The Next Morning...
A thin, grey light seeped into the cell, the kind that doesn't brighten, just makes the dark look tired. The air tasted of wet stone and forgotten things. Agni's head pulsed with a dull throb not from wine, but from the memory of a raised cup, a friendly smile that had been a lie. He went to rub his temple, and the sound that answered was the heavy, final clank of iron on stone.
Cold metal bit into his wrists and ankles. Chains, thick and stubborn, tethered him to the damp wall. The floor was uneven, the chill leaching through his clothes into his bones.
Across the small space, a shape moved. A low groan, strained and human, echoed off the close walls. Neer. In the same cruel embrace of iron, chained opposite him. Their eyes met in the weak light first wide with the shock of animals caught in a trap, then narrowing, the terrible understanding dawning.
"Neer?" The name scraped out of Agni's throat.
"Agni…" Neer's voice was thick with sleep and disbelief. Then it broke. "You too?"
Their shouts tore through the silence then, raw and desperate, bouncing off the stones until the cell felt smaller.
"Who's there? Who did this? AK-SHAY!"
Only the echo of Akshay's name answered, mocking them.
Then a sound that froze the blood in their veins. A deep, grinding screech of metal on metal, a sound of something old and heavy being forced awake. A slice of torchlight, blinding and harsh, cut into the gloom.
And in that blade of light stood Akshay.
He waited in the doorway, letting them look. The simple, trusted clothes were gone. Now he was wrapped in dark silks that drank the light, edged with silver that glittered like a snake's scales. The torchlight lit his face from below, carving his familiar features into something strange and cold. The smile that used to reach his eyes was now just a curl of his lip, a victory posed for an audience of two.
Neer threw himself against his chains, the metal screaming in protest. "Akshay! What madness is this?!"
A low chuckle, dry as dead leaves. "The only madness was trusting you, Neer. And him." His eyes flicked to Agni. "You're mine now. Both of you. And your old minister, the one who might have asked questions... let's just say he won't be troubling us."
Neer's breath hitched, a sharp, pained sound. "You... what have you done, 'friend'?"
"Friend?" The word was a whip-crack. "I am your king. You are my property. Your freedom died with your trust."
"Release us!" Neer's voice climbed, fraying at the edges.
"Enough." Agni's voice was quieter, but it cut through. He wasn't looking at Akshay; he was looking at Neer. At the way the chains were biting into his skin. "Unlock them. Can't you see he's hurting?"
Akshay took a step closer, his shadow swallowing them. "You worry for his pain? Worry for your own skin first." He leaned in, the smell of expensive oil and betrayal on him. "The wine at our feast last night. A special blend. You've been guests in my web for hours. This," he gestured to the dripping walls, "is home now."
He stepped back into the light. The door groaned shut like a dying beast, plunging them back into the dark. The last thing they heard was his laughter—dry, crumbling, settling into the stones around them like a new kind of damp.
---
In the absolute dark, the only truths were sound: the ragged pull of their own breathing, the hollow clink of a chain when someone shifted, the steady drip… drip… from somewhere above.
"How?" The word was a breath, a crack in Neer's voice. "The same man who broke bread with us… who stood with us when…" He couldn't finish.
Agni stared into the black where he knew Neer's face was. "I felt his shoulder beside mine in a hundred battles. I heard his laughter in my hall." He swallowed. "It was all just… cloth. A disguise."
"He was my brother." Neer's voice was small now, the anger burnt out, leaving ash. "I gave him my city when I was gone. I gave him my son."
Agni yanked at his chains, a sudden, violent burst. The iron didn't give. It only ground into his bones, a cold, honest pain. "He thinks these chains can hold us. He's wrong."
Neer was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice had changed. It was flat, cold. "A friend who becomes an enemy… doesn't leave you any ground to stand on. He knows where all the weak stones are."
---
Determination, hot and desperate, rose in Agni's chest. He closed his eyes, shutting out the dark, reaching for the familiar, roaring sun inside him. "Flame of Agni… manifest."
