The tunnel sloped sharply into a dim corridor lit by guttering sconces. The cold here was different — not the damp chill of stone, but the hollow cold of a place meant to break people.
Their escort stopped before a set of heavy gates worked from black iron. Two Dark Elf guards stepped forward, the points of their spears catching the torchlight.
"Confiscate everything," one said in clipped Elvish.
Caleb tensed, understanding the words before they were translated. "Wait, what—?"
One by one, the guards relieved Gideon and Ezra of the few "ordinary" items they still carried — travel pouches, belts, boots reinforced with hidden steel. Eliakim's pack was taken, though the Bracelet of Kharuun remained unseen, still resting quietly against his wrist.
Then the guards turned to Caleb. The archer's grip tightened on his bow.
"This is mine," Caleb said, his voice low.
The captain in charge didn't blink. "It is now property of the Legion."
When they tried to pull it from his hands, Caleb's composure cracked."No—!" His voice shook, fury and desperation lacing every syllable. "You don't understand — it's my family's, my father's—"
Two soldiers wrenched it from him with mechanical precision. Caleb's cry echoed against the walls, raw and helpless. He turned away sharply, shoulders shaking, anger directed not just at them but at himself.
"I should've given it to you when you asked," he muttered under his breath to Eliakim. "Damn it…"
Eliakim didn't answer — only laid a hand briefly on his shoulder before the moment passed.
Then they brought Skyling forward.
The tamed beast, feathers shifting with faint magical shimmer, let out a soft trill when Eliakim stepped close. But the Dark Elves were ready — one held a pair of massive blackened cuffs etched with twisting runes.
Null-binders. Forged to strip away every trace of magic, divine or cursed.
The moment they locked around her talons, the shimmer in her feathers dulled to nothing. Skyling gave a sharp, pained cry, her head whipping toward Eliakim.
He stepped close, ignoring the laughter from the soldiers. His voice was calm, steady. "It's alright, girl. I'll get you out of here. I promise."
She keened again, softer this time, and lowered her head.
The guards laughed openly now — the sound of a bond mocked, of defiance treated as weakness. Eliakim didn't rise to it. He let them think him tamed.
They were herded through the gates and down another corridor into a long, low chamber lined with narrow cells. The "barracks" were nothing more than rows of cages stacked with thin mats and rusted water basins.
A guard shoved them inside one of the larger cells meant for groups. The door clanged shut behind them.
Eliakim sat against the far wall, closing his eyes as though resigning himself — but his fingers traced the faint outline of the Bracelet of Kharuun, feeling the hidden weight of their stored gear.
He listened to the cadence of the guards' patrols, the creak of the gate hinges, the subtle shift of Skyling's claws against stone. Every sound was a possible opening.
For now, he stayed the part — the clueless outsider dependent on translation, the man without a plan.
But behind his closed eyes, every path, every exit, every weakness in the Legion's routine was already being mapped.
They'd made one mistake, he thought.
They'd left him breathing.