"Enough about me," Oliver said after a pause. "Tell me about yourself. I mean… how long were you even sealed in there?"
Isolde tilted her head back slightly, her crimson eyes reflecting the faint glow of mana stones embedded in the ceiling. "I don't know. At first, I tried to keep track—counting breaths, counting heartbeats, trying to estimate cycles of time. But there was no day or night, nothing to measure with. Eventually… time lost all meaning. It stopped mattering. All I knew was that I would be tormented there forever."
Her voice carried no tears this time, only a dull weight.
Oliver swallowed, his chest tightening. Just the few days he'd been stuck in the dungeon had almost driven him mad. To imagine centuries—he couldn't. "That's… insane. No one should go through that."
She noticed the pity on his face and smiled faintly. "Why the long face? I'm out now, aren't I? That's all that matters."
"Well… I was just thinking how lonely it must've been," Oliver said quietly.
