Kleo and Aliza started hurting from hunger and dehydration. They pleaded with the Devourer when they entered in the morning.
In response to their pleas, the only thing they were given was bread and stale water.
Just enough to keep them alive.
Just enough to make the life force drain slower.
But Aliza had figured out a trick: soak the crust in water for close to a minute, chew slowly, and pretend it was sothing else entirely.
"Pogranate-glazed venison," she said, eyes half-lidded, leaning against the bars.
Kleo snorted. "What kind of pretentious nobles eat glazed venison?"
Aliza looked mock-offended. "It’s not pretentious! It’s delicious."
Kleo tore at the wet bread, chewed slowly, and raised a brow. "I dunno... tastes like rat bread with a side of despair."
They both laughed. It felt strange, laughter, like sothing forbidden in a place like this. But they clung to it.
As they chewed in silence, Kleo asked, "If we get out of here... what’s the first thing you’re gonna do?"
Aliza exhaled. "Go ho. But not to the palace. To the coast. There’s a little town near Ivelynne with red sand and a pier that sells peach tea and honey-dipped biscuits. My best friend and I always talked about running away there. My uncle has a small estate that I could use."
Kleo gave a small smile. "Sounds nice."
Aliza looked at her. "And you?"
Kleo shifted. "...I might actually try to join the Academy."
That caught Aliza off guard. "Really?"
"Yeah. Obviously after this headmaster of yours is replaced, though." Kleo shrugged. "I always thought magic was for the rich and pompous, but after seeing how much it can do, I guess... I dunno. I’m good at picking locks, moving quiet, stabbing people when I need to, but I want to be more than that."
Aliza bead. "You could join. You’d have to apply through the Fracture Departnt, though."
Kleo grimaced. "Yikes. The place that slls like boiled socks and old parchnt?"
They both laughed again, softer this ti.
Kleo glanced at her. "You think they’d even let soone like in?"
Aliza’s smile didn’t fade. "If I’m still alive, I’ll sponsor you myself."
Kleo blinked. Then swallowed. "Thanks, princess."
Aliza smirked. "Thought we were past that."
"Right," Kleo said, cheeks a little pink. "Thanks, Aliza."
---
On day five, they’d started pretending.
Using the cracks in the walls, the lines on the floor, the bars of their cages, they created imaginary streets. Fake windows. Market stalls. A bakery with fresh cinnamon bread. A weaponsmith with knives so sharp they could cut through a whisper.
"I’d open a lock shop," Kleo said, tapping an invisible sign above a mark on the wall behind them. "Kleo’s Keys. Specialising in things not ant to be opened."
Aliza giggled. "You’d go broke."
"No way. Nobles always need secrets kept, or broken into. Trust , I know."
Aliza pointed at another wall. "Then I’ll open a clinic across the street. ’Aliza’s Alchemy & Aid’. Discount potions for anyone who promises to not commit treason."
Kleo leaned back, smiling. "We’d be rivals."
Aliza shook her head. "We’d be neighbors. I’d bring you breakfast every morning."
"And I’d bring you... gossip in return," Kleo whispered.
They looked at each other, and sothing unspoken passed between them. Not love. Nothing like that yet. But trust. Deeply scarred and fragile.
Sothing real.
---
On day six, they changed up their conversation. It was Kleo’s idea this ti.
She picked up a small rock from the floor and pretended it was a nu. "Alright, welco to Kleo & Ali’s Eatery. What’ll you have?"
Aliza played along instantly. "What’s the special?"
"Whatever hasn’t rotted." Kleo looks sadly at the pieces of bread at the bottom of her cage, now covered in mould. "Cos with imaginary butter, at least."
Aliza laughed. "One order of that, please. And so wine."
Kleo leaned closer. "You can’t afford wine here, miss. Nobody can."
"Then how about a smile?" Aliza asked sweetly.
Kleo blinked. Smirked. "Fine. One wine. Half-watered. Just for you."
They passed the ti like that. Laughing. Pretending. Trying to push away the cold breath that still ca each night to steal from their lives.
It was already getting harder to move. Harder to breathe.
---
They’d been talking about their future all day. Where they’d live. Who they’d beco. Whether the Academy could be better without the Devourer in charge. Whether the world could be better.
"I still want to join," Kleo whispered.
"If the Devourer’s gone... if you’re still around..."
"I’ll be there," Aliza said. "I’ll be waiting on a pier with so peach tea. You’ll find ."
"What about so glazed venison?"
"Oh, so you want to try so?" Aliza raised an eyebrow, surprised. "I’ll bring so of that for you, so you can try it." Aliza smiled softly.
"And if you die first?" Kleo asked quietly.
Aliza was quiet for a long mont. Then she reached through the bars.
"You’ll live for both of us," she whispered. "And I’ll haunt the shit out of your dreams if you don’t."
Kleo took her hand.
"I’ll do it," she whispered back. "For both of us. But you’re not going to die."
---
During the next two days, the two girls were increasingly more quiet.
Kai looked at them sadly. His bleeding nails and fingertips throbbed.
The Devourer entered the room and wandered over to Aliza’s cage.
"Get away from her! Haven’t you taken enough!" Kleo yelled.
"I expected more from the Princess of Forne," she whispered at the end of the fourth day, kneeling beside Aliza’s cage. "Such strong lineage. So much potential. But alas..."
