The guard’s grin widened—a slow, satisfied thing, the grin of a man who’d forgotten what mercy was. “See the ones drying on the wall?” He jerked his chin toward corpses dangling like slaughtered beasts. “Hang the fresh ones beside them. Make it look proper.”
Iron hooks clattered at our feet—sharp and rusted. One scraped the stone inches from my leg like a warning.
This wasn’t a prison.
It was a graveyard that hadn’t learned how to stop feeding.
For the rest of the day, Lazarus and I didn’t speak.
There was nothing left to say.
We moved side by side, chained at the wrist, but we might as well have been miles apart. No words. No glances. Just the ceaseless rhythm of our punishment.
The work was simple. Brutal.
Scrubbing the stones slick with dried blood.
Hoisting the corpses that had cooled overnight.
Stringing them up by the ribs, the iron hooks splitting through flesh like fruit left too long in the sun.
Behind me, something slipped—a corpse, dropped. The sound struck stone, echoing down the corridor like a closing door.
I flinched before I could stop myself.
And hated that I still could.
I told myself I was past the worst. That the trials had carved out anything left worth feeling. But the truth was simpler—the stench, the heat, the crawling rot—it worked its way inside you. It stripped you down until you could hear your own heartbeat whisperingleave.
When I wiped my face, blood smeared from cheek to jaw. I didn’t know whose it was—mine, his, or the dead’s. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
The guards barked orders, their voices rasping like flint on steel.
The flies swarmed thicker, a black haze around the torches.
Maggots bloomed in the cracks between stones, thriving where sunlight never would.
And still, we worked.
By nightfall, my hands were flayed open. Skin peeled from palm to knuckle, red and glistening. My stomach clenched until I thought I’d vomit bile and dust. Every breath I took was rotten. Every sound was screaming that had long since lost its source.
There was no rest here.
No sleep.
No mercy.
Only waiting.
Because somewhere beyond these walls, midnight crept closer—and with it, the next fucking trial.
* * *
The bell tolled.
Once. Twice.
Each strike rolled through the Dreadhold like thunder crawling through the bones of the earth. Dust drifted from the ceiling, catching the torchlight like falling ash.
