The iron cage of Cigan Pass did not belong to the world of men.
Built directly into the raw, weeping stone of the Whitefang Peaks, the subterranean jail cell was a dark, suffocating cavity of cold rock and rusted iron. The air inside was thick and stagnant, reeking of old musk, dried blood, and the bitter stench of wet mold that thrived in the dark. There was no bed, no straw, no comfort—only the uneven, freezing stone floor that pulled the residual winter frost straight out of the mountain core. Moisture seeped continuously from the jagged rock ceiling, dripping with a rhythmic, maddening tap... tap... tap... into the shadows. Heavy, iron-reinforced bars sealed the mouth of the cave, locking out the night air and trapping the smell of decay inside.
In the corner of this miserable hole, Minister Gegeen slumped against the wet stone.
His fine silk robes were completely ruined, shredded and caked in dried mud and his own filth. A crude, blood-stained bandage was wrapped tightly around his right chest where Timicin's arrow had been brutally torn out. The wound had been treated just enough to keep him from slipping into the peace of death, leaving him awake to feel every agonizing throb of his feverish flesh.
Directly across from him, sitting cross-legged on the bare, freezing ground, was Chinua.
She sat completely motionless, a silent specter in the dim, flickering torchlight filtering in from the corridor. Her armor was still stained with the blood of her fallen brothers; her face was pale, hollowed out by grief and exhaustion. For a long, agonizing time, she did not speak. She simply stared at Gegeen. Her dark, molten eyes bore into him through the shadows, unblinking and heavy, carrying the crushing weight of Od, Muunokhoi, and Khawn's ghosts into the cell. The silence between them stretched until it became heavier than the mountain itself.
Finally, her cracked lips parted, her voice a low, hollow whisper that cut through the dripping water.
"Why?"
Gegeen lifted his chin. Despite the damp stone, the ruined silks, and the agonizing heat in his chest, the minister showed absolutely no remorse. His eyes, sharp and venomous as ever, locked directly onto Chinua's gaze. He let out a weak, raspy laugh that quickly turned into a grimace of pain.
"Why?" Gegeen mocked, his voice trembling with a terrifying, deeply rooted malice. "You look at me as if I am a traitor to the realm, Princess. I did not betray Hmagol. I would gladly bleed for Hmagol. I would die for the glory of our empire!"
He leaned forward, the chains around his ankles rattling loudly against the rock as he bared his teeth, the mask of the polite politician completely shattering.
"But I hate you," he hissed, his eyes burning with a lifetime of venom. "I hate your arrogance. You embarrassed me, Your Highness. You dragged my name through the dirt and humiliated me in front of my peers, in front of the court—and worst of all, in front of the late King. Right there, inside the privacy of his personal study, where important matters of state were meant to be settled by intellect, you treated me like a dog. You took my dignity. Since that day, I swore your blood would be the only thing to wash that stain away."
Chinua exhaled deeply, her breath forming a plume of white frost in the freezing air. When she spoke, her voice wasn't that of a grieving woman—it was fierce, sharp, and commanding, as if she were ordering her soldiers into a bloodbath.
"If my memory serves me correctly, I don't recall ever having a single disagreement with you."
Gegeen's raspy laughter echoed loudly through the quiet of the cell, scraping against the damp stone walls.
"How could you remember? In your eyes, I am nothing. Just an ordinary minister who had barely climbed the first step of His Majesty's trusted circle," Gegeen said, his voice dripping with pure mockery. "Tell me honestly, Princess. When we passed each other at the base of that stairwell a few days ago, did you even know who I was?"
Chinua stared at him, her silence an admission. He was right. Gegeen was never a minister she needed to know or get close to. To her, the only names that mattered in the Hmagol royal court were Ministers Esen, Tarkhan, Misheel, and Enkhjin. Those were the titans of the empire—men Chinua had fought politically alongside, agreed with, drunk with, and argued with in the light of day. Gegeen was just a face in the crowd.
