Chapter 2 Chains Don't Lie

The lower cells were colder than Emily remembered.

Built into the mountain beneath the old palace, they were meant to hold war criminals-traitors, spies, the ones who never came back up. The walls sweated with damp, and the air carried the metallic scent of rust and dried blood.

Emily stood outside his cell for the second time that day. No guards. No witnesses. Just her and the man she should've let die.

Raphael sat on the floor, chained to the wall, his wrists raw and bleeding from the iron cuffs. His head leaned back against the stone, eyes closed, chest rising slow and steady like he was sleeping through the end of the world.

"Didn't take long," he muttered without opening his eyes. "Curiosity? Or guilt?"

Emily didn't answer. She stepped inside, the door groaning shut behind her.

"Food?" he asked.

"No."

"Water?"

"No."

"Pity."

Now his eyes opened, and the weight of them landed on her like a wound she hadn't healed. There was no fear in his expression, no bitterness. Just knowing. Like he'd seen her in dreams long before she ever stood here.

"You've changed," he said.

"So have you."

He smirked, then winced-his lip had split deeper. "Less than you think."

She leaned against the wall across from him, arms folded. "You always talk this much for someone starving in chains?"

"Starving men are honest men. And honesty is rare in victors."

She hated that he made sense. Even more, she hated that it mattered.

"You'll sign the surrender eventually," she said.

"Is that what you came to tell me? That patience is a virtue?"

"No." Her voice dropped. "I came to watch you break."

Raphael chuckled-low and bitter. "Then you'll be waiting a while."

For a moment, neither spoke. Just the sound of the dripping pipe in the far corner and the heavy silence between two people who once belonged to different worlds... and now had nothing left but each other.

"You lost someone," he said quietly. "Didn't you?"

Emily's spine straightened. "Everyone lost someone."

"No," he said. "You lost someone specific. I can see it in your eyes."

She hated that too.

Her fingers twitched by her side. Ruth had warned her not to come alone. But Ruth didn't know what this was. Not yet. Emily wasn't even sure she knew herself.

Raphael shifted slightly, iron scraping stone. "Tell me who they were. I'll tell you who I lost."

"This isn't confession."

"No," he said. "It's war. And war doesn't end just because the guns go quiet."

Emily stepped closer. Just one pace.

"You don't get to ask me anything," she whispered. "You gave orders that burned cities. You slaughtered innocents."

"And you think your side didn't?" he shot back. "Tell me, Commander how many names do you forget on purpose?"

Her face didn't change. But inside, something cracked.

She turned and walked out without another word. The door slammed shut behind her, echoing through the stone corridor like a gunshot.

But as she climbed the steps, alone in the cold, her hands were trembling.