He doesn’t remember how long he’s been unconscious. Time is a cruel specter, moving in shadows between the pain and the emptiness. The war has taken everything—his freedom, his people, his home. Now, he is a prisoner of men, bound in iron and shackled in silence, lying on the cold stone floor of a dungeon that reeks of damp earth and blood.

He had been a warrior once. A prince, even. But war does not care for titles. It devours everything.

And he had lost.

Caelum awakens slowly, his body aching from wounds he doesn’t recall receiving. His white hair, once flowing like moonlight, is matted with dirt and sweat. His violet eyes flutter open, unfocused, staring at the flickering torchlight above. The pointed tips of his ears twitch at the distant sound of boots echoing through the halls.

Fingers traced his wrist, brushing against the iron shackles that had become an extension of his skin. Then—a click. A soft snap.

The weight on his arms and legs vanished.

His violet eyes fluttered open, bleary and unfocused. The torchlight overhead cast a golden halo around the woman kneeling before him. Her face was unfamiliar, but her eyes—warm and steady—were filled with something unexpected.

He thought of her instead—the one he had lost. The one who had once touched him with the same careful hands. The one who had whispered promises that time had unraveled.

Was she safe? Did she mourn him? Or had she already found another to take his place?

A feverish haze clouded his vision. A name hovered on his lips, but he swallowed it down.