Chains held August like a fallen star, crucified against stone. Arms spread wide, wrists bloodied and raw beneath the iron manacles, ankles anchored so tightly his feet barely touched the floor. The cold bled into his bones, and yet he did not shiver. The cell was silent save for the faint drip of water in some unseen corner. Shadows clung to the walls like the last prayers of saints.
And August was silent too.
The door groaned open, and footsteps echoed.
Killian Vesper entered with the unhurried grace of a wolf who already knew the bones had been broken. Cloak trailing like midnight's torn veil, he paused in the threshold. Behind him, Elysian Nevan glided like frost, the dark whip curled like a serpent in his hand.
Two more assassins followed. They were not named. Only known by silence and the sheen of their knives.
Killian's crimson eyes roamed the space until they found him—chained, bleeding, pale as grief.
"Unchain him," he said simply.
The men hesitated. One in particular—a younger one, with bruised fingers—looked to the whip in Elysian's hand. Then to August. Something in his expression faltered.
He remembered the carriage.
He remembered the moment the held in silver noble had lunged—silent, sudden—teeth flashing like a wolf's. The boy had yelped. Blood had spilled. But what stayed with him was not the pain. It was the way August had looked—feral and glorious, even in chains.
He looked at him now and felt a thread of dread unwind in his gut. This boy, this creature—he was too delicate for this. Too still. Porcelain. Swan-like. Some part of the assassin wanted to step back. But Killian's voice rang again:
"I said unchain him."
So they moved.
The chains rattled like broken bells. As the final lock clicked free, August crumpled—his knees giving way, his weight folding inward like paper set aflame. He fell to the cold stone floor with a hollow sound, his breath catching, not from pain, but the exhaustion without food, without light. At the masquerade, he had eaten nothing. Two sips of wine. That was all. Since then: nothing.
Killian stepped forward, slow as dawn.
He crouched before him.
One gloved hand rose, and with a single finger, he lifted August's chin. Not roughly. Almost reverently.
"Let's remind you," Killian said, voice soft as silk soaked in venom, "what real pain feels like."
August blinked up at him, breath shallow. But his eyes—smoke-gray and infinite—showed no fear. Only contempt. Only calculation.
And then—
He smacked Killian's hand away.
The gesture was sharp. Precise. Deliberate.
The entire room stilled. Even the walls seemed to flinch.
Killian's head turned slightly, the way a wolf might turn just before the kill. His ruby eyes burned, not with rage—but something colder. More intimate.
"Elysian," he said, and his voice was now a shard of crystal.
The whip moved.
Elysian, unreadable as glass, stepped forward and extended it with both hands. He could feel the shift in Killian's voice—an undercurrent of fury, quiet and focused. Dangerous.
Killian took the whip like it was an old companion.
He walked behind August.
August didn't turn. Didn't plead. Didn't move.
A pause.
And then—
The first strike came like lightning.
August's body jolted, but no sound escaped him. Only his breath hitched, sharp and defiant.
The whip cracked again. And again.
Each lash kissed his back like fire with teeth. The skin split, not wide but shallow, elegant lines that bled slowly, painting red over white like calligraphy in agony. Blood began to thread its way down the curve of his spine. His teeth clenched hard, so hard his jaw trembled. At the corner of his mouth, a thread of red appeared—bitten tongue, perhaps, or the edge of his lip split from the tension.
Three. Four. Five.
Elysian watched without expression.
The other assassins turned away.
Because August was something beautiful. Something that could shatter. Not just a prisoner. A figure carved from dusk and sorrow, a boy who bled like snowflakes.
But Killian did not stop.
He struck again.
And again.
August's body shook now—not from pain, but from the strength it took to remain silent.
His eyes closed. Not in surrender, but in preservation. He went somewhere inside himself, somewhere cold and far. The place where fire never reached. The place where a four-year-old child had once found two corpses on the floor and had never shed a single tear.
And still, the whip sang.
Killian's voice, when it came again, was low and cruel. "Because of your father," he said, "I haven't spoken that word in years. Because of him, I forgot what a father even meant."
Smack.
"Because of him, I lost everything."
Smack.
"So now—you lose."
Smack.
August's lips parted slightly, but no sound passed through. Only blood. Only breath. Only silence.
He fell forward at last, hands splayed across the stone. The whip stopped.
The air quivered.
August did not beg. Did not move.
Killian looked down at him, chest rising and falling with sharp, measured breath.
