The clacking of the winch echoed against the chamber's circular walls. Horace winced as he was lifted off the floor, the zoahadin cuffs digging into his wrists. The Order sorcerers who had been holding him upright stepped back and watched him hanging there. Horace stared back at them.

After being taken from his home, he had been placed in the back of a wagon and transported through the city. He wasn't able to see or hear much, still rolled up inside the carpet, but eventually the wagon stopped and he was carried into a building with a dry, musty smell. His bearers took him down several flights of steps, through heavy doors that boomed when they closed behind him, and along a dark corridor. The carpet was unrolled in a large, round chamber without windows, illuminated only by torches set on the stone walls.

Horace flexed his fingers, which were growing numb. He considered begging for his life, but he didn't think they would be receptive. Whatever they were going to do to him, there wasn't much he could do to stop it, not with these shackles blocking his access to the zoana. He just hoped that Alyra got away. She must have.

Horace looked around the chamber. They were clearly underground, and he had a good idea where. This had to be the Temple of the Sun, in the catacombs Queen Byleth had mentioned. There was a single door, a slab of dark iron that looked like it could stop a charging buffalo. Then he noticed a flat circle of bronze set in the floor beneath his feet. It was about three feet across and etched with some kind of markings. They were difficult to make out in the flickering torchlight, but he thought the designs might be some kind of script. Yet it wasn't Akeshian or any other language he knew.

The door opened, and a stocky man in a crimson robe entered the chamber. Horace took a deep breath as the former Lord Isiratu approached. With an imperious gesture, he motioned for the other sorcerers to leave, and they did, shutting the door behind them.

Horace braced himself for anything—for torture, for a slow death, even for a tirade of accusations about how he was a savage and therefore unworthy to breathe the same air and so forth. Instead, Isiratu spoke in a low tone, almost a whisper. “The temple contacted me after I was stripped of my title. I had planned on returning to my ancestors’ home to end my life, the last dignity afforded to me. However, the menarch convinced me that I might still have a place of honor in this world, if only I would assist them in eliminating you. I was pleased to accept.”

Isiratu started to pace around the chamber. “Life is amusing, yes? Just a short time ago, I had you in my power. I could have put you to death anytime I wished. You escaped me for a time and rose to great heights. Yet now you are here, once again in my power, and I will have the privilege of sealing your doom. Thus, we will close the circle together.”

Horace turned his head around to follow the fallen noble. Part of him wanted to shout, Then get on with it, you miserable fuck! But he wasn't so in love with the idea of dying that he was willing to throw away a chance to cling to life for a little while longer. He licked his dry lips. “So this is all about revenge? The queen took you down a few pegs, so now you use me to get back at her?”

Isiratu walked around to stand in front of Horace again. His brows came together in a dark line across his craggy forehead. “You wear the robes of a zoanii and have rank in the royal court, but you know nothing of our ways. Revenge is immaterial. The universe knows your crimes, whatever they are, and it will punish you according to your path. What I do now, I do to restore the balance between our lives.”

Horace's brain was spinning as he tried to make sense of Isiratu's words. There must have been a problem in translation because he still didn't understand why this was happening.

Yes, you do. You always knew it had to end like this. You're a foreigner, a savage, at war with their country. What would Good King Fervold have done if an Akeshian soldier washed up in Wyr Bay? Give him a big house and a pat on the head? No, he would've had the man marched to Truficant Square and chopped his head off while the city cheered.

Isiratu raised his hand, and the bronze circle on the floor lifted away to reveal a black hole underneath. A cold draft rose from the pit, stinking of death and decaying things. Horace strained with his eyes, but he couldn't see what lay below. The darkness just kept going down and down. The winch began to unwind again, lowering him inch by inch.

“There are many things you do not know about our ways,” Isiratu repeated. “How we deal with rogue zoanii, for instance. Now and again one of our rank decides to break away from his liege lord, to plant the seed of rebellion or seize by force what he has not earned. Such persons usually die violent deaths, as you can imagine, but when one is caught alive a problem is created. A zoanii cannot be executed like a common peasant. They can be stripped of rank.” He touched his crimson chest. “And dismissed like an unwelcome guest, but public execution would send the wrong message to the people. The Temple of the Sun has a better way of dealing with undesirables.”

