Prologue - Through Blood & Stone

Place the flea in a jar.

Leave it undisturbed for 3 days.

After three days, take the lid off.

The flea will no longer jump higher than the lid.

In fact, it will never jump for freedom again.

…

“What are you doing?!”

The first words on my ninth year of life.

Running. Hiding. It wasn’t me that could do that, though.

I come home. And the skies are an odd shade of peacock blue, too bright; too teal, almost. The clouds all point west, diagonal, drifting and spreading apart, carried on the wind.

I come home. And the grayed-out white of sand-fused walls sticks out the most. Not the shade of bone; not the color of eggwhite. A gray. And it feels as if the hope has been draining from me just as fast.

I see my mother’s men. I see them all. Some vanish to my left, metal wagons in dead-black to the right, horses stalling. Cages. Cages of— Cages of people. Of things. Things of mine. My servant, the faithful wise Isilme; if blood carried rank, his would be purple— and he stands with his arms folded. Behind his back. Not entirely facing me. Everything is diagonal. Everything is point with the wind, or more rather, against it. I feel off-grid. Off balance; off plane. The pathways are entirely mathematical, entirely rhythmic— why do they ignore it?

I see my servant. My servant, faithful; wise. And suddenly I mirror him. The wind hits my right shoulder and blows past my ear, pushing my hair forward as if trying to hide the noble resemblance. Careful now.

I see people. Humans— in black. And I wonder why, after everything, they find us. If they had come as guests, there would have been voices. Food. My mother's halls opened to them. They would not have brought chains. But the air feels disturbed, a sudden loss of pressure, made up for by the weight of eyes on my skin. Black eyes. Soulless. Maelunthir? Not entirely, but the House’s presence is there. Two oversized humans who are suddenly chaining me in cold steel, too dark to be any natural, too cruel in the way it had been tore up from the ground and the soil and forced into its shape. A shape, which held me. Contained me.

Container.

I see a container. And then suddenly I’m in it. I’m inside the cages of the same cold steel. The rigid bars dig into my spine and force my posture straight when I try to relax. If I push too hard, if I slam against them, I have no doubt a disc would be out of socket. They’re thick enough to block my fingers from attempting the lock, with gaps big enough to see the plane out, in my peripherals. But never enough to see below, to see the trail; or above, to see the sky anymore. Not at once, not unless I crouch down further, and my elbow finds the metal and bruises.

I think of the sound of horse hooves ahead, pulling this metal box along the hills. It walks when pulled. Sits when pushed. And didn’t that sound similar?

I can’t tell anymore. I blink and it’s night. Blink again, night. Still night. Always night. I want a window. I want to see. I want to remember where I am. Please? …Who am I begging to?

I hold my head in my hands. I’m soft. Warm. I’m still alive, no doubt. My feet are on the wall. My back is on the floor. I’m alive, otherwise the floor wouldn’t feel so cold right now. It feels like something’s in my eye, but not itching. just stuck together. So I rub at it and shut them again with no real visual difference between this room and the darkness. There hasn’t been light in days. Weeks? Maybe. Are my lashes stuck together? I pull my eye apart between two fingers. It’s still there. I clench my teeth because screaming and moving does nothing anymore.

How long has it been?

The last thing I remember was… The cage. My scream, first, but the cage. The scream came somewhere after. It was my birthday. Was it? Whether it was mine or not, it didn’t feel like it. Was it still my birthday? No, probably not. Not that I wanted to count another second.

The chains bit into my wrists, what was once cold now a standard 90-something degrees, leeching off of my body heat. I’m cold. No one cares about that though.

Blink again. For this to work there has to be a weak point. But what was I planning?? My mind was two separate halves that couldn’t cooperate right now. He’s planning something, something I don’t know. But something. Maybe to find a key, find a crack, find a scrap of food. Escape or food? Escape, or feed. Feed into this game. Be fed by playing it. I’m sure they find amusement in a horse’s suffering just the same. But was it me? Is that what I’m doing? Maybe in some subconscious part of my head I’m searching for an exit, or food. Or just something to do so I don’t die of boredom. So I feel productive, wasting away in this… Prison of endless night. It couldn’t have been the same day. But I couldn’t tell if the sun was blazing on this same wall on the outside, fresh under the soft grass, or whether the noise of crickets was blocked by the sheer thickness of the cement. I assumed it was cement. It felt as pointless as cement. Immovable… I was immovable. A statue. And the door blended with the wall so well I couldn’t tell if I was begging at it or not. I doubt there were people behind either.

Leave it undisturbed for 3 days.

God, it felt like 3 years. And for a moment I wondered whether the sun set differently over the empire. As tall as the mountains were, nights had to’ve been longer, right? Was I still only on one night?