Kai felt a trickle of mana. After scraping two of the dozens of runes away, he finally made a connection. He tried his best to summon his shadow space and fill the entire room with his undead.
’All of them attacking at once should at least overwhelm her.’
But the shadows didn’t listen.
Aliza was barely conscious by then, her lips cracked and eyes sunken. But she turned her head toward Kai and tried to smile. Tried. It was barely a twitch. She mouthed sothing he couldn’t hear.
He wanted to believe it was "I forgive you." Or "I’m sorry."
Kleo hadn’t spoken since Aliza stopped. Her small hands shook every ti she raised the cup of water to her lips. Her eyes were wide but unfocused, and she flinched at every shadow.
It looked like it took almost everything she had to chew her bread.
Kai kept counting.
Six thousand four hundred and fifty-nine...
Six thousand four hundred and sixty...
---
By the seventh day, Aliza’s breathing was a faint rattle in her throat.
The Devourer ca early that day. She wore sothing different, a ceremonial robe woven from black feathers and stitched with pulsating runes. The air around her shimred with oppressive heat. Kai could feel her hunger as she stepped into the chamber.
Aliza didn’t flinch. She didn’t even move. Her eyes were open, glassy and still. But she was alive. Barely.
"Your team won, by the way, Kai Tensen. Without you. All by themselves. They don’t need you."
The Devourer passed by his cage and knelt by Aliza’s. She exhaled slowly. Then she breathed in.
Kai watched, helpless, as the last wisps of Aliza’s soul were torn from her chest. Her body arched slightly. Her hands twitched.
Then nothing.
No final words. No screams. Just the sound of the Devourer sighing in satisfaction.
Kai didn’t scream this ti.
He sat down. Closed his eyes. And began scraping at the sigils on the bars again, over and over, ignoring the blood leaking from beneath his fingernails. It had taken him days, but now he could feel it stronger. Mana.
A trickle at first.
Then a pulse.
Then a current.
The Devourer turned to him.
"It’s a pity," she said, licking the last of Aliza’s essence from her lips. "She could’ve beco a Collector. But you? You still can. You’re special. You have potential. I can give you freedom. I can give you autonomy. You’ll keep most of your will. Just et your quotas every ten years."
Kai looked up slowly, feigning exhaustion, letting his lips tremble.
"You’d let go?"
Her smile widened. "Of course. I keep my word."
"Then maybe," he said, eyes glassy. "Maybe I’ll... think about it."
That was enough to please her.
She rose with a graceful twirl and turned toward the door. "Wonderful. I’ll go collect one of my shipnts. Another delicious batch of scholars and delinquents. Try not to die before I return."
She left, humming.
An hour passed.
Kai knelt in his cage.
He annihilated the remaining sigils on the bars of the cage with a burst of shadow magic, and in a burst of cold, raw energy, his mana returned. His shadow deepened. Thickened. Beca alive once more.
He breathed in what felt like the first breath of fresh air in over a week. But it wasn’t fresh. Aliza’s corpse had started to stink. The room slt of death and blood and despair.
He crawled through the warped bars and knelt beside Kleo.
Her breathing was shallow, but steady. She looked at him with half-lidded eyes. "Aliza...?"
"She’s gone," Kai said softly. "But we’re not."
He reached into his robes and summoned Shade.
A weak, flimsy creature ca forth. Just like the one he had as a child.
’It really is gone...’
He released it back into his shadow space, disappointed.
"Get back!" He yelled to Kleo, and she slowly shifted to the back of her cage.
He used fire until the bars were red hot, and then used ice magic to freeze them. The iron shattered, setting her free.
Kai reached toward the mounds of bones. His fingers curled. Life essence surged.
"Mass Raise Undead."
They rose.
One. Two. Ten. Fifty. Hundreds.
Skeletons reassembled. Shattered skulls found spines. Ribs locked into place with unnatural precision. The room beca a tomb of servants.
And then, the corpses the Devourer had devoured the magic from earlier, the ones Kai had summoned in desperation before they were stripped of everything... he called them back. And they answered. Rotten flesh twitched. Eyes ignited with ghostly fire. The Devourer had removed his control, but he had never relinquished his ownership.
A small desk beside the altar glowed faintly with residual power. He tore open the drawers, flipping through scrolls, pages, fragnts.
One passage caught his eye.
A soul forge. Hidden in the roots of the academy.
’Oh? To rge and create souls, that’s what I needed, right? Why would it be beneath the academy?’
He tucked the page away into his shadow space, then pulled out his vials, thick, black ichor swirling with writhing soul fragnts. He drank them in greedily, the taste acrid, the power euphoric.
Kleo, steadier now, unlocked the door with practiced hands.
While she did so, Kai raised Aliza’s corpse in secret and attempted to take her soul, but it was nowhere to be found. The devourer had taken that as well. He took her into his shadow space and rejoined Kleo.
She had no hesitation with the locks. No fear. Like she’d done it a hundred tis.
Just silence.
They walked through the exit together, Kai’s army following behind in eerie silence.
The room they had suffered in, the chamber where Aliza died, fell behind them.
Kleo looked back, but Kai didn’t.
He would rember, though.
And the Devourer?
She would regret not killing him when she had the chance.
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