Deep in the blackest chamber of the Sanctum Keep dungeons, Artorious the Lightborn sat in silence.

The damp, stagnant stench of his cell had filled his nostrils as soon as he'd woken up and realized that he was still in the Hybrid's pit. His eyes, half-opened, saw the dim streaks of blue light that shone through the bars of his high window. Within them floated ash and dust.

His first instinct was to fly towards the bars of his cell and attempt to pry them open with sheer strength alone. He grit his teeth as he fixed his fingers round the wrought iron, feeling his muscles grumble and groan against the resistance they felt. He screamed as he struggled vainly to pry the cell block open, closing his eyes to the decrepit, rat-infested hallway that stretched on outside his prison for Kaedmon knows how far.

When he eventually opened his eyes again, one single System notification buzzed before him:

STR: 1

Cell door STR: 25

Difficulty: IMPOSSIBLE

He wanted to laugh at first. Instead, a cold, dry cough escaped his pallid lips. He slumped back against the hard, wet wall behind him and felt his now useless wings curl up to cover his naked body. He'd been stripped of his armor and weapons just like he'd been stripped of his title and powers by the very same God who'd granted them to him in the first place.

He let out a groan of pain. His body bore no injuries. His mind was clear. And yet those facts somehow made this whole situation worse. He had hoped that, when it came to the time of his eventual demise, he would at the very least be overcome with mania – the kind of quick, sudden madness that it was said often overcame dead men before they met the end. He'd seen plenty of public executions in his time – he'd even ordered some of them – and what he always remembered was the distinct sense of relief most condemned men felt when the axe was finally swung, or the noose finally tightened. When the last breath of air left them, it was a breath of release.

But he felt none of that in here. Instead, he was alone with his failure – his complete, utter inability to carry out the act which, by design, he was supposed to do. His body and his mind had failed him once before. And yet, this time, even his own God had abandoned him.

Again – he wanted to laugh. This was the kind of situation that Carliah would have loved to see him in. Wherever she was now, she was probably telling every other dead Greycloak how she knew he'd never manage it in the end.

He heaved a heavy sigh, sunk into the ground, and looked up at the dripping roof.

"To end," he said simply. "Like this."

He expected that they would have a plan for him. That soon they would come to pronounce his fate. In truth, it was not that fact that made him nervous. Now, with all his Lightborn powers sapped from him, it was ironic that he was more than ready for his life to end.

He wondered, with blank curiosity, how exactly they'd do it. Perhaps it would be a public spectacle – a lengthy walk of shame that would see him whipped through the streets while the Hybrids of the city threw decayed fruit and excrement at his head. At the end of the walk, they'd hang him after the Archon gave a lofty speech about how they had finally triumphed over humanity's chosen warrior. How Kaedmon had finally been forced into submission and had left behind his most valiant soldier for them to play with as they pleased.

Equally, it could be a private execution. That would make sense. The Archon had enjoyed playing with him ever since their first meeting. They'd hide him down here, tucked away from the light he loved so much, forcing him to wait until the moment they'd take his head. Every day when they came to feed him, he would ask them 'when?' and each day they would reply 'soon' with sadistic smiles. In the end, when they came to do the deed, they'd make it slow and painful. The companions of the demon would probably be the ones to do it. Then he'd finish off the Lightborn himself.

A little furry rat caught his attention. It was hiding in a crack just outside his cell, nibbling on something indistinct. Its tiny black eyes – beads that seemed to glimmer in the darkness – were watching him right back. He reckoned that even that tiny creature had more strength in its body than he did right now.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

The thought brought a very different possibility to his mind: that the Archon may very well decree that he simply remain here, imprisoned, for the remainder of his life. Every day he would wake up to these same four walls and the dark, sucking on the pitiable scraps of crumbs they left for him, while slowly his body and mind drained away to nothing. Every few years, they would take the hybrid children down here, shove a torch in his face, and he would have to listen to their shrieks of terror and watch as their faces twisted in disgust at his broken, shriveled form. The prison guides would tell the children stories of how he screamed in the night – of how he still dreamed of slaying hybrids by the dozen and utterly destroying their entire species. They would point at him, laugh, and say 'here lives the last Lightborn – the last hope of humanity. The freak.' And when those children grew up, they'd remember him, and they'd take their children to see him, too.