The room spiraled like a golden fresco ceiling. Circular. Endless. No way in, no way out; no exit. Except somehow I was trapped in the circle, hand along the wall, feeling the sheer monotony of the barrier. I look at my feet and I’m standing, suddenly. My hand spreads flat against the wall until I pull it back and retreat.

Isilme had placed beauty above them—in painted ceilings and gold walls. Belserion had dragged it down, covering walls in murals and replacing warm gold with cold silver. Prophetic and… wrong. This, all of this, it wasn’t meant to be like this. But what could I do about it?

One might find wine in a ballroom such as the one I envisioned when I closed my eyes. The chaos slowing to one clear image, playing flashbacks of the last hour..? Day? God. It felt like a burn itself not to see the sun. Over and over, the same memories, trying to find some context or detail— some clue— that would shift my perspective on the matter while it was still mostly blank.

Blank. What was blank? Me? Or my mind?

Well it had to be neither. I pictured myself in that ballroom, busy and alive.

Busy, alive, and loud, for what reason I couldn’t know. What were they celebrating, these people— as the cackles and chatter drowned out the noise of the blood in my ears— that was so worthy of it?

I look down. I’m back on the floor, yes. My feet find the wall again. But I turn my head and the mirage of colors in the ballroom, in my own mind, swarms me faster than I can process. Wine glasses. There’s wine by my head. Goblets. Things I could no longer touch. I didn’t bother to test if I could reach out and grab one. I was already going insane; I feared breaking the illusion would leave me back in the same darkness as before and I’d lose the comfort of it entirely, gone to the void. Men and women alike, in too-bright apparel hover about the room around me, turned just enough at the torso to converse with their partners, steel jewelry and black. Insignias. What I pictured the empire like; its citizens outside these walls. But color didn’t suit them well— Liveliness didn’t suit them well.

And then, footsteps from the far end of my mind. No pace or concern, default and automatic. My view warped gradually, fading, then the room was black again. Reality. I try to ignore the noise outside, but it’s all my brain would pick up on. I try to bring back the life, the ballroom. But I find the image is distorted and plagued with my own fear. Suddenly it’s cold. And suddenly the walls are steel; barred. And a cold, real, metal hand closes around my wrist, tugging me up.

The glasses moved with me.

Slowly, impossibly, they tipped forward. Wine spilled from each goblet at the same angle, the same speed, pooling across the floor below. I tried to ignore it. I tried to keep dreaming. So the room didn’t vanish again. So my mind would be occupied, and maybe whatever was coming next would be bearable, for I assumed the worst of it.

And then I see it. Another person. Some… Ghastly get-up in black and silver— Not steel, silver— as if they tried to copy Isilme and failed to find an ore that shone as brightly as our gold.

His hands were behind his back, peering down at me, spine straight.

And then suddenly my arms mirrored his once more, just as they had when I saw my servant. And once more, with brute force. Steel. Again. Around my wrists. Biting.

And I was pulled not by this man, but another, in far more metal than he was. A soldier, maybe? I only had heard of the term in recent years. A man giving up his life to correct wrongdoing, to follow the orders of his commanders. Mostly the latter, I suspect. This wasn’t right.

My feet work of their accord. Not mine, theirs. They aren’t my own anymore, I suspect. I shut my eyes and picture the room again. Happy thoughts, happy memories. My brain allows me none of them.

What I do find granted, however, is the sudden blaze of heat on my skin against all of this cold metal. Sunlight?

My feet find grass.

Grass?

I reluctantly open my eyes. It is grass. A momentary peace. The night is gone, I’m in the light once more.

The illusion drops in an instant. Why should I need to escape?

The grass reminds me of home.

Home.

I doubted I was going back, but a good part of me still believed it.

It’s warm on my skin, for once.

And maybe things will be alright, now.

Maybe this was some… Trial.

And I’d be—

Crack

Fuck.

“Keep walking.”

The first voice I’d heard in so long that it felt unreal.

And now my back stung. And burned. I was sure it was welting. My feet were uncooperative, apparently.

And then I’m pulled into a garden; into a clearing. Flowers brush my legs. Not native to my home, however, they still carried some vanity. They felt almost untouched by the evil in this land.

And then I raise my head, and I recognize the amount of eyes. And suddenly—

This is just a march to death.

Doom.

Something adjacent.

The stares feel heavy; oppressive. They’re piercing through my skin like needles and using their hook in me to keep me moving forward. Every second of it felt predetermined.

The air shifted.

Stuttered.

It pulled my head to the side, searching something. A shadow of a person, near my height, fully enveloped in the black of a cloak— hoodless, but two thick gold bands falling from their trapezius to their chest, triangular— clasped in the center. It looked thick enough to cover any movement. And their hair. Black, thick. Built to survive a cold that wasn’t here, wasn’t hitting them. How do you stay warm when the ice is on the inside?

