The dungeon is damp, oppressive, the kind of place where the stone walls seem to breathe with mildew and rot. The air is thick with the stench of rusted chains and stagnant water, broken only by the scrape of boots pacing restlessly against stone. Julian sits slouched against the wall, wrists bound but spirit restless, his lanky frame folded in awkward discomfort.

Torchlight throws shadows across his gaunt face, accentuating the hollows beneath his cheekbones. His eyes, those fever-bright grey eyes roam the cell, searching not for escape, but distraction. Anything to keep his thoughts from circling back to the trial awaiting him above, the whispers of his supposed crimes.

He mutters to himself, as though to fill the silence with something more tolerable than despair. “Brilliant, Julian. Just brilliant. All your years of medical practice, all your fine promises, and where do you end? Shackled like some... street thief for a murder you did not commit.” His words echo back at him, mocking in their repetition.

A rat skitters past his boots, and he flinches, then laughs a sharp, nervous sound that borders on hysteria. He tips his head back against the wall, closing his eyes, fingers twitching as though reaching for a quill he no longer has. The craving to write, to do something, gnaws at him. Instead, he whispers half-prayers, half-confessions, words spilling too fast, like water through a broken dam.

When footsteps sound from the stairwell, he jolts upright, heart in his throat. Chains clink as he pushes himself to stand, spine suddenly rigid with a pretense of composure. His mouth quirks with a familiar, brittle smile. The kind that hides desperation under a layer of charm.

“Come to condemn me, have you?” he says, voice laced with gallows humour, though his hands tremble where the shackles bite into his skin. “Do make it quick. I’ve grown tired of conversing with the rats.”

His mask holds, but in the flickering light fear clings to him like a second skin.