* * *
Every day bled into the next, a cycle of suffering without end.
The guards barked orders with the arrogance of men who feared nothing, their voices tearing through the morning haze. We were dragged from our cells before the sun broke the horizon—driven into labor that ground us down and spat us out empty.
We hauled stones heavier than our own bodies.
Scrubbed blood from the floors until our fingers split.
Dug trenches in the yard with blistered hands, the dirt grinding into every wound until flesh gave way.
And always, the brand on my shoulder pulsed with each movement—its heat flaring with every breath, every strain, every heartbeat. The wound never healed. It tore open again and again, blood seeping into sweat, into soil, into the bones of the Dreadhold itself.
We weren’t men anymore.
We were raw material—muscle, breath, obedience.
Salvatore worked beside me in silence.
And honestly… I didn’t mind.
Since his confession—since the moment he met my eyes and saidI killed them—something between us had shifted. The air grew colder. The ground felt farther away. A distance opened between us that no words could bridge.
And for the first time, I welcomed it.
I needed the space.
I needed time.
He didn’t speak. Neither did I.
The silence wasn’t awkward. It was survival.
He kept his head down, shoulders taut, jaw locked tight. When he did glance at me, it was fleeting—like eye contact itself was too much to bear, like one more word between us might snap what little thread remained.
So, I let him have that silence.
Because I didn’t have the strength to carry both our grief.
I focused on surviving.
On watching.
On listening.
Even in the worst moments—when my knees sank into filth, when breath came in wheezes, when the guards screamed their orders like demons—I listened.
And lately… the whispers had started to change.
They drifted through the halls like smoke—half-spoken words, rumors carried on the breath of dying men.
The Shadow Lord Trials.
They said they were brutal. Inhuman. Designed to break men until nothing remained but the screaming.
But they also said something else.
They said if you survived them?—