His eyes, ice. Not in the sense of being blue. They were gray, I believe. But his stare weighed heavier than the prickle of the citizens', each one like a jab at my skin, in their mindless uniform of browns and maroons. It felt more like a knife than a stare. Something that pierced my heart, and a wave of not noise but pure fear. And it rippled outward before the blade settled, heavy enough that gravity itself seemed to pull it deeper, nearly splitting me in half to reveal all that was to the world. All I had to offer.

And suddenly I felt like a pig.

Not in the physical sense, that award went to this fat bastard who was still grinning at holding me captive, even if he was too weak to do it himself.

But a pig.

Taken from my grass and my light, and served on a platter. The wine knocked over around me like my own blood, and suddenly the men in the illusion were them. And I was alone.

“A fine one, it is.” The rather large one says it from my left, and I debate if his stomach bloats with food or pride. I could only dream I didn't hear that. But my hands are bound, and the safest option is biting my tongue. Maybe he’ll forget I can hear. Maybe it won’t register.

Then I find my feet stopping in the path, tugged into place, one guard still ensuring the chains at my wrists held firm. I’ve stopped dead in front of those cold eyes.

A man to the right of the shadowy figure, taller and dressed to equal status, only nods once. His jaw tightens when the other speaks. I hope for a second he despises the one pitching me as much as I do. That maybe another with more authority disapproved of this.

My heart still beats fast, and my hands feel damp behind my back. But I am being watched by both of them. Those same cold eyes, and the taller man's stare beside them. One is unreadable. The other carries something worse.

Hunger.

I feel less like a person standing before them and more like something being considered. Something small enough to dismiss, but close enough to provoke a reaction. Something to swat away when it drew near.

And I feared it would be me, being swatted.

It was the look of something deciding whether I was worth reaching for.

“Right, well. Sycel. Your gift, how do you like him?” The taller queried, turning his focus to the one who’d watched me without a word. I noticed his breath, choked, in such a low undertone it was near impossible to hear unless you were watching his face.

Sycel.

The hair of a raven, and the clothes of pure night, all but glaring at me in what wasn’t anger, but confusion. And possibly the same hunger the taller one carried. At least I wasn’t called it. It seemed humanity existed here, even however small. But the fat one did not share that hesitation. Whatever small piece of humanity I had mistaken in the room did not extend to him. And he either did not notice, or did not care about, the taller man's irritation when he continued speaking. I only caught enough to know they were talking about me.

“...Sharpest in the land, my Crown …Thickest blood as well. Son of House—”

“That will do, Tolhester.”

The second voice was the loudest. I felt every hair on my body raise, for why I did not know. It was praise, yes. But the thought of these crows knowing anything about me, using it against me later, it felt like a mockery I didn’t have the will to face.

The man the other had called Tolhester– the plump old man– bowed, just a slight dip at the waist as he began fidgeting. Tolhester’s hands were soft. Slaver’s hands. Never touched the chains himself. “..Of course.” I heard him swallow. “Would you like–”

“Let the Crown speak.”

And my attention was back on the Crown. Sycel, was it..?

His eyes dropped a second after speaking. “He is not a gift.” Quiet. Flat.

A heartbeat of silence that rang over the garden. Even the steps of servants fell quieter in my peripheral. Then my mind was swimming again. If I wasn’t some prize, was I food? No one wants their food smart enough to fight back.

The tall one’s mouth opened, then shut, pressing into a straight line and staring blankly over my head. Tolhester gave a short huff, smile falling.

It was obvious to me now, they waited for him to decide what I was.

“..He... Lumári are an asset, my Crown,” Tolhester chuckles, laced with a poison that was either to Sycel or me for daring to exist. “You know what they’ve done to us, they- they are cowards!” He started to yell. The sheer desperation in his voice rivaled mine, the last time I dared to protest in that cage. When I winced, Sycel had. And when he grimaced, the taller one pressed a hand to the other’s meaty shoulder, and it was silent once again. Tolhester nodded, glancing down at me again with sudden disapproval. One doesn’t look at a pig this way. A pig is food.

Sycel did not look at me like food.

“Three days to bring the Crown. Three days wasting my supplies. You’ll pay it back by the next moon.” The taller one said. The moment Tolhester looked him in the eye, he stormed off. And the chains on my wrist were dropped by the one holding me. Undone. They were gone.

My hands, for the first time, pulled to the front. I rubbed at the red marks bitten into my wrists like teeth, only to find the same jaws in front of me snapping shut. The tall one moved first, silent, acknowledging the Crown’s letdown. Sycel moved to follow next.

“Come.”

And then I was walking. Because following the predator felt safer than becoming its prey.

Three days.

Always three days. Why does everything in this place take three days?

It echoed in my mind, as grass found my feet.

And then it was stone. Stone found my feet. Their shoes followed behind me—heels, low and flat, carrying the same rhythm as a horse's hooves. The wagon. Again. I was being pulled just like before.

