Chapter 13
Salvatore
The putrid stench tore me out of sleep before the guard’s sandal even struck the iron door.
The sound cut through the dark like a blade dragged against stone.
Someone screamed farther down the corridor—raw, ragged.
Someone always did. Then came the dragging, the dull scrape of a body taken toward the pyres—another corpse for the mountain.
My back was fused to the floor—cold stone.
No bedding. No straw. Just the slick smear of old blood and burnt flesh.
Every breath made the skin on my spine tear open again.
The healer they’d dragged me to yesterday—an old man with feeble hands and half-blind eyes—had done what he could, which was nothing.
He’d muttered prayers under his breath, smeared some foul paste over the burns, and told me to sleep if I could.
I remember thinking I wouldn’t wake again. I still might not.
The oil still clung to me. I could smell it—rancid, sour, soaked deep into the wounds. My flesh had cooked under it. I’d felt the fire crawl down my back, devouring me inch by inch. I’d thought that was the end—that the gods had decided I wasn’t worth saving.
Then the snakes came.
Gods. Those fucking snakes.
They’d slithered out of the shadows—hundreds of them—slick and black, their scales glinting in the dim light.
They crawled over the stones, over my legs, my chest, up my throat.
I could feel the weight of them, their tongues flicking against my skin, their fangs sinking in.
The pain was unbearable—like the fire had come alive and learned to crawl.
But there were no wounds. No venom. No blood. Nothing real. Just agony.
We’d been chained together during the trial, Lazarus and I. Neck to neck. Wrist to wrist. I couldn’t even move to fight them off. I couldn’t scream—my throat was scorched, my lungs full of smoke. I could barely breathe. I thought I was dying. I wanted to die.
Then came the fire.
I don’t know how he did it. I never saw.
One moment, the snakes were there, writhing, whispering, hissing our names; the next, they were burning.
The heat washed over us again, scorching away the illusion, leaving only the smell of smoke and ash.
When it was over, I was still alive—barely—because of Lazarus.
No matter what my father had done to me—his fists, his whips, his endless lessons in pain—it hadn’t prepared me for this. The Dreadhold didn’t just torture you. It studied you. It learned what broke you and then did it again.
A metallic crash ripped me from the memory. The iron door slammed open, rattling the walls, sending dust and ash raining from the ceiling.
“On your feet, you filthy bastards,” the guard barked.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t. The movement alone felt like being flayed. He grabbed my arm, jerking me upright. My vision blurred, pain flared white.
“Work detail,” he snarled. “Trials don’t start till midnight. You’ve got time to bleed somewhere else.”
I stayed silent. His grip tightened. The bones in my arm ground together.
“Did you not hear me?”
I turned my head, my voice low, cracked. “I’m not your fucking mule.”
He froze. His hand drifted toward the branding rod at his belt—its tip still glowing from someone else’s flesh.
The rod came down on my shoulder with a sound that split the air. Pain detonated through me—white, blinding, absolute. The scent of my own burnt skin filled the cell, as sharp as iron and fat.
But I didn’t scream.
I wouldn’t give him that.
“Think you’re a warrior because you crawled out of one fucking trial?” he spat. “We’ll see how long that mouth lasts.”
I lifted my head, breath ragged. Across the cell, I saw Lazarus.
He lay face-down on the stone, a sandaled foot pressing into his spine. Another enforcer loomed above him, laughing as he drove his fist into Lazarus’ ribs—again and again. The sound was a sick rhythm of impact and breath.
The Dreadhold didn’t need reasons.
Pain was their religion.
And cruelty—
That was their fucking prayer.
One of the guards crouched beside Lazarus, lips curling into a grin that showed rotted teeth. Lazarus’ jaw clenched so tight I could hear the grind of his teeth.
“Well, well,” the guard sneered. “Looks like the healer patched you up real nice. Shame what might happen to her when you’re not around. Maybe I’ll take her for myself. Show her what a real fuck feels like.”
Lazarus lunged like a beast unchained.
“Touch her, and I’ll rip your fucking eyes out with my teeth!”
I caught him mid-surge, barely. My shoulder screamed from the branding-rod strike, but I locked my grip and forced him back.
“What the fuck is going on?” I hissed between my teeth. “What healer?”
He didn’t answer.
“Lazarus!” I snapped, shaking him. “What fucking healer?”
He hesitated, then dropped his gaze.
“Amara,” he whispered—like the name itself might draw blood.
The word gutted me.
“She’s here?” My voice cracked. “She’s actually here?”
“They took her when they captured us,” he muttered, eyes flicking toward the guards as if secrecy could save her. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
I shoved him, fury bubbling like bile. “You didn’t think to tell me? You kept that from me?”
The guards were grinning now—wide, cruel, feeding off us like carrion birds.
“Salvatore, I didn’t think it mattered,” Lazarus spat, shoving me back. “Yesterday’s trial wrecked me. Seeing her again—I didn’t even know if it was real. I still don’t.”
“She might be your lover,” I said coldly, “but she’s my friend. Severen’s pulling the strings like a puppeteer—feeding us different healers, different comforts, different tortures.” I stepped closer, the chains between us clinking. “Can’t you see it? He’s trying to break us apart.”
Lazarus’ fists curled, knuckles white. “Do you even hear yourself? Severen picking favorites? You’ve lost your fucking mind.”
“Then explain this,” I growled. “Why the hell did you get Amara while I was thrown to some dying old man who couldn’t even hold his hands steady? You got her—a skilled healer who means as much to me as she does to you.”
The silence that followed was heavier than the chains binding us. The guards watched, waiting for one of us to snap so they could enjoy the spectacle.
Between the smell of scorched flesh, the echo of screams, and the sound of our own breathing, I realized what Severen truly wanted—not just to test our bodies, but to poison what was left of our brotherhood.
My fists clenched. My breath turned to flame. I was a heartbeat away from smashing my fist into Lazarus’ face.
Before I could strike, a guard seized my wrists and twisted them until lightning lanced up my arms. My lungs folded in on themselves. Jealousy, betrayal, fury—everything crashed over me in one drowning wave.
“She’s here to be used against us!” I barked, thrashing in the bastard’s grip. “Can’t you see that? They want us divided. They want us fighting. If we don’t hold fast, we’re finished in this goddamn hole!”
“Save the theatrics for the pits,” the worm restraining me sneered. “Move.”
They hauled us from the cell like sacks of meat and shoved us down the corridor.
Torches spat embers; their coughing light carved shadows across faces hollowed by hunger and pain.
Bodies slumped along the walls—some barely breathing, some already still.
Blood ran into the stone’s cracks as if it were part of the building.
Flies thickened the air, a constant, buzzing white noise.
I stepped on something soft and looked down.
A body—eyes eaten away, mouth crawling with maggots. I wanted to puke. Bile rose hot in my throat.
“Clean it up,” the worm ordered. “Both of you.”
I stared at the corpse beneath my feet, imagining the man who’d called me mule, imagining ripping his throat out with my bare hands. Instead, I forced my voice low. “What do you want us to do with them?”
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 whispering leave.
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.