Razeal and the old man stood locked in silence, eyes fixed on one another. Time felt suspended, as if the endless white walls of the chamber themselves were holding their breath. Neither blinked or shifted. It was just the weight of two wills colliding in the void.
The old man finally exhaled, his chest expanding against the cruel spikes that impaled his body. His voice came low, steady, carrying the authority of decades lived in defiance.
"I don't know why you're so confident, boy," he said. "But No I will not become someone's lapdog. I have never lived bowed beneath another, and I won't start now. I've lived seventy-six years under my own will, my own pride. To throw that away, even for a handful of borrowed years… it would be shameful. Embarrassing. When history remembers me, they will not say I bent the knee to some arrogant brat. No. I'd rather let my life end here in this sterile tomb than spit on everything I stood for."
His eyes never wavered, still locked with Razeal's.