A flicker. A faint, dying ember glow around his fists. Then nothing. The dark swallowed it like it had never been.
Neer saw it. "Agni? Your fire…"
"It's… quiet." Agni panted, as if he'd been running. "As if it's buried under this stone."
Neer shut his own eyes, his brow furrowed in concentration. Agni saw his lips move, calling to the deep, cool currents that were his birthright. The air over Neer's palm shivered, and for a heartbeat, the ghost of a water-orb swirled into being—a tiny, beautiful promise. Then it shuddered and collapsed into nothing, like a soap bubble popped by a foul wind.
Neer's eyes flew open, blazing with a fury colder than the cell. "My water… it's trapped. He didn't just lock us in. He locked it in."
Agni roared then, a raw, animal sound of frustration, hurling Akshay's name against the walls until his throat was raw. Only the indifferent drip… drip… answered.
"He didn't just imprison us, Neer," Agni finally said, his voice hoarse. "He found a way to imprison what we are."
"So we're helpless?" The question hung in the air, fragile.
Agni's eyes, reflecting the faintest grey light, hardened. "Fire suppressed is still fire. Water dammed is still water. It waits. And so will we."
---
The Next Morning – The Price
The door screamed open again. Harsh torchlight flooded in, a physical assault. Akshay stood framed there, two hulking shadows with coiled whips behind him.
"My guests are awake," he said, his voice slick with mock concern.
Neer strained forward. "The people will tear this palace apart looking for us—"
Akshay snapped his fingers. The guards stepped forward, the leather of their whips sighing as they uncoiled. "The people have a new king. You have a lesson to learn."
As a guard raised his arm toward Neer, Agni's voice cut the air, clean and sharp. "Stop."
Everyone froze. Agni wasn't looking at the guard. He was looking at Akshay. "If a beating is the price for today… take it from me. Leave him be."
Akshay's eyebrows rose. A slow, cold smile spread. "The protector to the last. How noble." He nodded to the guard. "Very well. Grant his wish."
The guard turned. Agni pressed his back against the cold stone, closed his eyes, and let his breath out slowly. He didn't brace. He just… accepted.
The whip cracked. The sound was wrong—sharper, wetter than thunder. A line of pure, white heat tore across Agni's back. His body jerked, a violent, involuntary rebellion, but no sound escaped his clenched teeth.
"AGNI!" Neer's scream was torn from somewhere deep, a sound of pure, undiluted horror. He threw himself against his chains, not to escape, but to get between Agni and the whip, a futile, furious shield. "NO! ME! HIT ME!"
Crack. Another line of fire alongside the first.
"Neer…" Agni's voice was a strained thread. "Quiet."
Crack.
"If this… keeps it from you…" A gasp stole the next word.
Crack.
"A hundred times…" it was barely a whisper now.
The lashes fell in a terrible rhythm. Soon, the light fabric of Agni's tunic was clinging to his back, stained a dark, spreading red. Neer could only watch, each crack of the whip jolting through him as if it were his own flesh tearing. His struggles weakened, replaced by a trembling that had nothing to do with cold. Tears cut clean tracks through the grime on his face, but he made no sound now. His eyes were locked on Agni, wide with a devastation more complete than any anger.
"Such a beautiful, useless bond," Akshay mused, his voice dripping with false pity. "It only gives me more ways to hurt you." He turned and left. The door shut, sealing them in with the new, coppery smell of blood and the salt of silent tears.
---
Later, in the guttering light of a single torch Akshay had left to mock them, Agni sat slumped. His breathing was shallow, each inhale a careful negotiation with the pain. His back was a raw, terrible landscape.
Neer stared, his face pale. "You fool," he whispered, the words thick. "That was my punishment. Why? Why let them do that?"
Agni took a slow, careful breath. "I could watch them break every bone in my body, Neer. I could not watch them lay a single finger on you."