I didn’t feel a breeze this time. I felt cold, yes, but no wind. I heard piano drown out as I passed it. The halls stretched endlessly before me, floors covered in intricate, repeating patterns. Like flowers in the center where they all met, one long row of them. The dirt gradually faded. Soil from the gardens had followed them inside, abandoning the grass for stone. Choosing the floor as its next host like some parasite. One of the boards creaked when I stepped on one of the flower motifs from behind me. But I couldn’t look back. It was cold enough, I didn’t need some chilling presence coming from over my shoulder.

There weren’t any spots to hide, none to grab me from on the way. Except the doorways. Mostly storage, I assumed. Except that one with the piano in it. It was possible I was far deeper than I expected.

I saw the first turn coming up, a sharp hook in the parallelity of the halls. I remember, for some strange reason, fearing it. More than I did for the doors I feared would open the second I walked past. And I remember stairs. Hidden, ungrand. I could just picture hands like mine grabbing the same rails, pulling back down as they dragged them up. But I hadn’t a clue where I was really going. It was too nice, even for a recessed hall like this one, for it to be any sort of prison. But they were large in that way. Everything they did felt like a prophecy being checked off the list. Perhaps, if this moment were ever painted into history, they would find this hall fitting. A proper setting for a grand purpose. It was stupid to think about. That a hall only so old would’ve been made so I could have a dramatic struggle for life. But it was the only one that made any sense. I saw nothing that suspected they’d been used for bringing chains of prisoners along. I saw no guard, no station, just elaborate patterns in the floors and a thin staircase leading perhaps only two side-by-side if they were small.

There were words ahead of me, spoken by the tall one and then by Sycel. Barely any by the younger one. I didn’t catch them. I was staring at the stairs as we climbed. The way they left me in the back, expecting me to pull myself along, to not immediately run. I questioned their naivety. And then I questioned mine. Both of us knew I could not leave. There were too many roads, too many mountains. Too many guards. Too many hands that would drag me back if I ran.

The tall one opened a door at the far end. Wide. The door itself was thin and tall, thrown open to make way as Sycel entered in front. And I caught his eyes again.

Not the Crown’s, no.

The other one’s. The stare was piercing, and in this lighting I could’ve sworn there was red beneath that black.

The room was large, but it did not feel open. The ceiling stretched higher than it needed to, disappearing into shadow. The bed sat lower than the rest of the floor, tucked beneath dark fabric like someone had built a place to disappear instead of sleep. The sun split across the floor like shattered glass, leaves carving their shadows through the pieces. Nothing happened. The wind didn’t reach in the mountains, leaving the heat on my skin stagnant, and I felt like a physical pressure, unbelonging, in a room so still it somehow ran cold.

A lock clicked behind me. The force of the door slamming shut sent a breeze against my back, and the chill sank into my spine. The legs of a chair scraped against the stone floor. I turned my head to find the raven-haired boy seated there, settling into it.

“What… Are you doing..?”

Me.

"Writing,” Sycel replied. The only beat in the room was my heart, too loud. The boy sat within the silence as though he possessed none of his own. Unaffected. Simply readjusted his quill when the door slammed.

There was no wind to soften his voice. Nothing to dull the sound of my own breath catching in my throat, the small, pathetic noise that escaped me despite every effort to swallow it.

My shoulders sank. Sore.

The chill returned to my spine, then spread inward, settling somewhere beneath my ribs. His answer had been simple. Somehow, that made it worse.

All this time.

I’d been lying to myself, frankly. I’d put sorrow on the farthest shelf. Only now with no place to leave it out of view, it echoed through me. Hopelessly.

It felt as if I was running in my own mind, over and over, even as the world around me remained motionless.

Everything turning.

Except me.

On this path, in the absence of myself. I’d spent the days and nights retreated into my mind while the very air warped the body I no longer claimed.

After staring the length of that heartbeat, my attention pulled to the floor, to my feet. Then the bed, a mattress against the bookshelf and the forever-open balcony wall. One wrong roll and I’d be in direct path of the balcony, stepped on. Or crawling to it for sweet release. I’d beg for the courage to fall.

I fell back onto the furs, my back blessed with the impossible softness. My eyes were on a ceiling, not a golden fresco. It stretched far higher than I’d first imagined. The shadows swallowed it whole, and as the night shadowed the castle, the floor was a mirroring abyss chaining me in darkness. It rained that night, beating down on the balcony, and a drop struck my skin like a cold reminder of the pinpointed stares the morning prior this arrival. The way they’d hooked under my skin and pierced in my gut, dragging me here, where the march finally ended. Where I’d first met the boy, who held not the hunger of the others, but the stillness of this very land, a promise of the pause my life would take. A promise; nothing would ever change.

…