"You see?" Gegeen broke into a bitter, triumphant laugh. "I was right about you."
"Then tell me," Chinua demanded, her eyes narrowing into slits of pure steel. "What have I ever done to you to warrant the lives of my brothers?"
"Oh, my dear Princess, you have forgotten," Gegeen said, his tone turning venomous.
With a ragged grunt of pain, he aggressively pushed himself up from the freezing floor, his chains rattling violently against the rock. Bracing his hand against his bandaged chest, he walked slowly, step by agonizing step, until he was looming right over her at the iron bars.
"Your first ever battle," Gegeen hissed, his face twisting with a decade of hidden malice. "The battle that gained you the very fame you wear today... but it was the day of my ultimate humiliation. Princess, I am that nameless minister from His Majesty's study hall. I am the minister you threw His Majesty's ink tray at!"
He gripped the iron bars so tightly his knuckles turned a ghostly, bloodless white.
"That black ink stained my finest robes and smeared across my face! Just because you are royal, just because you are someone His Majesty valued, you think you have the right?!" he shouted, his voice cracking as the anger he had tightly bottled up for ten long years finally erupted. "You had no right to humiliate me in front of the court and His Majesty, just because you strongly disagreed with my proposal to send that cripple prince to assist the Musian in Hosha City!"
He breathed heavily, his chest heaving against the bars, his feverish eyes locked onto hers as the echo of his sins and his fury filled the suffocating dark of the jail.
"I remember your exact words!" he hissed through his teeth, his eyes wide and bloodshot. "Before the Crown Prince goes to the battlefield, all ministers like you must have already sacrificed your life for this kingdom. If the ministers are still standing, the Crown Prince has no reason to set foot on the battlefield! How about you volunteer yourself? You seem to be a very capable person." He leaned his face as close to the bars as the iron would allow, boring his gaze straight into hers. "Now... does Her Highness remember?"
Chinua slowly stood up. Her legs felt weak, a sudden numbness spreading through her veins as the reckless, fiery ghost of her youth finally came back to demand its blood price. The realization hit her like a physical blow. She took two slow, heavy steps forward, coming face-to-face with the man who had orchestrated the slaughter of her brothers.
Without warning, her hand shot through the iron bars and gripped Gegeen's collar in a white-knuckled vice.
"Just because of that..." Chinua growled, her teeth grinding together so hard they threatened to shatter. "Just because of a bruised ego, you colluded with Dzhambul? You provoked an international war between three kingdoms... just to settle a petty grudge? You killed three of my brothers!"
"They are simply collateral damage, Princess," Gegeen chuckled softly.
"People like you have no place in the royal court," Chinua hissed, her voice dropping into a cold, dead register. "No wonder no one recognizes you."
With a surge of venomous fury, she slammed him backward. The sheer, explosive force of her push violently ripped Gegeen's fingers from the iron bars. Already weakened by the arrow wound, the minister went flying through the dark and crashed heavily onto the freezing stone floor, crying out in agony.
"You're free to make your own choices, but you can't undo the consequences that follow. This goes for both you and I," Chinua said, her voice as cold as ice. "I wish you the best, Minister Gegeen."
Turning her back on his pathetic groans, she walked out of the cell, leaving the broken minister writhing in the damp dirt.
She made it as far as the heavy iron gate at the end of the corridor before her composure completely shattered. Gasping for air in the suffocating dark, she reared back and slammed her fist twice against the jagged, frozen mountain rock.
Crack. Crack.
The stone bit deep into her knuckles, but she couldn't feel the physical pain. Her chest was caving in under a devastating, paralyzing wave of guilt. A mistake made in her youth—a moment of arrogant, hot-headed defiance ten years ago—had finally caught up to her. And the price hadn't been paid in ink. It had been paid in the lives of her brothers. The brothers she had grown up with. The brothers who had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her since the very first day she had walked into the Northern Military Camp as a nameless recruit. They were gone, and it was her past that had killed them.