Chapter 28 — The Quiet of Stone Walls
The days blurred together in that room.
Stone walls. A high ceiling that swallowed sound. Thin light that filtered through the lattice-carved windows, painting slow, crawling patterns across the floor. Morning came and went like a ghost, measured by the scrape of a key in the lock and the faint whisper of footsteps retreating down the hall.
He didn't know where he was. Not truly. Somewhere colder than the Trial. Somewhere cleaner. But no freer.
There was a rhythm to things now. A routine imposed, but never explained.
At dawn, the door opened.
A maid stepped in—always the same one. She was tall, pale, with sharp movements and a face like carved marble. Her eyes flicked over him each time, never lingering, never soft. She said nothing. Not with her voice. Not with her face.
She placed folded clothes on the bench. A tray of food. She emptied the water basin, refilled it. Adjusted the drapes once. Left a comb once. Picked it up the next day when it hadn't been touched.
She never smiled. Never gestured. Never waited to see what he did.
Then she was gone.
The door clicked shut. The lock slid back into place with a finality that made something in him recoil each time, though he stopped flinching after the third day.
There were no windows that opened. No vents. No cracks in the walls. The air smelled like stone and linen and something faintly metallic. Not blood. Something deeper. Like memory.
He didn't try to escape. There was nowhere to go.
So he waited.
He learned the shape of the day by the color of the sky above the lattice. Learned the sound of footsteps that didn't belong to her. Guards, maybe. Or worse. Once, he heard a scream down the hall—brief, sharp, then cut off like it had never existed.
He didn't ask questions.
He couldn't.
Not just because there was no one to ask.
But because he couldn't speak.
He tried again on the fifth day.
He sat with his back straight against the bedframe. Fingers curled into the blanket, eyes shut. He tried to remember how it had felt—his throat before all of this, the sound of his voice. He remembered screams. He remembered his name being called. He remembered the roar of the crowd. The arena. The teeth. The dust.
He remembered—but he couldn't repeat it.
He opened his mouth.
And nothing came out.
Not a gasp. Not a croak. Not even a dry breath.
The silence filled his ears like a scream.
His throat didn't hurt. His lungs pulled air just fine. But something inside him had shut. Folded in on itself like a wound that didn't bleed.
He sat there, breathing. Not moving. And the silence screamed louder than anything he'd ever heard.
He opened his mouth again.
Again—a fragile hope flickering inside him.
But the air stuck in his throat like stone.
His chest tightened.
Fingers trembling at his sides.
The silence pressed in—heavy and relentless.
A shadow curling around his ribs.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
Louder than the screams he couldn't make.
It was safer, he told himself. Safer this way. If they thought he was broken, they might not try to fix him.
He didn't know how long he stayed like that.
But the next day, she came again. Set the tray down. Left clean clothes. Collected the old ones. Didn't look at him.
And left.
Time passed. It had to. The food changed. Sometimes bland. Sometimes sharp. Once, something sweet. That unsettled him the most. It felt like a mistake.
He never saw another face. Not once. Just her. Just that silent, pale thing with eyes that didn't see him.
He counted his breaths. The steps between wall and bed. The ridges on the ceiling. The cracks in the stone by the basin.
He stayed quiet.
He stayed still.
Because something told him that stillness was expected. Demanded. That if he did anything else—anything at all—they would notice.
And he didn't want to be noticed.
Not yet.