Gale’s mind drifted in and out of consciousness as he lay on the cold stone floor of the dungeon, the rhythmic drip of water in the distance almost lulling him into a restless sleep. His body was stiff, his limbs aching from the long hours of captivity. The hunger gnawed at him like an animal, relentless, but his spirit remained strong—unyielding.

But the silence of the dungeon was soon broken by the heavy clanking of boots echoing down the narrow hallway. The sound drew closer, and the heavy iron door to his cell creaked open. Two guards entered, their faces obscured by shadows in the dim light. They didn’t speak, didn’t need to. One of them roughly grabbed Gale by the shoulders, jerking him upright. The other moved with a cold efficiency, securing Gale’s arms to the stone wall with thick chains.

Before Gale could fully comprehend what was happening, the younger guard pushed a thick, oily liquid toward his mouth. The smell was foul—sickening—and the moment the liquid touched his lips, a shudder ran through him. It burned as it slid down his throat, its consistency heavy and thick, like molten tar. Gale gagged, his stomach rebelling against the vile substance, but the guard’s grip held firm. The liquid seemed to crawl down his insides, each drop an agony of its own. It felt like it was eating away at him from the inside, like it was poisoning him slowly. His vision blurred, his body shuddered with the shock of the pain, and the world tilted dangerously around him.

He fought the urge to vomit, to scream, but he had no strength left. His head swam, and his limbs grew weak. The blackness crept in, dragging him under like a tidal wave.

When he woke again, he was no longer in the cold dungeon cell. The room had changed. The stone walls had been replaced with something finer, warmer. The air smelled of incense and the faint aroma of cooked meats. His head throbbed as though it had been struck with a hammer, and his body ached as though every muscle had been torn apart.

A thick leather chair groaned beneath his weight as he was pushed into it roughly. His hands were still bound, but his legs were now free. He tried to push himself up, but his limbs felt weak and uncoordinated, as if the liquid had sapped his strength.

And then, the king entered.

The regal figure was surrounded by a pair of guards, but it was the cold, calculating look in the king’s eyes that truly seized Gale's attention. There was no compassion in that gaze, only disdain and curiosity. The king circled around him, pausing only when he was directly in front of Gale.

“I trust you enjoyed the treatment,” the king's voice was smooth, but there was an edge of malice to it. Gale’s vision swam, and he couldn’t bring himself to speak. The thick liquid still churned in his stomach, but it was hard to focus through the fog that clouded his mind. “It’s a special concoction,” the king continued, his voice almost a purr, “designed to make the body weak, to steal away your will. It can be quite... torturous. But I imagine you’re already beginning to feel that.”

Gale’s lips were dry, his throat raw, but he forced himself to meet the king’s gaze. His silence was all he had left. He wouldn’t give in. Not yet.

“You think you can endure this?” the king asked, raising a brow. “You think you can hold onto your pride while your body withers away?”

The king motioned for the guards, and they stepped forward. Gale could barely resist as they began to unbind him from the chair, roughly pulling him to his feet.

“You will speak,” the king said, a sharp command that brooked no argument. “And you will tell me everything. Every secret you’ve been hiding, every plot you’ve been planning. You will confess. You will break.”

The guards shoved Gale toward a table in the center of the room, where strange, sharp implements lay waiting. Gale’s stomach churned in both fear and nausea. He could feel the pressure building within him, the weight of his hunger, the darkness of the liquid coursing through his veins.

But he still refused. He would not speak.

The king’s lips curled into a cruel smile. “So be it,” he muttered. “We shall see just how long that silence lasts.”

The interrogation had only just begun, and Gale knew that the horrors he had already endured would pale in comparison to the torment the king would unleash now.

But Gale would hold on, his silence intact. For as long as he could.

The king’s eyes never left Gale as the guards began their work, tightening their grip on him with cold precision. Gale’s heart pounded in his chest, but he refused to let fear show. He knew what they were trying to do, knew that every part of him, every bit of his resolve, would be tested to its limits.

The guards unshackled Gale’s wrists, pulling his arms above his head and fastening them to chains in the ceiling. His body was suspended just enough to make him feel the strain in his muscles, and his feet barely touched the ground. The king circled around him like a predator sizing up its prey, his eyes gleaming with an almost unsettling amusement.

