Chapter 6 #2
Roughly forged, rust-eaten metal lids that sealed the prisoners in. Over a hundred of them spanned the length of the chamber, each one a mouth fused shut. Ellaryn’s throat went dry. She knew what lay beneath them: nothing but blackness and soundless hunger.
Black holes that consumed from the inside out.
Her gaze snagged on movement in the far corner.
A servant swept the stone with mechanical strokes, the broom nearly larger than she was.
The girl was painfully thin—elbows and knees swollen and knotted, skin stretched tight over fragile bone.
When she looked up and saw Ellaryn, her hands began to shake so violently the broom rattled against the floor.
Ellaryn recognised her instantly.
I put you here, she swallowed the thought.
“Magnus?” she asked quietly, one eyebrow lifting.
The girl flinched as though struck and pressed herself closer to the broom, eyes wide and hollow, then raised a trembling hand and pointed down the length of the dungeon.
“Last one,” she whispered. Then lowered her head and resumed sweeping, as if the words alone might cost her something.
Ellaryn inclined her head in thanks and turned away. Her boots echoed too loudly as she walked, each step slapping wet stone, each sound sending a ripple of unease through her bones.
She stopped at the final drain.
The metal lid waited for her in the dim light. She hadn’t thought this far ahead.
The realisation settled heavily in her chest as she stood over the drain, the cold iron biting through the soles of her boots. Coming here had been nothing but instinct—an impulse born of unease and the King’s uncharacteristic restraint.
Action without plan.
Curiosity sharpened into something reckless.
What would she even say to him?
If Magnus had refused to speak to the King—to him—then why would he offer the truth to her?
She was no saviour.
No kindly face in the dark.
She was the King’s Ruin, his blade, his executioner. The very hand that dragged people to places like this. If anything, she was the last person he would trust.
Her fingers curled slowly at her side, leather creaking as her grip tightened and released again.
For years, fear had been her most reliable weapon. That night, it turned inward.
Reluctantly, she slid the mechanism on the drain.
Metal scraped softly against metal, the sound far too loud in the hush of the dungeon. A narrow slit opened in the lid, and a thin blade of torchlight spilt downward.
She crouched, knees aching as she leaned over the gap and peered into the void below.
Nothing.
Only darkness—thick and swallowing, as though the light itself were being devoured the moment it crossed the threshold. She strained her eyes, willing them to adjust, but the pit gave nothing back.
Then she heard it.
A shuffle.
Bare skin dragging against stone.
Her breath stilled, and she waited, listening.
A faint inhale followed—ragged and shallow—then another, faster this time, each one trembling on the edge of panic. The sound curled up through the drain and into her bones.
Magnus.
She didn’t need to see him to know. His fear leaked upward, saturating the air as if it were tangible. It clung to the back of her throat, thick and sour, and for the first time since stepping into the dungeon, Ellaryn hesitated.
In a place that broke people so easily, she had hoped he was not broken beyond mending just yet. Not tormented by the dark magic embedded in the walls, the kind that drove people insane down below.
“Magnus,” she called, clearing her throat. Her voice echoed oddly, too small for the depth beneath her. “Magnus… Are you there?”
“What do you think?” He drawled with annoyance in his tone.
“I meant, are you alive?” Ellaryn corrected herself, a quiet breath of relief escaping her when she realised the dungeon had not claimed him yet. “But I can see now that you are.”
“Why are you here, Ellaryn?” He shot back, spite embedded in every syllable. “Come to finish me off?”
The sound of her name—her real name—hit her like a blow.
Her breath caught, sharp and involuntary. No one called her that anymore.
Not Ruin. Not the King’s weapon. Just Ellaryn.
For a heartbeat, she felt painfully human again—and just as painfully aware of everything she had done.
“No—Nothing like that.” She said. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“As Ellaryn or Ruin?” Magnus’s voice drifted up to her, hoarse like his throat was raw from either dehydration or screaming. It was likely both.
“The King didn’t ask me to come down here if that’s what you mean.” She whispered, anxious of her surroundings.
“Ah, so the pet has betrayed her owner,” he said, the words making her cringe. “Let me guess, you want to know what has the King’s blood pressure spiking?”
Ellaryn leaned in.
“What is it you know? What rumours have you heard?”
The shape below shifted. Bare feet scraped closer, slow and cautious, until a face aligned with the slit of light.
She couldn’t see him clearly—the shadows clung to his features, hollowing his cheeks, and sharpening his bones.
He looked less like a man now and more like something already half claimed by the dark.
“And why would I tell you?” He questioned. “You have brought nothing but pain and suffering to our people. Nothing but death and destruction.”
“I find no joy in the people’s suffering.” She managed as a muscle in her jaw ticked.
A hollow scoff escaped him. “I find that hard to believe… the King may be the Darkness, but you are his shadow; sure as the walls that cage us.”
She stilled. Her breath caught in her throat.
“And yet, you are the one sentenced to the dark.” She retorted, noting his face still half-submerged in jet.
“My conscience is clean—my hands untarnished. Could you say the same for yourself, Ruin?” He countered, eyes piercing like daggers.
“What good is a conscience in Cinders?” She remarked, the question furrowing her brows.
“Of course you would say that. With eyes as green as your mother’s and a heart as dark as his.” He snorted. “You only look human on the outside.” His voice wavered. “Inside you’re black as the coals that warm hell, Ruin.”
“Look around, Magnus. The city is burning, the darkness envelopes us… hell is already here, so you can either join it or lie victim to its flames.” The words barely escaped her lips through clenched teeth.
How dare he make her question her morals when he could not see the hand that tied the noose around her throat.
That sewed the ink into her, until her light barely spilt out.
She knew it had been a mistake coming down here. He wasn’t going to tell her anything.
“Then. I. Shall. Burn.” He spat. “With no guilt for kindling.” He began to shift back into the shadows. “Now run back to your master,” he taunted, his voice quiet, probing. “I’d rather die than tell you anything.”
She flinched. The word master twisted something in her chest.
“Then your fate is made.” She sneered, “I have a feeling the next time I see you…I’ll be taking your head.” She scraped the tip of her sword against the stone in warning.
“If my head is severed from my neck still full of its secrets—then I’ll die with a smile.”
“So you are hiding something,” she breathed, taking a step back as another sound escaped Magnus.
Unhinged laughter erupted from him, booming through the cell with such sudden, damning force that Ellaryn instinctively turned away. His laughter turned to coughs and splutters as she fled several steps down the corridor, the sound chasing after her.
It ricocheted off the stone walls and seeped between the iron bars, filling the dungeon with a madness that made her earlier warnings seem almost laughable.
Perhaps they were.
Or perhaps he found it pathetic—how little she knew. Or maybe that was the moment the magic of the dungeons finally claimed him. Something dark crept up his spine, latched onto his mind, and refused to let go.
That was the moment Magnus went mad, she told herself.
Rumours or not—nobody conspired against the King and lived to tell the tale.
Her family were rotting proof of this.