There was a certain kind of silence that only happens when you're too free to know what to do with your freedom.
And that was the silence that followed me as I walked through the containment wing of Antoril's guard post—alone, no guards, no shackles, no guidance. Just me, my stubbornness, and the misshapen urgency to find Thalia before the city swallowed her whole.
What bothered me—aside from the persistent smell of mildew and evaporated dignity—was how easy everything had been.
One guard? In the capital? With an unconscious prisoner and a half-orc soaked in blood and mud? Either the guard administration was understaffed, or... there was something else. Something that reeked of authorized abandonment.
Even so, I pressed on.
The small administrative room—if it could even be called a room—was at the end of the corridor. The door was ajar.