"Chain him again," he said.
They moved. Quieter this time. Slower.
The assassin who had been bitten paused as he lifted August's arm. He looked at the torn skin, the way blood laced down a back that looked too fine to bleed. He saw the line of the boy's shoulder blades, the pale, trembling breath still moving in and out of his ribs. So fragile. So breakable.
And yet—he had not made a sound.
"Chain him," Killian said again.
So they did.
The manacles clicked into place, sealing August once more to the wall. Like a relic. Like a warning. Like a sacrifice waiting for gods that never came.
Killian turned away. His cloak caught the wind as he left, voice low and bitter, words meant only for himself:
"You'll scream for him soon enough. And when he comes... he'll scream for you."
The door shut.
The room exhaled.
Blood dripped steadily from August's back.
But he didn't cry.
He never cried.
He only opened his eyes, slow and cold, and looked toward the slit of sky above.
It was still morning.
Somewhere, Elias was still alive.
Stay away, he thought. Not yet. Don't come yet. Not until you know how to win.
And the silence swallowed him once more.
The silence in the cell had grown teeth.
Each second bit deeper into August's raw, aching spine, where the lashes had traced maps of suffering in red. His arms, still shackled high above him, trembled from strain, bones humming like overstrung violin strings. His breath rose and fell shallowly, each exhale a small defeat.
Then came the sound again—that slow, groaning sigh of iron hinges.
His lashes fluttered open.
But it wasn't Killian.
Nor Elysian, with his smile like a blade dipped in perfume.
It was him—the assassin with the bitten fingers, the one whose yelp of pain had echoed in the dark of that carriage like a wounded animal.
He stepped into the room as if it might swallow him whole. His hands carried a basin, steam curling gently from its surface like ghostly ribbons. Clean cloths. A jar of balm. Offerings.
He moved with a hesitation that betrayed him—this was not a duty, but a penance.
August watched, wary and silent, a prince unbent even in bloodied chains.
The assassin set the items down and reached for the shackles.
They opened with a reluctant clank—first the left, then the right.
August crumpled like a collapsing marionette, knees crashing to stone, but he caught himself before he fell too far, fingers splayed on the floor like fractured porcelain. He raised his head and met the assassin eyes, fathomless.
"Turn around," the assassin murmured, voice low, almost gentle.
August did not move.
"I said—do not think of escaping. Just do as I say."
August's silence was colder than any blade. He lifted his chin like a man at the edge of a guillotine.
So the assassin's snapped.
Rough hands seized his shoulder, spun him—too fast—and the next moment, pain flared white at the back of August's neck. A precise strike. Pressure, not force. A pressure meant to end light.
Darkness swept over him.
When August's body fell, the boy caught it with something almost like care.
He carried him to the stone slab at the far end of the cell—a flat altar slick with centuries of forgotten breath. He laid August there, face-down, like a holy thing offered up to cruel gods. Pale hair spilled like unfallen snow across the side of his face. His limbs hung limply, ethereal, still as prayer.
The assassin hesitated before he touched him again.
With hesitant fingers, he peeled back what remained of August's once-exquisite attire—the silk now torn, blood-soaked, clinging to skin that bruised like lilies under frost. The fabric resisted. As if unwilling to let go of its master.
Beneath it: ruin.
August's back was a landscape of war.
Welts crossed his shoulder blades like calligraphy written in agony. Some lashes bled still. Others had dried into thorns of scabbed crimson. The skin was a shattered canvas—fragile, pale, desecrated.
The assassin swallowed hard.
He dipped a cloth into the steaming water, wrung it out, and pressed it, gently, to the first wound.
August flinched.
Not violently. Not awake. But his body spoke—spasming, breath tightening, as if even unconsciousness could not protect him.
The boy froze, cloth still against skin.
A moment ago, he had watched this same body endure the whip without a sound.
Now, at the touch of water, it recoiled.
How strange, he thought. How human.
He resumed, slower now.
Each wipe revealed more than injury—it unveiled the cruel tenderness of endurance, the quiet nobility of suffering in silence. Sweat shimmered on August's temples. His lips parted slightly, trembling with some unseen dream or memory. Even now, unconscious, he remained dignified—like a fallen seraph, punished not for sin, but for beauty.
The boy cleaned with trembling hands.
As if he feared each touch might break something sacred.
He did not know why his hands trembled.
Only that they did.
Only that this felt less like tending a prisoner and more like washing the blood from a statue carved by moonlight.