I was not awakened by a gentle touch, but rather by the sensation of my cheek being scraped by a rough stone. The next sensation was of the two guards, pulling on each of my arms. Then the sound of my own blood pattering against the floor of the hallway.
"He's making a bloody mess of the flagstones," one of my captors complained. The voice was bored, annoyed, as if I were a leaking waterskin. "The King wants him to rot in here until he brings him back out for another spectacle. If he dies on the first day... mess for the Warden."
The stench of sewage was nearly as unbearable as the pain. A heavy wooden door groaned open, and I was thrown into still deeper darkness. Unable to protect myself from the fall, my body hit what felt like a filthy straw pallet that sent a fresh wave of fire through my being. The world once again dissolved into a brief blackness. When it drifted back, a new silhouette filled the doorway.
"Get the old man." he sighed, his voice raspy. "Tell Elias to keep the boy alive. If the King remembers he wants a second show, we need to make sure the boy's available."
The door slammed shut, plunging me into absolute darkness and the stench of old sweat, fecal matter, and urine. The name Elias reverberated in my mind. The scholar? He wouldn't be here.
I was left alone in the stinking dark, lost in an endless sea of pain. I drifted into a fever dream, a churning nightmare of images. Dalia's face, pale and trusting, dissolving into the King's sneering contempt. The silver gleam of the Desert Starsuckle, crushed under a royal slipper. The whistle of the whip, a hiss that ended in a crack of thunder that burst inside my own head.
A light shone in the darkness. When a hand touched my forehead, I flinched, convinced it was the tormentor returning to finish his work. I tried to crawl away, but my body was a ruin. A voice murmured, but in my ears, it was the King's, "Not just punishment... a public lesson, a spectacle of those who steal from me."
I thrashed, spasming uselessly. "No!" The word was a dry croak. The hands were persistent, holding me down. Something wet touched my back, and it felt like acid. I screamed Dalia's name as if a plea.
The voice continued droning. For a moment, a word cut through the haze: "Son." Then a cup was put to my lips. I expected poison or filth, but it was water, clean water. The simple shock of it broke the fever dream for a moment. The hands holding me were not crushing me. They were steadying me.
The work continued. As he spoke, another figure appeared at the cell door, a woman's silhouette. "Elias," she whispered loud enough to carry. "From the west yard. The guards think it's just bitterweed, but it'll fight the rot better than anything the Warden keeps under lock and key." She passed in a small, damp bundle of crushed leaves. She peered into the cell at me. "He's a tough one," she added. "The royals get their fun, but this one decided to be inconvenient and live. Good for him."
"Thank you, Mara", said the old man.
The woman gave a curt nod. "Use it all. No point in me risking a lashing from Tarik for doing half a job." With that, she melted back into the corridor's gloom.
Shortly thereafter, the scraping of heavy boots on the stone floor. They stopped just outside my cell. A new voice, slick with contempt, cut through the quiet. "What's this, Elias? Playing nursemaid?"
The old man's low response was too soft to make out clearly, but the tone was calm, placid. "He needs tending, Tarik. Warden's orders."
The guard laughed, a dry, cruel sound. "The Warden wants him alive, not comfortable. Any medicine is prison property. You know the rules. That means it belongs to the Head Guard." There was a soft rustling as the bundle was taken. "There," the head guard said. "That's the tax."
I didn't see the guard's face. I only saw a pair of dusty boots in my sliver of vision.
"Breathe through it," the old voice murmured like the dry rustle of parchment. "Pain is a cruel teacher, but it makes itself heard. Now it tells you that you are still alive." He dabbed carefully at the crisscrossed wounds. "This is the handiwork of the King or perhaps the young Prince. Their justice is always so... thorough."
He moved to my face, his touch becoming feather-light as he neared the ruin of my eye. I felt a tear of salt and blood leak from the mangled socket. "Ah," he breathed, a sound of immense sadness. "This is the true crime. They did not fear your hands. They feared what you might see."
A moment of clarity pierced through the fog of pain. My purpose. My failure. "My sister," I whispered, the word a dry crackle in my throat. "Dalia..."
The old man paused his work. I could feel his gaze on me, heavy with an empathy that felt more real than the stone walls. "The world outside these walls is a fever of its own," he said softly. "You must survive this first. Rest. You must save your strength. For her. "
He applied the poultice to the worst of my wounds. A sharp, clean herbal scent cut through the cell's stench of sweat and despair. He then lifted my head, again holding a cup of water to my lips. His was the first act of simple, human care I had received since the King's guards had seized me, and the kindness of it was a balm as potent as any medicine. The water soothed the fire in my throat, and as I collapsed back into the straw, I clung to his final words. Survival is the first act of defiance.