Warden
Somewhere faint and distant, I heard the same unmistakable, haunting echo of that flute, as if it were drifting through the very bones of the tower.
A hand smacked the back of my head. “We’ve arrived, so you better get out of whatever delusion you’re living in.”
The sting of the blow brought me back to reality. We were standing before a double-door gate, simple to the point of arrogance. It was polished oak, the wood’s natural grain forming random, flowing patterns that my eyes clung to—my only distraction from my racing heart.
The checking officer beside me took a step forward and raised his fist. Just as he was about to knock, a deep voice rolled out from behind the door.
“Come in.”
He pushed the doors open. The gate creaked loudly, like an old beast protesting disturbance.
Inside, the room looked less like an office of cold officialdom and more like an ancient scholar’s study. It was not very large, yet it felt heavy with centuries of stories. Bookshelves lined both sides, towering nearly to the ceiling, stacked with books and old manuscripts sealed in preserving films. Many of the titles were in scripts I could not even read.
The chamber itself was almost spherical. Only the floor was flat—a deep red surface with intricate golden carvings running across it like veins of molten metal. Above, the roof was transparent, a vast hollowgram projecting the living image of the ‘Shunya Starfield,’ that endless void of stars and nothingness.
The walls were a soft, almost deceptive pink, but they were covered with strange, beautiful paintings whose meanings I could not guess. At the far end stood a vast circular table. Quills rested neatly in their stand, inkpots arranged with almost military precision. Behind the table sat a man on a chair that, to me, looked more like a throne. Perhaps it was my lowly status that made it seem so; yet the chair carried a quiet, supreme dignity in its simplicity.
While I was still lost in reluctant admiration, the checking officer leaned toward me and whispered, “Remain absolutely quiet. I will try to lower the severity of the torture they inflict on you here.”For a moment, I was stunned. Why would he do something like that for me? Hope flickered—only to be crushed a heartbeat later.
“I can hear you, Major.”
The man behind the table spoke without raising his voice. He continued writing on a sheet of paper—some report, perhaps—eyes apparently indifferent to his surroundings.
His hair was black and cut short, but a few white strands hid among the darkness, betraying his age. When his pen finally paused, his chilling grey eyes lifted and locked onto me. There was nothing in them. No anger, no curiosity—just a cold emptiness that made me feel as if I did not exist at all.
“Even if it is you, Major,” he said, still in that gentle, toneless voice, “I am extremely sad to announce that no matter what you do, you cannot save that boy from his fate.”
“B-but he—” the Major tried to protest.
“Major.”
He did not raise his voice, but the single word cut through the room.
“Yes, Sir!” The Major straightened immediately, his lips pulling into a bitter smile. He did not dare say another word.
The man’s gaze softened slightly as it rested on the Major. “I understand the emotions you have,” he said. Then his eyes returned to me, and whatever warmth had been there vanished in an instant. “But people like these are wolves in sheep’s clothing. And since royalty is involved this time, I am going to break him apart.”
Only then did I fully understand: this was the Warden.
He tilted his head toward the stunning woman standing beside him.
“Silviya, assign him to Underground Unit 13,” the Warden said.
“Right away, Sir.”
The red-haired woman, Silviya, tapped rapidly on the translucent panel in her hands, her fingers moving with practiced ease. The glowing symbols reflected in her sharp eyes.
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For me, every passing second felt like an eternity.
At last she spoke.
“Karan. Cellar 34, Underground Unit 13—assigned.”
The words fell like a final verdict.
“But Sir, under—” the Major tried again.
“Are you questioning me, Major?”
This time the Warden’s voice boomed through the spherical room, echoing in the air and in my bones.
The Major swallowed the rest of his sentence and lowered his head, trembling under a pressure I could almost feel myself. It was like an invisible weight pushing down on the soul.
I still did not know exactly what was happening, but I knew it was something terrible. Every instinct in me screamed, every hair on my body stood on end as if trying to warn me of the pain that was coming.
I was led out of the Warden’s chamber and down a spiraling staircase that seemed to burrow straight into the heart of hell—if hell existed.
After a long descent, we reached a narrow, straight corridor. Cells were carved directly into the stone walls, each nothing more than a hollow space with a worn-out mattress where a bed should have been.
