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It was not the first time Rae had been in the pit. It would likely not be her last either. She knew better than to count the number of times the whip sliced across her back. Instead, she focused on the cool evening air and the fading warmth of the setting sun on her bare skin. The air out here, even in the bottom of this pit, was clean and fresh. Its winter bite burned her lungs as she gratefully breathed it in.

The full moon above began to take over the darkening sky as the pit's shadows grew across the ground. The world around her looked strange. A gentle snowfall began to trickle down from the sky, adding to the few piles of snow in the darkest corners of the pit floor.

Noise from the balcony drew Rae's attention to that strange Prince standing above her. Beside him, the Duke seemed almost unnerved at his proximity to his own monarch. Rae gritted her teeth as the whip bit into her skin, cutting deep this time. She refused to let them see her pain, even as drops of blood began to fall on the white snow-covered ground beneath her.

She stared at nothing as the sight of that blood brought back the haunted memories of all she had seen die here. Burned, beaten, hung, beheaded, the deaths played over and over in her mind, like performers on a morbid stage.

As the pain from the whip grew, Rae closed her eyes. She retreated deep, deep, deep down into the furthest depths of herself. Concentrating only on the freezing cold of the iron on her wrists and the empty void inside herself. That place where her magic had once been was now filled with coiling darkness. Yet somehow that cold darkness within her, was a comfort. Rae forced her body to relax as the whip crashed down on her back. Her mind floated freely away and the pain faded too.

She was no longer chained in a courtyard. Instead, she was in the pine and oak forests that covered the mountains of Leona. The cold chill of the mountain air burned her lungs as she raced beside her father. It was summer, yet high in the mountains, the temperature was comfortable even on the hottest of days. The cool breeze rushed through her dark fur as her paws slammed into the soft mossy ground beneath her. Rae's father easily kept pace beside her. His body was far larger than her own, even in this form.

Bright green leaves mixed with the dark almost blue color of the evergreen pines formed a canopy overhead. The sunlight filtering through the leaves, casting a green tint on the world below. Rae remembered the smell of her prey as she veered off their usual path. She could still taste the blood from the rabbit as she pounced on it, killing it before the small animal even knew what had caught it.

The world crashed back down around her as pain sliced through her body. Rae slumped forward, her body unable to withstand the beating.

"Get her up!" someone shouted. Her vision swam as two gruff hands wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her to her feet. She did not scream in pain. She would not give in. She would not give these humans the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Rae's eyes met with those of an Etherie female slave. The female's knuckles were white as she tightly gripped the wooden hand railing she had been forced to stand at. She was a dryad, her tree planted somewhere far away from here. The leaves of her hair were not the bright green color they should have been. Instead, they looked like the leaves of a tree right before they fell in autumn. No dryad's tree ever went through the changes of autumn — not while its host was still alive.

But this female, weak as she may be, chained in a line of prisoners and forced to work for their enemy, was still unbroken. Her eyes were alive with fierce determination, begging Rae to get up. To fight back. Begging her to do something. The leaves of her hair, while they were not bright green like they should have been, they were also not dead, Rae realized. They were red like fire. They were orange and purple and yellow. The female looked like a warrior, hair alight with burning flames, ready to fight back in any way she could. Her eyes burned with that same determination, begging Rae to get up, to not bow to these humans. Determination swelled in Rae's chest. One foot at a time, she forced herself to stand up. The guards were not looking at her. They were not paying attention to the prisoner that should have been unconscious on the ground.

"I will not join you and I will not break," Rae snarled towards the Prince who had also been too busy talking with a member of his personal guard to notice her. Her words, her truth that she was still unbroken was as much a shock to her as it was to her captors. Her will soared at that truth, at the knowledge that she was still whole, even without her magic.

"You seem to think you have an option, my dear. What else is left for you?" Thidal motioned to the prison walls surrounding them. "You need me far more than I want you,"

Rae let out a feral growl in response, her fists tightening as her broken nails dug into the palms of her hands.

"No one is coming for you. What makes you think you will survive another year let alone another month in this place? You are a magicless, weak, forgotten, prisoner," The Prince turned to leave, but Rae stopped him with one simple truth that made all the difference in the world.

"I am alive," her words barely over a whisper.

"I am alive,” she repeated, "and that is all that matters. I will live longer than any human! This,” she said motioning to the prison around her, just as the prince had, “this is nothing to me,” Her smile broadened as she spoke. The Prince returned to the edge of the balcony, but she continued to speak.

“When your armies are old and withered, I will still be here. Unchanged, unmoved, and unbroken. I am not some number that you assigned me! I am Lady Death," She smiled up at him in defiance.

At that name alone… at her name, an eerie silence fell over the world. The chirp of the crickets went silent. Not one of the prisoners made a sound, the chains linking them together were quiet. Even the wind that constantly howled through the pit and corridors of the compound went still. It was the total absence of sound.