"Empty," I finished.

It was wrong. All of it. A castle this grand should have been teeming with life—servants rushing about their duties, guards on patrol, nobles conducting their business. Instead, there was only silence and sunlight and the faint echo of our footsteps on marble.

I approached a corner where the hallway bent to the left. Something made me pause—some instinct honed by years of survival. I stopped abruptly and pressed my back against the wall, holding up a hand to signal Kuro to do the same.

The cat, not paying attention, nearly walked right around the corner. My hand shot out and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, lifting him into the air before he could expose himself.

"Hey, what's the big—" he started to protest.

I clamped my other hand over his mouth, silencing him instantly. My eyes locked with his, conveying the urgency of the situation without words. Quiet. Now.

Then I heard it. The sound that had triggered my instincts.

"No, no. Please stop," a small voice begged, trembling with terror. "Please, I don't want to go. Please!"

The pleading was punctuated by the sound of chains dragging across marble, metal links scraping and clanking with each agonizing pull.

Kuro's eyes went wide. He stopped struggling in my grip.

Slowly, carefully, I lowered myself and the cat closer to the floor. We both peered around the corner, keeping our bodies hidden, exposing only enough to see what was happening.

A figure in a dark cloak moved down the hallway ahead of us. The robe was deep blue, almost black in the shadows, and a hood obscured the wearer's face completely. They walked with purpose, one hand gripping a heavy chain that trailed behind them.

At the end of that chain was a child.

A little girl, no more than eight or nine years old. She wore a torn, filthy dress that might have once been white. Her feet were bare and bloody, leaving small red marks on the pristine marble floor. She struggled against the chain, her small hands pulling uselessly at the metal collar locked around her neck. Tears streamed down her face, and her voice cracked as she continued to beg.

"I didn't do anything! Why are you doing this? Please!"

The cloaked figure didn't respond. Didn't even acknowledge her. They simply kept walking, dragging the child along like a piece of luggage. Like she was nothing.

My hand tightened on the hilt of my blade.

And then I saw her face clearly as she turned, still trying to pull away from her captor.

White hair. Impossibly white, like fresh snow. And blue eyes—bright, terrified blue eyes.

I recognized her.

Yesterday. I'd been moving through the lower district when I saw them—a group of children being dragged through the streets by rope, their hands bound, their mouths gagged. Guards flanked them on both sides, ensuring no one interfered. This girl had been among them, her white hair making her easy to spot in the group. She'd been crying silently, tears streaming down her face as she stumbled along.

I'd watched. Done nothing. Kept walking.

Just another group of unfortunate souls caught in this kingdom's rot. Not my problem. Not my concern.

So why was it bothering me now?

My jaw clenched as I stared at her struggling form, so why did my hand refuse to release the hilt of my blade? Why did my muscles tense, ready to move? Why did her desperate plea make something uncomfortable twist in my chest?

Kuro looked up at me, and I could see the question in his eyes. What do we do?

The girl screamed again. "SOMEBODY HELP ME! PLEASE! I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG!"

My jaw clenched tighter. 

I released Kuro and stepped around the corner.

The white-haired child and the cloaked figure continued down the hallway, the chain scraping against marble with each pull. Her pleas grew more desperate, more broken, until finally they stopped before a heavy wooden door. The cloaked figure produced a key, unlocked it, and dragged the child inside. The door slammed shut, but her voice still carried through—muffled begging, desperate crying.

I stood in the hallway, watching the closed door. My expression remained blank, unchanged. Kuro landed beside me, looking up at my face, searching for something.

"What do you think they're doing in there?" Kuro asked, his voice quiet.

I said nothing, already moving toward the door. I tested the handle. Unlocked. Careless. I pushed it open slowly, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness beyond.

Slave child—

The chain around my neck burned as he dragged me through the doorway. I tried to dig my bare feet into the ground, tried to pull back, but it was useless. My feet just scraped across the cold stone, leaving streaks of blood from where the rough floor had torn my skin.

"Please! I didn't do anything wrong!" I screamed again, but the cloaked man didn't even look back at me. He just kept pulling, kept walking like I was nothing more than a sack of grain.

The door slammed shut behind us with a sound that made me flinch. The hallway's light disappeared, replaced by an eerie blue glow. Blue candles. Dozens of them were scattered throughout the room, their flames flickering and dancing, casting shadows that looked alive.