In the corner of each cell, two flat stones stood side by side, and between them sat a large hemispherical bowl. Near the wall, a metal plate and a simple cup had been placed neatly, as if that somehow added dignity to the place.
The entire underground hall was lit only by dim ‘urja patthar’ embedded at intervals, each stone radiating a pale, unnatural glow. Their light twisted shadows into strange shapes, giving everything a gloomy, haunted look.
Compared to the upper prison cells above ground—with their polished surfaces and hints of modern conveniences—this place felt like it belonged to a forgotten, medieval age. Here, time had not merely passed; it had rotted.
The brick walls bore cracks like victory scars over the slow corrosion of years. Moss grew greedily over them, feeding upon trickling moisture. The air was thick with a wet, pungent stench that seemed to crawl into the lungs and refuse to leave.
Deeper and deeper I was led, the echoes of our footsteps fading into the oppressive silence. Finally, we stopped before a cell identical to the others.
“This will be your cell,” the accompanying guard said, his voice flat from routine. “I’ll come to take you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
He gestured toward the bowl between the twin stones. “A janitor will empty that twice a day. You’ll be assigned soap and sanitation products shortly.”
I nodded numbly.
A moment later, the iron bars clanged shut behind me.
I looked up at the damp ceiling. No window, no opening. Even the stars had been taken away from me. Here, in this hollow beneath the world, there was nothing but stone, darkness, and the slow dripping of water.
Back in the Warden’s office, the atmosphere remained as severe as ever.
The Warden sat upright, posture straight as a blade. Beside him, Silviya stood with an alluring yet razor-sharp poise, her red hair like a slash of flame against the subdued colors of the room.
In front of them, a translucent screen floated in the air, shimmering faintly.
“Yes, Your Highness. I will make sure to draw the truth from that boy’s mouth,” the Warden said, his voice calm but filled with confidence.
The man on the screen was none other than the Crown Prince of the Empire. His golden eyes were half-lidded, but the weight of his gaze could be felt even through the hollowgram.
“You had better,” the Crown Prince replied. “Use any means necessary to break him. Do not worry about anything—I will take full responsibility.”
The hollowgram flickered once and then closed, the image dissolving into empty air.
Silviya remained silent for a moment. Then she turned to the Warden.
“How much time do you think this will take, Sir?” she asked.
“Not much. Hardly a hundred days.” The Warden resumed his writing as if nothing unusual had occurred. “He’s just a brat. He will break easily.”
His quill scratched softly against the paper, the only sound in the room—a quiet counterpoint to the storm he had just promised.
Far away from the ‘Shunya Starfield,’ under a different sky and in a different silence, stood a broken citadel.
Within one of its ruined chambers, where moonlight slipped through cracks in shattered stone, a lone figure sat. The figure was wrapped entirely in black, as though the shadows themselves had woven a cloak to embrace it.
Yet this darkness was unlike the graceful black of the flute player. This was an impure, chaotic black, a color that felt wrong, as if the very world was trying to reject its existence.
Before that figure knelt the same old butler who had framed Karan.
“My Lord, I have done as you commanded,” the butler said, head bowed low. “Now the Second Princess, too, has made contact with corruption.”
The black, distorted figure gave the smallest of nods. No words, no visible expression—only that one gesture.
Then, like smoke caught by a wind no one else could feel, the figure simply vanished.
The old butler remained on his knees, alone with his thoughts.
“I never thought someone in this world could play with the flames of the Solar House like that,” he muttered, voice shaking.
In his mind, the memory replayed with painful clarity: Duke Solar calling upon his divine flames, the sacred power gifted by ‘Agni’ himself. Those flames should have incinerated any intruder, any corrupting force.
But what happened was the opposite.
Someone—someone sitting light-years away—had toyed with those divine flames as if they were nothing more than harmless sparks.
The butler’s knees trembled as he imagined once more that impossible scene, the way the flames had twisted and danced in another’s invisible hand.
“I have served the Solar House all my life,” he whispered to the empty, broken chamber. “Yet I have never feared anyone the way I fear that shadow.”
The ruined citadel gave no answer. Only the moonlight moved, sliding slowly across the cracked stones, as if time itself were trying to tiptoe past the secret that had just been spoken.
