Alexander woke to stone walls.
Not the familiar, carved granite of his chambers, but rough-hewn, damp blocks that smelled of dust and old secrets.
A single, narrow slit of a window high on the wall cast a frail beam of light onto the floor. He was on a simple cot, a thin blanket his only comfort.
Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through him. He sat bolt upright, his heart hammering against his ribs. The last thing he remembered was his father's verdict, the cold finality in his eyes.
Had Crimson… had he taken over again? Done something I can't remember?
"Calm yourself, boy," a voice drawled in his mind, laced with the usual bored amusement. "We were moved here in your sleep. Quite the downgrade. I have been… observing the mediocrity of your palace's masonry. I haven't done anything." A psychic pause, heavy with implication. "Yet."
The reassurance was colder than the room. Alexander swung his legs over the cot, the chill of the floor seeping through his socks. This was the North Tower. His new home. A gilded cage made of rock and regret.
A sharp clang at the door made him flinch. A small, reinforced slot at the bottom slid open, and a wooden tray holding a hunk of bread and a bowl of thin stew was shoved through. It skidded to a stop in the center of the room.
The slot didn't close. A pair of boots remained visible, the guard waiting.
The boots didn't move. "Take it," the guard said, his voice a low, gravelly thing, stripped of all inflection.
"Thank you," Alexander said, his voice rough with disuse. He placed the tray on the stool next to the cot.
"My voice. You'll hear it three times a day when your meals come or when you think to cause a ruckus. You don't get to ask for anything else. You don't get to speak to anyone else. Understood?"
It wasn't a question. It was a warning. Alexander could feel the man's hatred radiating through the door, a heatless fire.
This was Ree's brother, High Guard Cornelius.
"Understood," Alexander replied. The urge to apologize for a crime he unconsciously committed pressed on him, but silence was his only shield.
The slot slammed shut, plunging the room back into semi-darkness. The finality of the sound was a sentence in itself.
Hours bled into one another, marked only by the slow crawl of the light across the floor.
Alexander paced the small room, his mind a whirlpool of his father's calculation, Nikolai's betrayal, and the ever-present, humming consciousness of Crimson, who offered a running commentary of contempt for the architecture, the food, and the "insect" standing guard outside.
"You do realize we can bring this tower down to gravel?" Crimson constantly reminded him. But that was the last thing he wanted.
The next time the slot opened, Alexander was sitting on his cot, back against the wall. He watched as a different pair of hands, smaller and clumsier, fumbled with the tray.
The person—a maid in a drab, grey dress—nearly dropped it, her movements stiff and unnatural. She kept her head down, a white cap obscuring her features.
But he knew the shape of her. The way she held herself.
"Keila?" he whispered, his heart leaping into his throat.
Her head snapped up. It was her, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and determination. "Alex," she breathed, her voice barely audible. "They're saying you're cursed. That you have been… possessed. I had to see you."
"You shouldn't be here," he said, a desperate urgency in his tone. "It's not safe."
"I don't care about safe! I care about you. What really happened in that arena? Everyone's whispering crazy stuff." Her voice broke. "Just tell me what's going on."
"She reeks of sentiment," Crimson sneered. "Such a fragile little thing. Shall we show her a glimpse of what she fears? It would be a mercy. A quick education."
Shut up!
Before he could form a reply for Keila, the door exploded inward. Cornelius stood in the doorway, his face a thundercloud. His gaze swept from Keila's terrified face to Alexander, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
"Out," he said to Keila, the single word cracking like a whip.
She scrambled to her feet, shooting Alexander one last, agonized look before hurrying out, her disguise utterly useless.
Cornelius didn't follow her. He took one step into the cell, his large frame blocking the world outside. The door remained open, a taunting glimpse of freedom.
"You," he said, his voice dropping to a venomous, intimate whisper. "You think because you wear a crown, you're above consequences?" He took another step, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "My brother hasn't woken up. The healers say his spirit is fractured. That whatever you are reached inside him and broke something vital."