My eyes adjusted slowly. The room was big, much bigger than I thought—stone walls on all sides. No windows. No other doors that I could see. Just the candles and the shadows and—

Other children.

My breath caught in my throat. They were chained to the far wall, a line of them, maybe a dozen or more. Some were crying quietly. Others just stared at nothing, their eyes empty as they'd already given up. A few looked at me with the same terror I felt crawling up my spine.

The man dragged me toward the wall where the others were. I tried to fight again, pulling against the chain, but he was too strong. He grabbed a pair of iron cuffs hanging from the wall and snapped them around my wrists. The metal was cold and heavy, and when I tried to move, it clinked against itself with a sound that made me want to cry even harder.

He stepped back, and for a moment, I thought he might leave. But he didn't. He just stood there, running his hands through his hair like he was trying to pull it out.

"Damn it," he muttered, starting to pace back and forth. "I did not sign up for this. I should not have joined this."

His voice was shaking, cracking like he might cry too. But I didn't feel sorry for him. He was the one who put these chains on me. On all of us.

"I thought I would benefit from this job," he continued, talking to himself more than to us. "Make some coin, gain some favor. Not... not this." He stomped his foot against the wall so hard it made me jump. "There's no way I can run away from this kingdom without them finding me. Without them killing me."

He spun around suddenly, and his eyes landed on us—all of us chained to the wall. His face twisted into something ugly, something angry.

A small girl near the end of the line—she couldn't have been more than five years old—tried to scramble away from him. Her chains rattled uselessly. The man's face got even angrier, and before I could blink, he grabbed her hair and yanked her up off the ground.

The little girl screamed. "Please, it hurts!"

Her tiny hands grabbed at his arm, trying to pull herself up, trying to make the pain stop. I wanted to help her. Wanted to do something. But I couldn't move. The chains held me tight against the wall.

"It's all because of the sire and his damn rituals!" the man yelled, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "Following his orders like a fool! I should have stayed a merchant's guard—poor but free!" He shook the girl, making her cry harder. "This is not my fault, YOU HEAR ME? I'm just following orders! None of this is my fault!"

The little girl was crying so hard she couldn't even speak anymore. But then her eyes went wide, staring at something behind the man. The fear in her face changed—became something different. Something worse.

I followed her gaze.

There was a shadow in the corner of the room. A huge shadow that hadn't been there before. And it was moving.

My whole body went cold.

The shadow stepped forward, just enough for the blue candlelight to catch it. Eyes. Glowing red eyes, bright like fire, staring right at the man holding the little girl. And above those eyes—horns. Curved and dark, rising from its head like the demons in the stories the adults used to tell to scare us.

A demon. A real demon had come.

I wanted to scream, but my voice wouldn't work. All I could do was stare as the shadow moved closer, growing bigger, darker. This was it. We were all going to die. The demons had come to take us to—

The man finally noticed. He turned around, still holding the little girl by her hair.

"Wh... who are you?" His voice cracked with fear.

He dropped the little girl. She hit the ground hard and didn't move. The man's hand went to his sword, drawing it with shaking hands. "Stay back! I'm warning you!"

The shadow moved.

So fast I almost didn't see it.

One moment, the man was standing there with his sword. The next moment, something flashed in the blue light—another blade, longer and sharper—and then blood.

So much blood.

It sprayed across the floor, across the nearest children who screamed and tried to press themselves into the wall. The man's sword clattered to the ground. His hands flew to his throat, trying to hold something together, but the blood just kept coming, pouring between his fingers like water.

He tried to say something. "Hel... he..." But only gurgling sounds came out.

His legs gave out, and he fell. First to his knees, then forward onto his face. The blood pooled around him, creeping slowly across the floor toward us.

I couldn't look away. Couldn't breathe. The demon had killed him. And now it would kill us too.

But then the demon stepped into the light.

It wasn't a demon.

It wasn't a demon.

Not exactly.

His hair was black—completely, impossibly black. Darker than the night sky. Darker than coal. I'd never seen anyone with black hair before. Not in real life. Only in the old stories about cursed lands and demon kings. But this was real. He was real.

Then I saw his eyes.

