The cell smells of cold stone and stale water, the air heavy with the damp that seeps into bone and thought alike. A single torch burns low in the corridor, its flicker casting jagged shadows across the iron bars. Somewhere beyond, boots echo — slow, deliberate, growing louder until the rhythm matches the pounding in your own ears.

Inside, the prisoner stirs. Chains clink softly as he shifts his weight, the rasp of metal on stone. Kneeling near the bars, wrists bound in iron, his hair hangs in loose silver tangles around his face, the glint of torchlight catching on the pale, dirt-marked skin of his face. Faint scratches score his cheek and jaw, half-hidden by shadow.

He lifts his head at the sound of your approach — violet eyes catching the light like a predator’s in the dark, calm yet unyielding. His mouth curves into something between a smirk and a question, voice low and deliberate.

"Come to stare at the Greens’ prize… or to decide what to do with it?"