He drew his gaze away from the rodent and down to his hands. Still, he retained the form of the angel, and that was the cruelest joke of all. To sit imprisoned and languish away until he looked like a withered old harpy…that would be the cruelest punishment they could visit upon him. It was probably what they were going to do. Even though they'd be wrong to think that it would disgrace him.

Because he'd already suffered disgrace. He'd already lost – and the rest of the world had already lost along with him. He'd banked everything on one chance to end the nightmare. He'd been given everything to make it so – everything he thought he needed. But, in the end, he had underestimated the Archon once again. Because the cold, ironic truth was that this hat, this Ethan, was ready to die for what he believed in. And he was ready to take the whole world with him.

That's why he beat you, Artorious told himself. That's what your ultimate failure was: you simply didn't know how far he'd be willing to go.

In the end, Artorious Pendragon had been defeated not by raw strength or guile, but by a failure to understand someone else.

Because you'd never go that far, would you? he said, shaking his head with a dry, sad smile. Because right up to the end, even with all the power in the world at your fingers…

"You're still afraid," he said aloud.

The vision of his mother grasping desperately at him while she burned in their village sprang to life before him. He could almost feel the heat of the pyre, could almost feel her touch again.

"…you've always been afraid."

"Aren't we all?"

He jerked his head up. He'd been completely unaware that anyone else had entered the chamber.

But he didn't have to look far to find his new companion in the darkness.

'Sitting' on the ground just beyond his cage was the Demon Hat. The Archon - alone.

It's wrinkled little 'face' stood absolutely still, and its bulging red eye blinked up at him. There was no expression he could read on its single feature.

"So, you have come to sentence me," he said.

The hat regarded him for a few moments before nodding, once, its pointed tip dangling as it did so.

"Then get on with it," he said, leaning back and squaring his shoulders. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

The Archon didn't say a word. Didn't move an inch. It's blank features evoked the last bit of rage Artorious had in him.

"Do you wish to see me beg you, is that it?" he demanded, punching the bars of his cage with pointless anger. "I won't. You've already taken everything else from me. I want let you take what little of my dignity remains intact."

The little demon remained silent. And Artorious, finally, managed a laugh.

"Though you've even managed that," he said as he slumped back down. "I'm sure whatever you have planned for me is no more degrading or depraved as the death I'd planned for you. I've thought of killing you more times than I can count, did you know that? And each time, I've considered how brutal I'd be."

The hat rolled its eye at him.

"Come on, Arty," it said. "You really thought it'd be as simple as that? That I'd just kill the Lightbor-"

"Don't call me that!" he yelped, rushing to the bars and growling at the little demon. The hat remained still. It barely even flinched, and in the face of its utter calm, Artorious felt himself strangely embarrassed to have even made the outburst.

"I have lost all right to that name," he said in nary a whisper. "It has been taken from me. Just as everything else has."

He closed and opened his palms, watching them as move as though even they didn't belong to him, anymore.

"At least tell me how it will happen," he said. "Now or tomorrow, or a year or two from now? Will you force me to imagine – torture me with thoughts of the torments you and your people will visit upon me? Or will you parade me before them like a freak – a new legend in the annals of your kind – before you slit my breast and strangle me with my own entrails?"

Even as the words left his mouth, he knew the Demon Hat was barely even listening. The creature's mind was somewhere else. Preoccupied. For a brief instant, he doubted that it was even here to communicate with him at all.

But then the moment passed, and it said what it had come here to say:

"No, Arty. I've got other plans for you."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.