The memory of the throne room flashed behind her eyelids, burning brighter and hotter than the fires of the abyss. It hadn't been an open conflict, but rather a calculated ambush in the heart of her own home. She was surrounded by his loyalists, as her husband stood a few paces away with that snide, cowardly smile. Glowing runes etched themselves into the polished marble floor - a binding circle, a vicious snare that locked her limbs in place and siphoned the breath right from her lungs.
Then came the brutal weight. Heavy hands shoved her down, forcing her proud, regal frame violently onto her knees against the cold floor. And then the sharp, yet heavy bite of steel sawing through the bone protruding from her head. Her antlers. They had hacked them off. The magnificent, branching crown of bone. The display of her elven heritage. Her spirit. Her elven pride and ancestry. As the final fiber of bone was severed, her sacred golden crown clattered to the floor, smashing into jagged, worthless pieces. The phantom ache throbbed aggressively at the top of her skull, sending hot stabs of agony through her temples.
Paradonia's breath hitched in the dark of the tower, her fingers clenching into tight fists against the biting iron of her shackles.
The betrayal of her husband wasn't just that he had traded her for immortality; it was that he had stood by and watched her desecration. He had allowed his loyalists to saw away her identity, leaving her broken and bleeding on the floor, just to buy himself a few centuries.
With every replay of that bloody throne room, a piece of the old Paradonia withered and turned to ash. The elf who once held her head high, who believed in the sanctity of vows and the weight of an oath. She was not only someone who became nobility, but she came from a line of priests who had to learn to fight against humanity when they waged war upon her race. Her marriage to Solomon was meant to be a symbol of two races who had finally settled their differences, but sometimes greed wins in the end.
Her shoulders screamed in protest against the chains, but she clenched her jaw, preventing any sound of weakness from threatening to escape her lips. She couldn't afford to cry. Tears were moisture wasted. A weakness. If Brymthos wanted a weapon, if he truly wanted a creature reforged from spite and hatred to tear down the obsidian gates, then she would give him the demon he so desperately craves.
She would let him train her. She would let him break her bones and crack them back together. Allowing him to mould her into something harder, denser, and more cruel. To survive this place, she needed to be ruthless. And when she finally returns to the surface, she will find her freedom - perhaps find her son.
High above the smoking plains, framed by the uneven arch of the window where the spiralling red skies bleed. The pain was still there, burning like a living coal, but the fear was gone. The heavy iron doors groaned on their rusted hinges, shattering the suffocating silence of the cell. Light spilled into the gloom - not the blinding heat of the sun, but the harsh, judicial glare of the abyss. Footsteps echoed against the stone, heavy and unhurried.
Brymthos entered, his skeletal frame draped in the tattered remnants of a mantle that looked as old as the underworld itself. He didn't look at her with the fury of a jailer, but with the quiet, perverse affection of an owner checking on its newly acquired asset.
He approached her hanging, lashed form and stopped just a few paces away. His dead gaze swept over her with a strange, chilling softness.
"You survived the first day cycle," Brymthos observed, his tone leveling into a smooth, purring cadence once more. It was a tone one might use for a favourite hound that had finally stopped snapping at its leash. "Good girl. Most break before the watch ends."
Paradonia did not flinch, though every nerve ending raged and screamed.
Slowly, the lich reached out. His pale, bone-chilling fingers brushed against her cheek, cupping her jaw with a terrifying, feather-light tenderness. He stroked the skin beneath her chin. His touch was devoid of heat, yet it lingered with a suffocating intimacy.
"Such a resilient little creature." His thumb traced a slow, deliberate circle along her jawline.
"Poor thing. They hacked away your crown, thinking they were destroying your majesty. Fools. They only made you easier for me to mould."
Before she could react, his hand drifted downwards. His long, skeletal fingers slid slowly, deliberately across her shoulders and down the curve of her spine, pressing with chilling familiarity directly over the open, weeping gashes left by the lash.
A sharp, staggering spasm of agony tore through Paradonia, and a ragged gasp broke past her lips, her body shuddering involuntarily against the touch. Brymthos made a soft, sympathetic sound in the back of his decomposed, pale throat. His touch carried forth the excruciation. The agony. But it was maddening and gentle as he traced the edges of her torn flesh.
"Hush now. I know it hurts. But pain is just the chisel, Paradonia. We are simply carving away what you used to be." With a flick of his wrist, he materialized a heavy iron key in his other hand. He slid it into the lock of the shackles. Then, with an audible clack, the iron cuffs sprang open and released her weight.
Paradonia didn't land gracefully. Her body collapsed to the floor. She wheezed as a fresh wave of fire radiated across her back, but she caught herself on her hands, her fingers digging deep into the grit as she forced her breath to be steady. She refused to scream. She refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing any vocalization of pain.
Brymthos stepped back, looking down at her crumpled form with absolute, unadulterated admiration. He gestured vaguely towards the dark corridors stretching beyond the cell.
"Get up," the lich commanded softly. Hollow eye sockets gleamed with a manic hunger, itching toward the inevitability he would soon unleash. "Your first lesson begins now."
Her jaw clenched tightly; her teeth ached. She rose slowly onto her feet. Her legs were shaking. The elf wiped the blood and grime from her face before she stepped forward into his shadow. She let him think she was broken. Let him whisper his praises and treat her like his favourite toy. Every inch of obedience she performed was a hook buried in his blind spot, waiting for the day she could finally drag him down with her.