“You’ve been strong,” the king said, his voice thick with menace. “But strength means nothing when faced with true pain. You will learn that soon enough.”

With a wave of his hand, the king gestured to the guards. One of them approached the table, picking up a long, gleaming instrument—a sharp, thin blade that caught the dim light. Gale's stomach turned, but he refused to flinch, refusing to give them the satisfaction of seeing fear in his eyes.

The guard moved behind Gale, lifting the blade with practiced ease. It hovered near Gale’s side for a moment before the blade sliced through the air with a sound that seemed to echo in the still room.

The first cut was slow but precise, a line of fire across his ribs. Gale sucked in a breath, the pain tearing through him, but he didn’t let out a sound. He clenched his jaw and focused on the far wall, on the shadows that danced in the corners of his vision.

“Not even a cry of pain?” The king’s voice was almost mocking. “Interesting. But you cannot endure forever, criminal.”

Another cut followed, then another, each one deeper than the last, each one a sharp flare of agony that seemed to make his whole world shrink to a single point of searing heat. The blood stained his skin, trickling down his side, but Gale’s eyes remained fixed, unfaltering. His body wanted to betray him, but his mind refused to bend.

Then, after what felt like an eternity of pain, the king’s voice broke through the haze of suffering.

“It’s clear you want to suffer. I can respect that, in a way. But you need to understand the cost of silence. It’s more than just your body. It’s your very soul.”

The king motioned to the table again, and the guard placed something new in his hands—an instrument unlike the others, a vial filled with a dark, pulsing liquid. Gale’s heart thudded in his chest. He knew what it was before the king even spoke.

“This,” the king began, “is a tincture made from the rarest of poisons. It won’t kill you. But it will make you wish it did.”

Gale’s gaze flickered for a moment, but he quickly returned to his unwavering focus. They could take his body, they could try to break him, but they would not take his silence.

The king’s cruel smile widened. “Drink it, or I will make you. You’ll wish for an end by the time I’m done with you.”

Gale’s throat was dry, and the pain in his side was all-consuming, but he could not allow himself to break. Even when one of the guards grabbed his jaw and pried his mouth open, Gale bit his lip, refusing to scream. The bitter, foul liquid was forced down his throat, burning as it slid past his lips, down his throat, and into his stomach.

The effect was immediate.

His vision swam. The room twisted and blurred. A cold sweat broke out across his skin, and the sharp, biting pain in his side intensified, becoming a fire that spread throughout his body. The world around him became a warped, feverish haze. His limbs began to tremble violently, as though they were made of ice. His body screamed for release, for an end to the torment, but still, he did not give them the satisfaction of a sound.

“You’re stronger than I gave you credit for,” the king observed, his voice almost gentle now. But there was no kindness in it—only the cold satisfaction of a man who believed he had won. “I will give you this, Gale. You may not speak, but you will break. This I promise.”

And so, Gale was left in the agonizing grip of the poison, the throes of pain suffocating him. His body convulsed, his mind shattered, but still, his silence remained.

The king wasn’t wrong. Gale could feel himself teetering on the edge. His body, his soul, his will—they were all crumbling beneath the weight of the king’s cruelty. But as his chest heaved with labored breaths, one thought burned brighter than the pain.

They could torture him, they could poison him, they could take everything from him, but they would never take his spirit. He wouldn’t let them. Not now, not ever.

Gale’s eyes were dull, his body barely able to hold him upright, but his gaze still locked onto the king with a fierceness that burned hotter than the pain he endured.

The king may have believed Gale would break, but the longer Gale endured, the more he realized something. It was never about resisting pain. It was about holding onto the one thing no one could steal from him.

His silence.

And he would carry it into whatever came next, even as his body trembled and his mind reeled.

Gale was not ready to break. Not yet.

Kayla quickly got dressed in jeans and a blouse. She was already tired of this prince, seeing as he wanted to sleep with her when she'd only just arrived. She smirked when he respected her space, giving her time to plan. She didn't write anything down, what a foolish mistake that would have been, leaving traces of her wherabouts. She glanced around at the baubles her father and brothers had sent with her, trying to impress the husband-to-be.