Alexander could only stare, frozen by the raw, personal hatred in the man's eyes.
"So listen to me, you princely bastard," Cornelius hissed, leaning in close. "The King sees a weapon. The Temple sees a volcano. I see the thing that broke my brother. And I'm telling you now, if that thing so much as twitches wrong, if I see a flicker of that red light in your eyes… royalty be damned. I will put a blade in your throat myself and sleep like a baby after."
To emphasize his point, he stepped back, grabbed the heavy door, and slammed it shut. The boom echoed in the small space. Then came a second, more final sound: the heavy, iron scrape of a bolt being driven home on the outside, sealing the food slot shut.
The last point of contact with the outside world was gone. Alexander was truly, utterly alone in the silence.
He didn't know how long he sat there in the dark. Long enough for the light from the window to fade into deep blue twilight. The isolation was a physical weight, and Cornelius's promise was a knife at his neck. He was a bomb, and everyone was waiting to see if he would detonate.
"This self-pity is tedious," Crimson remarked. "We could be through that door in a heartbeat. So why are we still here, Alex? Why ask for power you don't want to use?"
Alexander ignored him, pulling his knees to his chest. He flashbacked to all the events that led to where he was now.
And then he heard it.
It was a low, rich hum, a tune that was both melancholic and strangely cheerful. It was coming from the other side of the stone wall to his left.
The humming stopped. "Well, don't just sit there listening," a man's voice called out, smooth and laced with sarcasm. "A little applause is customary. It's the only concert you're getting in this five-star establishment."
Alexander was so startled he almost answered. He pressed closer to the wall. "Who are you?"
"The name's Hale. Resident connoisseur of fine dining—you had the gruel, I presume?—and critic of interior decorating. Your room as bleak as mine?"
Despite everything, a faint, weary smile touched Alexander's lips. "Stone cot, one window, a draft that smells like forgotten dreams. So, yes."
"Ah, the classic 'Despair' package. They really do lack imagination." Hale's voice was a comfort, a lifeline of sanity in the crushing silence. "So, what's your story? Bad at paying taxes? Insult the wrong noble's prized poodle?"
"Something like that," Alexander said evasively.
"Come now, don't be shy. We're cell-mates. Practically family."
"Why are you in here?" Alexander countered.
There was a pause. "Let's just say I borrowed a book from the Royal Archives and forgot to return it. A terrible habit of mine. The librarian had… strong feelings about it."
It was an obvious lie, delivered with such casual flair that Alexander almost believed him. But he didn't press. For the first time in days, he was having a conversation that didn't involve threats, pity, or ancient demons.
"So what's your name. Or don't you have one?"
"It's Alexander," he replied, unsure of whether to add his title.
"Alexander. As in Prince Alexander? The brother of Prince Nikolai and son of King Theron?"
Alexander rubbed the back of neck, nervously. "Yeah, that's me. You're probably surprised."
"Not really. I've seen so much in life that nothing catches me by surprise."
They talked for what felt like an hour, about nothing and everything. Hale was effortlessly funny, his sarcasm a shield that made the darkness feel a little less heavy. He was a mystery, but a welcome one.
As the conversation lulled, Alexander felt a genuine sense of gratitude. "Thank you, Hale. For the company."
There was a longer pause this time. When Hale spoke again, his tone had shifted. The sarcasm was gone, replaced by a calm, unnerving clarity.
"It's faint, Prince… a whisper of brimstone and old, old power," Hale paused, and Alexander could almost feel the man's focus sharpen through the stone. "But you have the scent of a demon on you. I can tell from here."
The air fled Alexander's lungs. The fragile sense of safety shattered into a thousand piercing shards.
In the ringing silence that followed, Crimson's voice was the only thing that felt real, a slow, intrigued purr in the depths of his mind.
"Now this… this is interesting."