"Imprison him," Sapphrine commanded. "In the deepest cell."
Lance was dragged away, screaming protests and curses.
Darth, freed from his cross, watched in confusion.
"Mother... why not execute him? He tried to kill me. He murdered the orphans using my body."
Sapphrine's grey eyes turned to her son. Empty. Calculating.
"Because dead men tell no secrets."
"Lance bears Clandareth's mark," Sapphrine explained, her voice flat. "That means there may be others."
"A network of daemon servants. Sleeper agents waiting to strike."
"Lance alive can be interrogated. Tortured if necessary. Made to reveal names. Locations. Plans."
Darth felt a chill.
His mother spoke of torture the way others discussed the weather.
Logic without mercy is a cold, terrible thing.
Weeks passed.
Lance rotted in the deepest dungeon.
Sapphrine's interrogators worked on him daily.
No names. No network. Lance insisted he acted alone.
But the mark on his back suggested otherwise.
And so the torture continued.
Darth visited the dungeon once.
Saw what they'd done to Lance.
The man who had betrayed him. Framed him. Nearly killed him.
Lance looked up with broken eyes.
"Please," Lance whispered through ruined lips. "Tell her to just kill me."
Darth turned away.
He should have felt satisfaction.
Instead, he felt sick.
His mother had saved him.
But the method... the endless torture of a prisoner...
Darth wondered: Was this justice? Or cruelty?
Without love to balance logic, where was the line?
"Thank you for saving me, Mother."
But the words felt hollow.
CONSEQUENCE: STRATEGIC IMPRISONMENT
Darth lives. Innocent and free. Lance suffers endlessly in the dungeon—tortured for information he may not have. Sapphrine's logic protects the kingdom.
But at what cost to her son's soul, watching his mother become something monstrous in the name of security?