Curiosity Has Teeth
He stepped out of the prison's shadowed entrance with a breath that failed to settle anywhere in his chest, more a shaky attempt at breathing than an actual inhale. The air outside wasn't truly fresh—Vel's capital still held that faint scorched dryness left behind by Leon's battle days earlier—but after the stale, wet heaviness inside the cells, it cut against his senses like something sharp, almost clean.
Behind him, the iron door slammed shut with a hollow thud that chased a shiver down his spine.
But the noise wasn't what stayed with him.
It was the conversation. Or rather, the feeling of it.
Not the literal sentences—they'd been simple enough. What lingered was the tone. That strange, almost unsettling confidence curling beneath the voices of three men who should've been shattered long before now. It was wrong. It was inconsistent with their situation. And it clung to him, refusing to let go, as if their certainty had followed him out into the open air.