The nobleman stepped to the edge of the pit. “This prison has been imbued to keep you alive without sustenance. I've been told that there are prisoners down here in the abattoirs that are almost as old as the temple itself, dwelling in darkness for centuries. They never perish, but they will live forever in solitude. I wonder, Lord Horace, how long will your mind survive before it snaps under the weight of an eternity spent alone?”

Horace's lower half was submerged in the pit. He looked up, trying to devise a clever insult that would haunt Isiratu for a long time to come, but all he managed was “You'll see me again.”

Isiratu watched without comment or expression as Horace continued to drop.

The descent seemed to take forever as the chain clattered and the circle of light above Horace's head grew smaller. He tried pulling himself up with some half-formed notion of climbing the chain back to the surface, but his arms were too numb and his shoulders not strong enough to lift him that high. In the darkness he couldn't tell how far he was dropping, but it felt like miles before his toes touched something solid. He let out a deep breath as the strain on his aching wrists lessened. The chain stopped. Then something made a metallic clicking noise above him, and Horace's arms were released. He tried to reach up and grab the hook, but his shoulders were too tired and numb to react. By the time he could lift his arms above his head again, his fingers found nothing to grab. The chain rattled as it was swiftly drawn back up, taking the last of his hope with it. A few minutes later, the spot of light above him winked out as the pit was covered again.

He wanted to yell. Instead he collapsed on the hard ground, which turned out to be cold, slick stone. He sat cross-legged and let his head droop. Thoughts of Alyra and Sari and Josef, and even Jirom for some reason, floated through his mind, but mostly he thought about Isiratu's words. I wonder how long will your mind survive before it snaps under the weight of an eternity spent alone?

He didn't want to believe the man, but there hadn't been any malice in Isiratu's voice. Just cold, hard certainty. His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten today.

Not today and not ever again. Will I just get hungrier and hungrier as the days pass by?

It was a horrible thought, and he couldn't help but imagine himself as an emaciated, pale beast slavering at the bottom of this pit. He was trying to put that image out of his head, too, when something moved behind him.

Horace turned to a faint sound like dry paper scraping across a brick. Then something heavy landed on his back, bearing him to the floor. Horace barely had time to cover his head before sharp points dug into his shoulders. The low growls in his ear sounded like a bobcat. Horace rolled sideways to throw the creature off and kicked out with both feet. His heels struck something solid, and the attacks let up, but only for a moment before the creature was on him again, clawing at his legs. Horace kicked again and missed, and then a heavy lump fell on his chest. Smooth hands, not furry paws, grabbing at him with long, clawed digits. A sharp point gouged his left cheek.

Horace yelled at the top of his lungs as he punched up with both shackled fists together. The thing grunted and slid off him. Caught up in his fear and frustration, Horace clambered after the creature, rolling on top of it. His hands found a scrawny neck and squeezed down. The creature thrashed about, but it could not dislodge him. As the seconds passed, its struggling became weaker. Hard nails clawed at his wrists, but the shackles protected him somewhat. The cables of the neck under his grasp vibrated and then went slack. Horace held on for several more minutes before releasing his grip. Then he fell back on the floor. He lay there, bathed in a cold sweat, and listened to the pounding of his heart. A morose curiosity compelled him to crawl back to the thing in the pit with him. It only took a few moments to confirm that the creature had been a person, small and wiry, and very definitely male. It was, or had been, roughly his height, though much thinner. In fact, it was extremely bony as if it hadn't eaten in…

This prison has been imbued to keep you alive without sustenance. I've been told that there are prisoners down here in the abattoirs that are almost as old as the temple itself, dwelling in darkness for centuries. They never perish, but they will live forever in solitude.

Horace scuttled away from the corpse. A scream rattled in his throat, but he clamped his lips together and refused to let it out, afraid that someone might hear.

No, I'll just stay quiet. Down here with the corpse of a magician they threw down here who-the-fuck-knows how long ago. That's what I'll become, a crazed, starving beast of a man. Then, someday they'll throw someone else down here, and I'll…

Horace cut off the thought and huddled against the wall with his face pressed to the hard bricks, as far away from the corpse as his prison would allow.