Epilogue. Eban
EPILOGUE
EBAN
HOUSE ETERNAL
Many months later, ten stories belowground, down endless grimy stone steps, where rats and spiders and snakes slither freely in the dank darkness, a prisoner kneels.
His knees are scraped and bloody from the sharp gravel ground.
His wrists and ankles are bound in rusty chains, tethered to the brick wall.
It’s a crowded prison, loud and boisterous all hours of the day and night, full of so-called thieves and murderers and other enemies of the estates—rebels, dissenters, and insurgents.
Here they await their sham trials, or pray fervently before their inevitable executions are carried out.
Lacon does not forgive and it will not forget what happened during the last Liberation Day, and so even more Ophir are made to pay the consequences.
The cavernous dungeon echoes with their cries, trapped there beneath the surface, never to reach the world above.
But this prisoner is silent. Though his jailers have tried to break him, he will not yield. He lives in eternal darkness, daylight but a memory.
“Still alive, are you?” sneers his warden, Rollo of House Eternal. Although truth be told, Rollo’s breath hitches when he speaks, and blood seeps from his bandages on his torso, from a wound that stubbornly won’t heal.
The prisoner sees all of this and says nothing.
For he has one last secret weapon that his captor knows nothing about.
And he has been saving it for the right moment. For he has one chance, and if he fails, it’s over. He cannot fail. He must get back to his people. To Gin.
With what little strength remains, Eban lifts his head and calls out: “I am ready for my trial.”