The prison was silent, save for the slow, rhythmic drip of water leaking from the ceiling. The air was damp, stale. It stank of sweat, iron, and rot. The darkness was thick, pressing in from all sides, swallowing what little light the dying torch in the hallway provided.
Caspian lay slumped against the cold stone wall, his breathing shallow, his body too weak to move. His wrists and ankles bore the weight of rusted chains, the tal digging deep into his flesh, but he barely felt the pain anymore.
His eyelids drooped. Sleep was coming for him. He didn't want it. He fought against it. Because every ti he closed his eyes—
The whispers ca.
And this ti, they ca like a storm.
.....
A shadow curled at the edges of his mind, a deep, gnawing presence that slithered through his thoughts like oil through water.
Familiar.
"Caspian."
The voice was velvet and razors, deep and slithering, pressing into his skull like fingers digging into wet clay.
His breath hitched. His pulse spiked.
"Look at yourself."
The darkness thickened. The walls of his prison lted away, replaced by a vast, endless void. Caspian tried to move, but his body was frozen.
Then—he saw him.
A boy.
Thin, frail, shivering. Curled in the corner of a lavish golden room. His black hair clung to his face, damp with sweat. His pale hands trembled as he tried to suppress his ragged breathing.
Caspian knew this boy.
It was him.
No.
The mory surged forward, crushing, suffocating.
He had always been alone.
Even as a child, Caspian had known he was unwanted. His father, King Philip, had never hidden his disdain. Caspian had been born too small, too sickly, his mother's frailty mirrored in his own body. He had struggled to hold a sword as a boy, his hands shaking from the weight, his arms too weak to strike true.
The court had whispered behind his back, their voices laced with contempt.
"The prince is pathetic."
"He won't last a year."
"How disgusting "
But the whispers had been nothing compared to the cold, brutal indifference of his father.
He had looked at Caspian like he was nothing.
Invisible. Forgotten.
Instead, his father had turned to Eric.
Eric.
The bastard prince.
He had been everything Caspian was not—strong, bold, commanding. The nobles adored him. The generals respected him. And his father… his father had raised a goblet in a grand banquet hall, had smiled at the boy who was not his true heir, and had declared, "Yes. He will make a fine king one day."
And Caspian?
He had sat at the table, unseen. Unheard.
Unloved.
His mother had been the only one who cared.
She had fought for him, had held him close in the dead of night when he trembled from fevers, whispering soft reassurances into his ear.
"You are ant for more, my love."
"You are stronger than they know."
"I will protect you."
But she couldn't.
Because Eric had feared him.
Caspian had never understood why. He had been weak, broken—what threat could he have possibly posed? But Eric had seen sothing in him, sothing dangerous.
Sothing that had to be destroyed.
And so, he had whispered in their father's ear. Planted the seeds of doubt. Of fear. Of treason.
They had accused his mother of sorcery.
Of consorting with dark forces.
The church had called it justice. The kingdom had called it righteousness. They had tied her to the stake and set the wood ablaze, watching as the flas swallowed her screams.
Caspian had been forced to watch.
They had held him back as she burned, his cries drowned beneath the roar of the fire. He had called out for his father. He had begged. Pleaded.
King Philip had not even looked at him.
And Eric…
Eric had smiled.
The whispers coiled around him like smoke.
"He was the favored one. Not you."
Caspian's throat tightened.
"They saw you as nothing."
His fingers twitched.
"Your mother… she tried to fight for you, didn't she?"
The scene changed.
Screams.
Flas.
The sll of burning flesh.
His mother.
Dead.
Because of Eric.
Because of his father.
Because of them.
The voice purred.
"Eric did that. Eric frad her. Because he feared you."
Caspian's breath ca in short, ragged bursts.
"And yet, you let them take everything from you. You let them throw you aside. Like trash."
"You were weak."
Caspian clenched his jaw.
The shadows trembled. They curled, twisted, and from their depths, sothing erged.
A figure.
Tall. Writhing. Cloaked in sothing that was neither flesh nor smoke. Its presence was suffocating, vast, wrong. Its face was nothing but a void—a hole where light and sanity went to die.
In'Therak.
The Fractured Star. The god he had once made a pact with.
It lood over him, its form shifting, warping, its voice pressing against his skull.
"And now look at you."
The scene shifted again.
He saw himself.
Not as a boy. Not as a prince. Not as a King.
As a prisoner.
Chained. Broken. Humiliated.
A man who had once waged war across the continent. Conquered nations.
Reduced to nothing.
In'Therak's voice was softer now. Smoother.
"I made you strong once, Caspian."
"I gave you power. I gave you vengeance. And you threw it away."
Caspian's nails dug into his palms.
"You abandoned ," he growled.
The shadows pulsed.
"I did not abandon you. You abandoned yourself."
"You beca weak again. You let them take your power. Your pride. Your will."
Caspian's breath shuddered.
The shadows twisted. Shifted. Sothing pressed against his skin—sothing cold, burning, endless.
"Do you want it back?"
His heart pounded.
"Do you want to be strong again?"
He hesitated.
For just a mont.
The void rippled.
"I can give it to you."
A warmth spread through his limbs. Power. It crawled beneath his skin, seeping into his bones, filling the hollowness inside him. His fingers twitched, curling into fists.
Yes.
Yes.
"But you must surrender yourself to ."
A sharp, wicked grin stretched across the void's face.
"Swear your soul to once more, and I will break your chains."
Caspian inhaled sharply.
The mory of his suffering burned inside him.
No more.
His lips parted.
His voice was hoarse, but steady.
"I swear."
The darkness surged.
His chains shattered.
And Caspian rose.
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