They weren't both red like I thought. One eye was red—bright, blood red that seemed to glow even in the candlelight. But the other eye was different. Green. Like grass after rain. Like the forests beyond the city walls.

Two different colored eyes. I didn't even know that was possible.

My gaze traveled upward, to the top of his head where I'd seen the horns in the shadows.

They were still there.

Horns. Two of them, curved and dark, were rising from his skull.

Wait. Maybe they were part of a helmet? Knights wore helmets with decorations sometimes. Maybe he was wearing armor on his head?

I squinted, trying to see better in the flickering blue light. I looked for the edge of metal, for straps under his chin, for anything that would show he was wearing something on his head.

There was nothing.

No helmet. No crown. No armor. Just his black hair... and those horns growing right out of his head. Like they were part of him. Like they'd always been there.

My stomach twisted. What was he?

He wiped the blood off his blade with a piece of cloth torn from the dead man's cloak, his face completely calm. Like killing someone was nothing. Like this was just another day.

And then I remembered.

Yesterday. The market.

I'd been with a group of children before the guards came and took us. We'd been walking past the weapon stalls when I saw him. This same man. Black hair. Those horns. Standing at one of the merchant's tables, looking at something.

I'd stared. I couldn't help it. He looked so... wrong. So different from everyone else. Like he didn't belong in our world.

And then, for just a moment, he'd looked up. His eyes—one red, one green—had met mine. I'd frozen in place, unable to move, unable to breathe.

Then he'd looked away, like I wasn't important, and gone back to whatever he was doing. And I'd hurried to catch up with the others, my heart pounding.

I'd tried to forget about him. Tried to convince myself I'd imagined it.

But here he was. In this terrible room. Covered in blood.

The same man from the market.

He was wiping blood off his blade with a piece of cloth, his face completely calm like he hadn't just killed someone.

"Hey kids, look over here!"

I jumped at the new voice. A black cat stood in the doorway—the same door we'd come through. The door that had been closed and locked.

"I'm a talking cat! Can you believe it?"

A talking cat? I stared. Several other children stared too.

"Is that really a talking cat?" someone whispered.

"Maybe it's a mana beast?"

"It's probably just a rat."

The cat's fur puffed up. "I am a CAT!" It stood on its back legs and started moving in weird circles. "Now look at me dance! Aren't I amazing?"

Despite everything—despite the dead man and the blood and the chains—some of the children actually laughed. Small, scared laughs, but laughs. The cat kept dancing, spinning around and almost falling over.

"Yes! Praise me! Keep watching! Don't look over there. Eyes on the cat!"

While we watched the cat, the man with the black hair moved to a wooden stand in the corner. He picked up a knife and looked at it before putting it in his pocket. Then he walked over to the dead man and started searching through his clothes.

He pulled out a key ring and stood up. Without a word, he tossed the keys toward us. They landed on the floor near my feet.

I stared at them. Keys. Keys to the chains.

"Excuse me."

The words came out before I could stop them. The man turned to look at me, and I almost took a step back. But the chains stopped me. Those red eyes—not glowing anymore, just red—looked down at me. Waiting.

"Did you... did you help us?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

He didn't answer. Just kept staring.

I remembered suddenly. The corner. The dark corner where they kept her. Where they kept the ones the ritual didn't work on.

I pointed past him to that dark corner where no candles reached. "Can you help her too?"

His eyebrows pulled together. "Who? Who needs help?"

Then we all heard it.

A wet, gurgling sound. A groan that sounded like it was coming from something that should already be dead.

All the children went quiet. Even the cat stopped dancing. Everyone stared at that corner, and I felt the same terror from before creeping back up my spine.

The man drew his blade again and walked toward the sound.

Something crawled out of the darkness.

I wanted to look away. Wanted to close my eyes. But I couldn't.

It was flesh. Just... flesh. Shaped wrong, moving wrong, like someone had taken a person and melted them and tried to put them back together but forgot how people were supposed to look. The skin bubbled and popped with wet sounds. Eyes—too many eyes—were scattered across its surface, and somewhere in all that wrongness was a mouth, gasping and coughing up blood.

It had been a person once. One of us. One of the children they'd tried to use for the ritual.

"K... k... kk..." It tried to talk. Blood came out instead of words.

The cat screamed. "EW! WHAT IS THAT?!"