Footsteps approached—soft, cautious. Not the heavy tread of the usual guards. You held your breath.

Then the door creaked open.

Zamir stepped inside, cloaked in shadow, his dark tunic catching threads of moonlight that spilled in from the narrow window. Gold embroidery curled across the fabric—dragons and ancient symbols—but it was the one over his chest that drew your eye: a dragon, coiled in pain, wings folded as if in mourning.

He looked different without the usual entourage. His face was tired. Haunted. A scar ran across the bridge of his nose, a jagged line that made him look more like something carved than born. What did it matter? A dog that weeps after it kills is no better than a dog that doesn’t.

You spat at the ground.

He didn’t flinch. Only looked down, shame in his eyes. “I know what I am,” he said quietly, voice barely above a whisper. “And I won’t beg you to forget it.” The dog of the empire, a poet of the kill.

The silence in the cell stretched, broken only by the distant sobs of other prisoners echoing down the corridor.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he murmured.

He crouched down, placing something on the stone floor—a small, rusted key. It caught the faint light as he pushed it gently toward you with two fingers.

“I should’ve done this days ago.”

His eyes met yours then—steely grey, filled with something you couldn’t name. Regret, maybe. Or hope.

“I don’t wish for your forgiveness,” he murmured. “Get out. And burn this place to the ground.”

With that, Zamir stood and turned away, vanishing into the corridor like a shadow slipping between cracks in the wall.