Chapter 4
The estate swallowed sound. Stone and glass took it in and gave nothing back. Mirel’s ears rang with the quiet, with the way boots clicked softer here, deliberate as heartbeats. Behind him, locks turned. Ahead, the echo of fading guards reminded him he was trapped.
On the streets he’d heard whispers of rooms in the Imperial Prince’s houses where voices never came back out. Walls that remembered screams long after the bodies were gone. Now every breath tasted of those rumours closing around him.
Lamps burned inside glass cylinders, gold filigree wrapped around each one. Their light touched the polished floors but left the corners dark. Mirel hated that he could see himself in the tiles. Pale, bound, blood drying where the cuff had cut. His eyes caught too bright in the shine.
The ceiling pressed low above him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been beneath a roof. The weight of walls felt like another set of cuffs, air too thick for someone who had trusted only the open sky.
His knees still weak from the climb, dread hollow in his stomach, they hauled him upward until the glass roof opened around him. They were inside a waltr. Mirel had heard of them. His foster family once had one but never let him near it.
Bad boys didn’t deserve such beauty.
Now, under Kylix’s gaze, he was being dragged inside.
The tall guard’s grip didn’t loosen, something almost gentle in his eyes, before duty locked it away again.
The others flanked, expressions trained to stillness, rifles slung easy but ready.
They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. Silence carried its own kind of order here.
Kylix led without looking back. His black cape absorbed sound. The air thinned as Mirel followed, a current he couldn’t resist. Each turn came sharp, the squad falling half a beat behind, their discipline bending to his pace.
Shadows stretched long at each lamp. Kylix’s form cut across the glass like a predator testing the cage. His hunger showed in small things—the tilt of his head, the pause before a step, the stillness that waited for weakness.
They stopped at a door that looked grown from stone, oval and seamless, light veining its surface. At Kylix’s touch the seams pulsed, then split. Panels slid apart without sound. The hum of machinery vanished the instant they stepped through.
Glass walls curved high into dark. Beyond them sat the unbroken night. It felt like the house had stolen a piece of sky and locked it behind glass. No curtains. No disguise. Just darkness pressing close.
Inside sat a low table, a carafe of water, a single chain set into the floor. Mirel’s breath caught. He pulled back on instinct. The cuffs cut deeper.
Vandor tightened once. Unyielding.
“Inside,” Kylix said.
Not bark. Not an order. The word slid into the room like a key.
Mirel’s body betrayed him, twitching forward before his mind caught up. Hunger hollowed him. Exhaustion pulled at his limbs. His heels scraped against the floor, a last act of refusal. A sound slipped out, rough and wrong, too human to be animal, too raw to be human.
Kylix turned. The movement was slow, deliberate. Ember eyes fixed on him, bright with curiosity and danger. He studied Mirel as if examining a relic found in ruin, testing what had cracked and what still held.
Light touched the jewel on his tooth. When Mirel flinched, Kylix set his thumb to the hinge of his jaw and pressed—not hard enough to bruise, only enough to remind him. The touch lingered, almost kind. Then it withdrew, leaving warmth that felt like ownership.
Vandor stood by the glass door, silent, a shape carved for duty. His stillness pressed heavier than the walls.
“Your display today,” Kylix said, voice calm and deep, “was almost beautiful. How long have you been able to do that? Who taught you to call frost like that?”
Mirel stayed silent. Shame and anger worked under his skin.
Kylix leaned closer. The space between them thinned until breath met breath.
“No answer?” His mouth curved. “Then perhaps the old man will speak instead. Was he your father?” He let the words soften, smooth as cloth.
“If you keep your truths from me, I’ll take his.
When I’m finished, I’ll send you to the Aureate to learn what obedience means. ”
He waited. His thumb brushed the air between them as if tasting the next tremor. “Tell me, little one,” he said quietly, “will you beg for him or for yourself?”
Mirel’s gaze flickered. His throat worked. He looked away instead of answering, terror bending close to something worse. Even now he could not ignore how beautiful Kylix was, how impossible to face without wanting. Hunger and fear tangled until his chest hurt.
“Does your family live in the Wastelands?”
Mirel’s shoulders drew in. Breath caught sharp in his chest. He gave no reply, only a flicker of gold eyes before he looked away again.
Kylix’s hand caught his, the hold treacherously soft. His thumb traced the cuff mark at Mirel’s wrist as if testing where the skin would give. His gaze dropped to the chain fixed in the floor. The links gleamed faintly. He let them rattle once between his fingers, then released them.
“Answer me,” he said. “Every time you refuse, your fate knots tighter. You know what happens to doomed men? They disappear. Faces erased. Names struck clean. Bones fed to fire. Only the walls remember, and the walls never speak.”
Mirel gave a sharp huff he hadn’t meant to. To vanish into the Wastelands was no threat; he had lived there already. What froze him was the thought of dying slow, beaten until breath failed.
Kylix caught the sound. His eyes narrowed, amused. He inhaled, a low hum sliding from his throat, as if tasting it. “Yes,” he murmured. “I smell it. You’re not afraid of shadows.” His smile deepened. “You’re afraid of me.”
Mirel shivered. A word caught in his throat and broke before it could escape. His heart pounded fast enough to hurt. The threat felt close enough to scrape bone. Kylix’s hand lingered a breath too long before it withdrew.
“This room remembers fire,” he said quietly. “Now then. What’s your name, little ghost?”
Mirel stared back. His throat worked. His lips parted, but nothing came. Silence was the only weapon he had left.
“Still nothing?” Kylix asked. “No words at all?”
He let the chain move once between his fingers, metal whispering over metal. “Vandor, chain him.”
Vandor obeyed—hesitation a single breath—then clipped the cuffs to the floor. The click carried through the glass, final as a closing door.