Kayla looked around for any kind of way out. The only way was through her door since the skylight was much too far away. She sighed and strode to the door, glancing out it before silently slinking out. She dashed to the gardens, no weapons, and hid behind the bushes as people walked by

Kayla darted around and into what smelled like the kitchens. She had a few confused glances thrown her way until the people recognized her and looked down. She strode through another set of doors, glancing for any sign of the prince or any servants who may give her away. She grinned, successful in dodging all of them. She quickly ran across the hall and through a large, wooden door. She practically skipped down the stone stairs, the corridor becoming darker but lit with torches. She heard muttering in a room beside her and listened in. "It's only a matter of time" She recognized the king's voice and stopped a gasp that nearly came through her lips. She darted into an open cell as the door opened and closed, the king walking out alongside a couple of guards. She stepped out of the cell and walked into the room, blood adorning the stone floor. She recognized this man as the one who'd ran from the guards in her father's kingdom. She gasped aloud now, shocked by the man's condition. "Who are you?" She asked quietly, trying to not attract the attention of the guards

Gale's arms burned, his body pulled taut by the shackles, each moment a sharp reminder of his helplessness. His feet barely brushed the cold stone floor, and the pressure of his weight on his shoulders was unbearable. The poison still raged inside him, a constant ache, an unrelenting reminder of the king’s cruelty. He could feel the tremors in his limbs, his body on the edge of collapse. Every breath was shallow, every pulse of pain coursing through him like fire.

The silence in the room was thick, suffocating almost. It felt as though the very air around him was heavy with the remnants of the king’s torment, pressing in from all sides. He had come to rely on the sounds of his own breath, slow and ragged, as if it were the only thing keeping him tethered to this world, to his own body. It was the only rhythm left, the only thing that reminded him he was still here, still alive.

But in the stillness, when it seemed as though the weight of everything would crush him, a voice broke through.

“Who are you?”

The words seemed to hang in the air, soft and almost foreign after the constant echoes of the king’s torment. Gale’s eyes flickered open, though they were clouded with exhaustion and pain. His head swam in a haze, his vision blurring, but the voice—that voice—pulled him from the fog. It was different. Not cruel. Not mocking. Just a simple question, one that dug into him in a way nothing else had.

Who are you?

It was a question that rattled him, made him confront something deep within himself. Who was he now, after everything? After the hours of torture, the poison, the endless suffering? Was he still the man who had walked in full of resolve, or had the king's cruelty stripped him of that, left him a broken shell?

Gale’s breath caught in his chest, his body trembling as the chains dug into his wrists. The pain was a constant, but it was also familiar—he had lived with it for so long now. The poison in his veins, the ache in his muscles, the burn in his skin—they were all a part of him. But it was this question that unsettled him, that made him pause.

He wanted to answer, to say something, anything. But the words felt distant, like they belonged to someone else, someone who had a voice to give. His chest heaved, a weak, shaky breath escaping his lips. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if he could speak at all.

But then, weak and hoarse, his voice cracked out through the silence.

“Gale,” he rasped, the word barely a whisper, as if it didn’t belong to him anymore. It was all he could muster, all that was left. His eyes closed briefly as the pain surged once more, but he held on, gripping the word like a lifeline. “I’m… Gale.”

The breath he took was shallow, and his body trembled again, but in that single, fragile utterance, Gale clung to the only thing that was truly his. The rest of the world could crumble around him, but that name—his name—was still his.

Even in this shattered state, with his arms shackled, his body broken, and the poison still raking through his veins, he was still Gale.

And that was enough.

"Gale" Kayla repeated, keeping herself in his sight as to not frighten him. She stood there a moment, glancing at the chains that held him. She sighed, angry at the king, as she undid them. She grabbed a cloth and some water, dipping the cloth into the water and gently cleaning the blood off of his side. "I'm Kayla." She murmured after a moment, smiling softly at him. There was something more than pain in his eyes. There was fiercness, defiance, and pride in who he was. "Where are you from?" She asked softly

Kayla stopped, pulling her hand away. "Sorry" she muttered, apology written all over her face. She watched him, also listening for any footsteps. Kayla spoke again. "Where are you from?" She asked softly