A tear escaped Neer's control, tracing a path to his chin. "I am chained. I am powerless. I couldn't even…" He yanked at his bonds, a gesture so full of helpless rage it was heartbreaking. "For the first time, I understand what it is to be truly weak. And I hate it. I hate that it's because of me that you're—"
"Don't." Agni's voice, though weak, held a finality. "The sun is still the sun, even when the night hides it. This," he gestured vaguely at the cell, "is just night."
"But when the whip fell…" Neer's voice broke. "I felt it. Here." He pressed a chained hand to his own chest. "I would have torn this world apart to stop it. And I couldn't even move."
A ghost of something touched Agni's lips—not a smile, but an acknowledgment. "When you fell from the sky that day, my heart stopped. I thought it was the end of everything. This?" He tried to shrug, winced. "This is just pain. Pain ends."
He shifted, his face contorting, but his eyes found Neer's and held them. "They can break my skin, Neer. Let them. My soul would have shattered if I'd heard you cry out in that kind of pain. If that whip had touched you, the fire in me… it would have died. Gone cold forever. So let them have my back. As long as your heart beats quietly, unhurt… in here, I am still strong."
Neer bowed his head, his shoulders shaking silently. When he looked up, his eyes were red-rimmed but clear, burning with a new light. "Then we beat this. Together. We make him pay. Not for the throne. For this."
Agni gave a single, slow nod. "Fire and water. They can be caged, but not changed. And together… they reshape the world."
---
Desperation, in its final, quiet stage, took hold. Neer closed his eyes, his lips moving in a silent, fervent prayer to his deepest weapon. "Manifest. Please." The air stirred, a pressure built in Agni's ears… and then faded into a silence so complete it was louder than any sound.
Agni, not to be outdone, raised his manacled hands toward the ceiling, his voice a low, graveled command. "Agneya-Astra. To me." He waited. The air should have shimmered with heat, the scent of ozone. Nothing. Only the same damp, powerless dark.
Neer slammed a fist against the wall, the impact dull and hopeless. "They're gone. Our weapons… they don't hear us."
Agni didn't answer immediately. He slowly sank down the wall until he was sitting on the cold floor, his head resting back against the stone. He looked exhausted, empty. "They haven't abandoned us, Neer," he said, his voice hollow with realization. "They've been taken. Our soul-power… it's gone."
Neer's eyes widened in true horror, deeper than any fear of the whip. "Then… we're just men."
"Maybe," Agni murmured, looking at his own hands as if seeing them for the first time. "Maybe that's the real prison."
Neer slid down his own wall, the fight draining out of him, leaving a vast, cold emptiness. He landed on the floor with a quiet thud. "There's nothing left."
Agni moved then, dragging himself across the few feet of stone that separated them. He didn't have the strength to sit up straight, so he settled beside Neer, their shoulders almost touching. He was a map of pain, but when he spoke, his voice was soft. "They stole our power. They can't steal this." He didn't gesture. He didn't need to. The space between them, even in chains, was alive with it.
"But how do we get out?" Neer whispered, the practical, terrifying question hanging in the air.
Agni offered a tired, real smile this time. It was small, but it was there. "I don't know. But we're together. And that's always been our real strength. Not the fire. Not the water. This."
They sat in silence then, for a long time. The cold seeped in. The dark pressed down. The chains weighed a thousand pounds.
But right there, in the narrow space where their arms almost touched, a fragile warmth persisted.
"We will get out," Agni said softly, his eyes closed.
"We will," Neer echoed, leaning his head back, believing it because Agni did.
Then—a shift. Not a sound, but a change in the quality of the darkness in the far corner. A patch of shadow deepened, solidified, and stepped forward.
It moved with a silence that was unnatural, a grace that spoke of power held in absolute control. It was clad in darkness, and its face was a smooth, blank mask of black lacquer that gave back no reflection, no hint of what lay beneath. It simply stood, observing them, a living part of the dungeon's despair, and its silence was heavier and more terrifying than all of Akshay's cruel words.
---