Chapter 19 — First Peace
The days passed in a strange rhythm that felt almost foreign. No chains rattling, no screams echoing down the hall. The guards came and went—less violent than before, more methodical. They brought water to bathe, clean cloths, and food in enough quantity to keep him alive and even gain a little strength back. Not much, but far from the starvation of the pit.
At first, Lucien was suspicious. Every clean bowl, every warm wash, felt like a trap. He stayed silent, watching, listening, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But the days stretched out. The guards didn't lash out or drag him back into the crowd. Instead, they treated him almost… neutrally. It was a small mercy—one he couldn't trust but needed all the same.
He had no one to talk to. No one to share even a single word with. From the moment he'd entered the Trial, he hadn't spoken a syllable. It was like the silence had pressed itself inside him and settled there like a stone.
His throat felt raw from disuse. Every thought was a whisper on the edge of his mind, tangled with a deep exhaustion that no amount of sleep could chase away.
At first, the silence in the cell was a relief. After months of fighting for scraps, after the chaos of blood and madness in the cages, the quiet was like a balm. A shield. A fragile peace.
But that peace came with a price.
With no noise to drown it out, the horrors settled like dust in the corners of his mind. Memories that had once been muffled by pain and rage began to come into sharp focus.
The sound of fists pounding flesh. The smell of blood on torn skin. The faces of men he had fought—friends and enemies alike—twisted in fear or fury. The feeling of teeth biting, nails scraping, the desperation of starvation clawing at his ribs.
At night, the nightmares were vivid and relentless. The cave's damp walls, the harsh voices shouting in unknown tongues, the crushing weight of chains, the brutal contests where laughter was a mockery and survival demanded savagery.
He could see the faces of those who had disappeared in the pit—men who had simply stopped breathing, left to rot in the filth for a day or more before their bodies were dragged away.
He could feel the sting of the spit, the bitter taste of humiliation as strangers sneered and kicked him on the march to the city.
The city itself—the vastness of it, the millions of souls who thrived while he starved—came back to him with a pang of isolation sharper than any wound.
Yet in the cold, steady silence of his cell, these memories no longer escaped him. They clung.
It was as if the quiet had stripped away the fog, leaving his mind bare and raw.
He hated it.
And yet he couldn't look away.
The guards never said a word. Their presence was constant but impersonal—watching, waiting.
Lucien came to understand that this wasn't kindness. It was preparation.
The food was enough to keep him alive and healthy, the water enough to wash the grime from his skin, the bed enough to let him sleep without pain. But it was all designed to set a price on him—to make him a commodity rather than a broken wretch.
He wasn't a prisoner here. Not really.
He was merchandise.
The quiet around him wasn't mercy. It was calculation.
He had become a thing to be sold.
The realization came slowly, without ceremony. It didn't spark rage or sorrow—only a tired acceptance. Of course that was what this was. Of course they weren't feeding him out of care. Of course the silence wasn't for his sake.
He didn't cry. He didn't scream.
He just sat there on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall.
There wasn't a fight to be had. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Whatever came next… it would come.
And he would go.
Just another thing passed from one hand to the next.