The air down here was thick enough to choke. Every breath dragged the taste of iron and ash into his lungs.
The walls sweated with moisture that wasn't water—blood, bile, the remnants of experiments gone wrong.
Even the stone stank of him now, soaked through with dragon ichor that burned faintly against the floor.
The dungeon of the smugglers was no mere prison. It was a grave still deciding whom it would claim first.
Chains coiled around Val's body like vines from some cursed forest, forged from rune-carved iron that glowed a dull crimson each time he moved.
The runes hummed with parasitic energy, leeching his magic, turning his strength into their profit.
Pillars, blackened by soot and cracked from years of use, held his colossal weight. The air shimmered faintly around him, the residue of what his power used to be.
Once, his scales had been burnished gold—mirror-bright, regal. Now they were dulled and blood-slicked, carved open by knives that had no right to touch him.
