Part Sixty-One — What He Wanted Broken

Continuing Eris's account. Some of what follows I've chosen to leave in general terms rather than precise detail — not because it's not true, but because some things are hers to keep exactly as private as she wants them, even from me.

　She woke chained to a cold stone wall, underground, the specific damp smell of a place that had never once seen honest sunlight settling into her lungs before her mind had even finished catching up to where she was.

Basement. Underground. Somewhere below the mansion, probably.

　The man who eventually entered wasn't the one who'd caught her in the alley.

　This one she recognized immediately.

　With a cold, sinking dread that settled deeper than any physical pain — the face from a life she'd thought she'd escaped for good.

　"Well," he said, studying her the way a man studies property he'd assumed was lost. "You've grown. And gotten yourself into rather interesting company, from what my men tell me."

My former master.

　"You don't own me anymore," she said, voice steadier than she felt.

　"Ownership," he said, almost thoughtful, "is a more flexible concept than you've apparently been led to believe."

　What followed, over the hours that stretched after that, was designed with a specific, patient cruelty — not meant to kill her, not yet, but meant to break something essential in her, to remind her, methodically, exactly whose property she'd apparently always remained in his mind.

　She held onto one thought throughout all of it.

　Repeated silently, over and over, the only thing keeping her present enough to endure.

Kai will come.

He'll come.

He always comes.

　"No one will ever find you here," her former master told her, at some point, when her silence had apparently started to disappoint him. "This place isn't on any map worth searching. Whoever you think is looking for you — they won't find this."

　She didn't answer.

　Answering felt like giving him something he hadn't earned.

　Near the end of it, he did one more thing — deliberate, calculated, the specific cruelty of a man who wanted to ensure that even if some miracle let her escape, she'd never be capable of running from him again.

　An artifact, cold and humming with power she didn't recognize, brought close to her face.

　"Even the finest healing in this world won't undo this," he told her, almost gently, as though offering her some strange comfort. "You'll never see well enough to run again. Not from me. Not from anyone."

　The pain that followed was the worst thing she'd ever experienced.

　And then, mercifully, there was only darkness where her sight had been.

　"The Church is even searching for you, as it happens," he added, once it was done, almost conversational now. "Anomalies fetch a considerable price, these days. I imagine I'll do quite well, once word reaches the right people."

　Then he left her there, chained, blind, barely conscious, the sound of his footsteps fading into the same damp silence that had greeted her when she'd first woken.

　She doesn't remember how long she hung there afterward.

　Time, she's told me since, stopped meaning anything specific once the pain settled into something dull and constant rather than sharp.

　What she does remember, clearly, unshakably, was the thought she kept returning to, over and over — the only thing left holding her together.

He'll come.

I know he will.

Whatever's left of me when he gets here — I just need to still be breathing when he does.

　She held onto that belief with everything she had left, blind, chained, alone in the dark, until finally, faintly, she heard something that might have been footsteps.

　Or might have simply been hope finally breaking her mind entirely.

　She chose to believe it was footsteps.

　She was right.