the throne room where his trial was held. The throne was the same as the young king’s. The skull rested on the hand of the figure. A smile permanently engraved into the shattered bones. The clothing looked familiar to Lucrys. It was just as eccentric as Skaarin’s garb. “You’re too short to be the old king,” Lucrys said. “Who were you?”

     The kdulinj shut out, then turned a dark, dim red. The room grew colder. Lucrys could see frost rising on the walls and covering the kdulinj. He ran from the room and slammed the door shut. The frost spread across the frame before receding. Lucrys began his walk again, following the tunnels to another intersection.

     The intersection was huge, much larger than the first. Across the way, a large heaping mass turned toward him. Yellow eyes glowed from multiple spots within the mass. A maw, murky and dripping, opened to reveal a deep throat. It lashed at Lucrys, but retracted before it could reach him. Another pair of jaws locked onto the first, slurping and feeding from their sloshing form.

     Lucrys started to run away, but a hulking, humanoid creature broke through the wall and walked toward him. He pushed himself against the wall and began screaming for Amillara. He could feel her in his skin. Tearing into him the way his demons would.

     The humanoid rushed the mass of sludge, its hands burning away the black mass. The sludge fought back, trying to climb the arms of its opponent as it ate away at his skin. But it was no use, the cloak of the figure wrapped around it, setting the sludge aflame. A strange gurgle came from the sludge as its form withered away.

     The humanoid turned to face Lucrys, blue eyes glowing within its cowl, searching for Lucrys’ form in the darkness. Its hand descended upon him, the bone steaming from the acid that tore the flesh. It grabbed onto the back of Lucrys’ neck. He screamed. A shadow burst from his body and tore away the skin that the creature was holding. He ran. Through the tunnels and back to the grate he had climbed through. His demons chased him all the while. He tried the door beneath his cell, but, just like the one above, it wouldn’t budge. He called out for Amillara, called to the grate for Skaarin. But there was no reply.

     His demons danced around him, making an opening as a large form appeared in the intersection of the tunnel. As the demon walked toward him the torches flickered out. Lucrys clawed at the door. He could see the hulking humanoid behind his created demon. He tried to jump for the grate. He could feel Mil’s hand wrap around his wrist as he jumped. She pulled him up.

     Before he made it through the grate, the claws of the demon grasped his legs tightly. It pulled him back into the depths, its talons surrounding his head. He screamed as his bones broke. His stomach and back split open. “I told you to stay in the cell,” Amillara scolded him. “But you never listen to me.”

                                                                 ◊ ◊ ◊

     “Good god, you’re a mess.” Skaarin studied Lucrys for a moment, and then offered his hand. He lifted Lucrys effortlessly as he set him on his stone bed.

     “Were you spending your time crawling along the floor? You look like shit. You must have passed out on that grate.” Skaarin looked back to Lucrys. “Don’t tell me- you were trying to pull that ancient thing straight from the stone? You’re so frail there’s no way it would’ve budged!”

     “I just wanted to leave,” Lucrys said.

     “There is no leaving, Lucrys,” Skaarin laughed. “This is your punishment. You’ll deal with the consequences you’ve been dealt.” He paced around the room for a moment. “Latrus has decided to meet with you. I told him to wait for you to get your wits about you, but the fuck insisted we do it now. I came at a good time. You seem sane enough to me.”

     “The king,” Lucrys began, but he shut his mouth.

     “What about the king?”

     Lucrys scratched his head for a moment. Skaarin noticed a large scar across his torso. His shirt had been ripped almost in half, with the bottom dangling from a few strands. “Is the king much like Alucin?”

     “We shall see,” Skaarin replied. “You can judge him. He’ll judge you. I don’t see a point in this.” Skaarin began to hum. He chuckled after a moment and swung Lucrys from his seat. He danced with him, twirling him about the cell. “What happened here?” Skaarin asked, fondling the broken needle in Lucrys’ palm. Lucrys winced and pulled away.

     “Amillara says you did that.”

     “Amillara? Friend, we’re the only ones here! Has someone been sneaking in during the hours I’m gone?” Skaarin dipped Lucrys low to the ground. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sure anyone can come and go as they please. Have I ever told you the story of Aurona?”

     Lucrys pulled away from Skaarin. “Why are you here?”

     “Oh my,” Skaarin smiled. “Not one for stories, are we? That’s fine. We’ll have all the time in the world soon. But you’re right. I shouldn’t be here. We should be off to meet the young king.” He walked to the door and pushed it open. “Don’t come out too fast now. You haven’t been in long, but the light could blind you if you don’t take it slow.”

     Lucrys squinted as Skaarin pushed open the second door. He stepped toward the small hallway as the light hit his eyes. His head throbbed.

     Skaarin stared past Lucrys. “Torches instead of kdulinj, faulty walkways, shit covering everything. You wouldn’t wanna get stuck down in that hole,” he said. “Let’s get going, Lucrys.”