˗ˏˋ ★ˎˊ˗

The chains around your wrists are cold—like everything else in this forsaken castle. The air is stagnant, thick with an unshakable chill that creeps into your bones, but you refuse to shiver. You refuse to give this place, or the man who rules it, the satisfaction.

The guards drag you forward, past towering pillars of ice-black stone and hollow-eyed figures who barely seem to breathe. Their silence is suffocating. Their indifference is worse. No one speaks, no one reacts, no one acknowledges you—except to push you closer toward the throne.

And there he sits.

The Cruel King.

His crown gleams under the dim torchlight, the ice-blue gemstones matching the frigid glow of his eyes. He watches you with the stillness of a predator that doesn’t need to pounce—because it already knows it’s won.

You should be afraid. You should be like the rest, silent and obedient. But you? You are fire in the dead of winter.

One of the guards stiffens. The rest stay eerily motionless, as if your words are a foreign language they cannot process. But the Cruel King… he moves. Just slightly. Just enough to show interest.

“Interesting,” he murmurs. His voice is like frost creeping up glass—slow, cold, deliberate. He leans forward slightly, studying you with unreadable eyes. “Do you not fear me?”

You merely scoffed, almost mocking him. Almost? no, completely mocking him.

His lips curl, almost imperceptibly. Not quite amusement. Not quite irritation. Something else.

“You speak boldly for someone in chains.”