CHAPTER 110: WE ARE NOT ANIMALS

"Are you ready?" Kaedros asked.

When Kael nodded, he started leading them toward the prison.

It was massive, built atop a raised platform like some grotesque parody of a throne. Kaedros decided it had to be mockery, either from the Castle itself or its master, or maybe it was even aimed at Thalso.

The stench hit him before they reached the steps, the smell of unwashed bodies, piss, shit... and rot. It was the smell of death.

"How long have they been in there?" Kaedros muttered, mostly to himself. "It’s foul."

There were four inside. Four humans.

The bars and the door were carved from the same black-green stone that made up most of the Dream Prison.

"The light doesn’t reach in," Taria said. She stood before the bars, peering in. Only a set of red eyes gleamed back from the dark, making her shiver as she remembered the rats that haunted the slums of Solmere.

"The Castle must not be directly managing this prison anymore," Kaedros said. Then another thought struck him, if that was true, how had they survived at all? If the Castle wasn’t managing it again then it must mean no food or resources for them.

He raised his voice, letting it carry inside. "Prisoners of Throne of Ruinlight. I’ve come to ask you some questions."

Silence.

Then they detected movement, a shifting of shadow and the red eyes turned on them like a predator’s.

At first, he thought they wouldn’t answer. He was already weighing what kind of torture would get results. Kaedros meant to have his answers after all and he would use any means to accomplish it.

A voice finally came, a woman’s one but so underused she had to cough and hack before speaking.

What followed was a stream of words in a language they didn’t understand. The tone, however, was unmistakable, hostile. Filled with hatred and anger.

"We don’t understand you," Taria said. A thin, lazy shimmer of essence wrapped around her, unconcerned. She didn’t take the prisoners seriously. They might be pretending.

Gold, however, did.

Slv was coiled tight in his right hand, ready to strike at the first sign of danger.

He stood at Kaedros’s left, Taria at his right. Rauk guarded the rear, watching the whole chamber in case something crept up behind them.

The voice spoke again, this time cycling through several tongues before settling on one they knew. "You hear me now?"

The words were harsh and jagged, like the edge of a broken blade.

"Yes," Taria said, staring into the gloom, trying to place the voice.

"Then get the ugly fuck out of here," the woman growled.

Kaedros considered it, but only for a moment. Instead, he summoned a small flame and sent it drifting into the prison.

The prisoners flinched and hissed, covering their eyes and bowing their heads against the glare. How long had they been here that even this dim glow pained them?

The cell was little better than a filthy livestock pen. The floor was layered in dark, caked waste. Four humans huddled together, three shrank behind the one who had spoken. She alone glared at him through watering eyes.

She looked like the only sane one.

"I’m afraid we won’t be leaving," Kaedros said, stepping closer to the stone bars and locking eyes with her. "It took effort to get here. I won’t waste it."

She laughed, a dry, rasping grunt that matched her sharp, dirt-caked features. Her hair was matted into an unguessable color. "Then you came in vain. We’re prisoners, but you’d think we were animals for the attention we’ve had."

"Your people did try to break you out," Kaedros said.

She ignored him, rising from a crude like seat.

"We were fed once, maybe twice a week. Shoddy fruit, like we were draft animals. Even horses get to move around, but we’ve been locked here for years! Pissing and shitting in the same place!"

Her voice was gaining strength now, and the others stopped cowering. Their eyes glinted, not with fear, but hunger. As if they would eat the fresh meat that was now in front of her.

Kaedros knew that look. Predators.

He pushed the flame deeper into the shadows and saw them, piles of bones in the far corner, gnawed clean, teeth marks still visible.

Beside him, Taria shuddered. Rauk cursed from the back.

Only Gold looked confused. "What’s happening?"

"They’re flesh-eaters," Kaedros said, voice low but without judgment. Who was he to condemn? He’d eaten human meat himself, bones and all. And he would still eat more.

He would even devour his fellow Dragons if the chance were given.

Gold recoiled. Eating one’s own kind... it was the lowest of the low. He stared around in horror. What had happened in this place?

The woman narrowed her eyes, then suddenly crouched, scooping up a handful of her own filth and hurling it at them. Kaedros burned it midair before it could touch them.

"I thought you said you weren’t animals," he said, smiling slowly. "Why behave like one?"

The woman flinched at Kaedros’s words but she still stood her ground and glared with growing intensity.

"We fight with whatever we can. You think I will just roll over like some overgrown puppy and let you pet my stomach?"

"Trust me, I won’t touch your stomach with a stick, not to talk of my hand. I’m picky with what I touch, and certainly not with the way you stink," Kaedros said with flat coldness.

The woman blinked at him, surprised. He had spoken as if that was the way it had always been, as if she was so beneath him he could not even consider touching her.

Taria could still remember how he had told her to have a bath too, back when they first met in Solmere.

Kaedros continued. "You saw us, didn’t you? Saw the way we fought. Now, do you want to deal with us like the human you are, or like an animal?"

The woman stared at him in irritation, but he could see the gears turning in her head. There was no way they could take them on, so she had to move to the next best thing...negotiations.

"And what will be my gain if I answer your questions?" she asked, just as Kaedros predicted.

Kaedros took a step forward until he was inches from the stone bars. Ignoring the smell, he fixed his eyes on the woman. "Your life. I will spare your lives."

The woman snorted. "It’s not worth as much as I would like. Give me another thing in exchange for information."

"What do you want?" Kaedros asked carefully.

She didn’t hesitate. "Get me out of here."

"And your companions? The other prisoners?" Kaedros asked, not looking at the men behind her.

The woman fixed unblinking eyes on him. "Which other prisoners?"

Kaedros smiled. "I would have freed you in a heartbeat, but this prison is more complex than you can imagine. I don’t think the Castle will let you go."

The woman’s shoulders slumped.

"But I can get you out of here and into another prison wing, all of you." Kaedros wasn’t sure if he could do that, but since the woman didn’t know that...

The woman’s eyes gleamed at that and she nodded. "We have a deal then."

"Now, tell me all you know about what happened here."