He looked once toward Kylix. “Perhaps he can’t speak, sir?”
Kylix turned his head. The look was enough. “Yes, he can. Can’t you?”
Mirel went still. The weight of the chain pressed through his skin. Years of running, hiding, striking when he had to, now erased. The sound of the lock had taken all of it.
No more flight. No more fight. Someone else owned the air now.
The Imperial Prince.
His body didn’t know how to be still without choice. The tremor shamed him. For a moment he thought of Cyprian. Was his brother somewhere inside this same building? Would he know him like this, kneeling under glass? What would he think, seeing him chained?
Mirel tried to reach for him, the way he sometimes could. Nothing answered. The link stayed blind without sight. It only opened when he saw his brother’s face.
“You fought well,” Kylix said, tone almost conversational. “Fear made you quick. Clever. Beautiful.”
Mirel’s jaw locked. He said nothing.
Kylix’s mouth curved, slow. The jewels on his teeth caught the lamplight, small sparks in the dark.
“I know you can speak. Bodies speak even when mouths refuse.” His gaze moved down and back, unhurried. Mirel felt it crawl his skin. His wrists throbbed where the cuffs rubbed. His shoulders ached from hunger. His eyes burned with exhaustion.
Kylix drew in a long breath, the sound low, almost pleasure. “Yours shouts,” he murmured. “And I have so many questions.”
Mirel snarled. Heat flared, sharp as a match. Kylix’s gaze lingered at the hollow of his throat, the tremor in his knees, the damp shirt clinging to his ribs. Each detail studied like property.
Mirel lifted his chin. Hate and shame burned together. The chain rattled as he shifted, fury alive in each movement. His silence stayed his only defiance, though his breath betrayed him, rough and uneven. The cuffs cut deeper. Blood slicked his wrists, each pull louder than any word.
Kylix’s brows rose. Surprise flickered, then curved into smug delight. “So stubborn,” he said, tasting the word. His tongue brushed the jewel on his tooth, slow, like he was learning patience. Hunger lived behind his gaze.
He touched the multi-slate on his wrist. “Bring food. Roast, bread, and wine.”
A guard left through the glass door. Vandor stayed, silent. Kylix’s gaze lingered on Mirel’s mouth, then dropped to his throat. “You look starved,” he said, voice low enough to scrape. “When it arrives, you’ll learn what it means to want.”
A guard returned and set a tray on the low table.
“Leave,” Kylix said. “Vandor, you stay.”
Bread and fruit steamed in the glow. Slices of roasted meat shone beside them, the scent rich and heavy. Mirel’s stomach knotted so hard his throat closed. He tried to stay still, but his body bent toward the food.
“An answer, and you eat from my hand,” Kylix said. “Your name, little ghost. Or silence, and you starve.”
He tore the bread in half and held it just out of reach.
Mirel’s mouth watered. He hated the want. He forced his head aside, but his gaze betrayed him, drawn back to the food again and again. Silence was all he had left, but his body ached with need.
Kylix smiled and set the bread within reach. “Then prove me wrong. Don’t touch it.”
Minutes dragged. Heat breathed through the glass.
The chain bit. Mirel’s stomach growled loud enough to shame him.
He lasted longer than he thought he could, snarling once, jerking against the chain until dizziness blurred the walls.
His hands shook too hard to stay fisted.
A low sound broke from his throat, raw and feral.
The scent thickened until it became the air itself. Mirel closed his eyes and tried to think of cold things. Rainwater, stone, the pond after frost.
Warmth pressed closer. He heard Kylix breathing, slow and even. Each breath too loud. His own matched it before he noticed, a small betrayal of rhythm. When he caught it, shame rose hot in his throat. He bit his tongue until he tasted blood and held the pain as proof he still belonged to himself.
Kylix watched, unmoving, then lowered the bread a fraction. “One simple truth,” he said. “Do you live in the Wastelands?”
Mirel’s mouth twitched. His throat worked, but no sound came. Hunger carved him hollow, saliva thick on his tongue. His eyes burned as he glared at the food, every muscle drawn tight in denial. He refused to reach for it, though his body begged. Silence turned to torment.
Kylix’s teeth caught the light when he spoke. “So stubborn,” he said. “You’ll break, and I’ll be here when you do. I have all the time in the world.”
Desperation burned through Mirel’s skin. He pressed his forehead to his knees. Tears gathered, the first in years. The cold would have held them back. The heat unmade him.
The food stayed untouched, a cruel offering he could neither accept nor forget. He hated himself for wanting it, hated Kylix more for watching. Rumours said the walls remembered screams. Now he wondered if he looked like one. His stomach cramped, the pain doubling him.
Kylix did not gloat. His silence worked deeper, patient, watching what would crack next. The chain bit. The glass held its heat. Mirel curled smaller on the stone, hunger hollowing him until he trembled at the edge of collapse.
He lasted until his strength was gone. His forehead fell to the floor, a small, final motion, as if hunger had dragged him down.
Kylix watched him fold in on himself. Power liked silence. It gathered there, slow and certain. He told himself this was control. Nothing more.
But when Mirel trembled, something moved under his skin. The sound of it drew him closer.
He stayed where he was. The chain tightened each time the boy breathed. Kylix listened to the scrape of metal against floor. It pleased him. Proof that obedience could make its own music.
“Told you it wasn’t that hard, little one,” Kylix said, voice low and satisfied. “Now. Let’s begin.”
The air changed. Frost spread where blood touched glass. A thin line, white against the dark.
Kylix crouched. His reflection wavered beside Mirel’s.
“Good,” he said. “You remember how to answer.”
He stood. “Let’s see how long you can hold it.”
The frost kept moving after he spoke. It made a soft crack, quiet as breath.