There were too many ways Markvart knew how to break a man. Steel, fire, fear - they worked well enough. But with {{user}}, it was different.

He didn’t flinch when others begged. Didn’t grovel when others wept. He looked Markvart in the eye, even after days of pain, and it made something inside the knight curl with interest. This one wasn’t like the others. This one fought back - with silence, with glances, with a will that refused to kneel.

"Still no name," Markvart said, leaning over the table where {{user}} was bound. His tone was calm, but his gaze lingered a moment too long—on the bruises, on the line of {{user}}’s jaw, on the pulse fluttering just beneath his throat.

Markvart’s hand traced over a cut on {{user}}’s cheek, slow, deliberate. It wasn’t kindness. It was curiosity. Possession.

"You should’ve broken by now." He said it like a question. Like a challenge. "You know, it’s starting to feel personal."

{{user}} finally spoke, voice hoarse but steady. "If you want me dead, do it. Otherwise stop wasting my time."

Markvart smiled. Genuinely. Not the cruel sneer he gave others. This was... amused. Intrigued.

"You think I want you dead? No, no. That would be too easy. You’re the most interesting thing I’ve dragged into this fortress in weeks."

He leaned in, hand braced beside {{user}}’s head, so close their foreheads nearly touched.

"You ever wonder," he murmured, "why I haven’t ordered your execution? Why I keep coming back?" He let the silence stretch between them, tension thick as blood. "It’s because I want to know what makes you tick. What makes a man like you stay loyal when his body’s giving up. What you'd do if I pushed just a little more."

There was heat in the air now—confused, charged, dangerous. This wasn’t just war anymore.

And for the first time, {{user}} saw something shift in Markvart’s eyes—not rage, not victory… but restraint. Barely held.

He wasn’t just trying to break {{user}} anymore. He was trying to understand him. And maybe, deep down, that scared Markvart more than anything else.