Archive of Our Own ^beta

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The chief overseer stalked before the new arrivals, the low rumble of his voice strident with disgust. “Welcome, scum. Let me tell you what your lives will be like from now on.”

The convicts, newly arrived from whatever courts or prisons had spit them out to toil in mines and camps until their sentences or their lives came to an end, stood motionless, linked by chains at their ankles and throats. The iron collars, snug but not squeezing, choked away their air regardless.

“From this day forward, you’re nothing.” The overseer smiled, thumbing his club. “You all belong to me.”

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There was no warning save for the screams of the men who went before. The prisoner listened, his blood running cold, as the line shortened and wails of pain rang through the air. As another piece of his identity grew closer to being stolen away.

C, for convict: the brand would mark his skin forevermore. M, for murderer: if anyone had been foolish enough to trust him before, they would never make the same mistake again. Finally, a string of numbers identifying him as what he now was: property of the crown, an unlucky bastard, and a prisoner for life.

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The efficiency was positively savage: he was thrust forward, shackles jangling, and offered a stick to bite down on. Like a proud, arrogant fool, he declined, and in the blink of an eye, his arms were being held still and the iron was being lifted from the flames.

It may as well have been a solid mass of white-hot metal, the way the individual digits registered only as a singular, agonizing burn. The prisoner choked on his own scream as the scent of seared flesh filled the air, acrid, evil. The brand retreated, and he was sent away, still gasping.

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The pain of the brand was like nothing he had felt before. It seethed and writhed, snake venom and molten sand, and no matter what he did or where he looked or how many deep, gasping breaths he took, he could not free himself of the sickening stench of charred, ruined flesh. He told himself he wouldn’t look at it. Wouldn’t accept that he’d been stamped like the worthless chattel he was.

But he did.

He did, and the numbers glared up at him: burning, scorching. A reminder, never to be forgotten.

Who he had once been was now dead.

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“Don’t you dare,” another prisoner snarled at him. “Don’t you dare fall.”

If he collapsed, as his swimming vision and trembling limbs suggested he would, he’d take the entire line with him: every single convict, linked in a long column by chains on their legs. And what then? He’d have the guards cracking their whips or clubs over his back, and if the other prisoners fell, they’d be out for blood.

His.

He took another staggering step forward, watching land and sky bleed into one another at the horizon. Breathe. Stay awake. Step. Step again.

“That’s right. Keep fucking moving.”

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Walking from camp to the worksite was as torturous as the labour. Morning air was deceptively cool, the sky painted in luscious sunrise hues. If not for the prisoners’ exhausted grunts and the neverending rattle of chains, morning might have been a gentle reprieve, imbued with memories of happier times. Family. Home.

When the work began, and whips cracked, and wounds bled, and the sun beat mercilessly down on burnt, unprotected skin, the memories hurt infinitely worse.

Happiness, lost. Buried by bitter reality.

Forget about them. But he knew the yearning would repeat the next day. And the next. Forever.

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“And you, boy?”

He was the last one waiting for inspection. The acrid tang of humiliation crawled up his throat, coated his tongue, as the overseer stood before him with a slowly widening smile as the telltale rattle of chain-links gave him away for the trembling coward he was.

The overseer’s blue eyes swept over his shorn hair and bruised face. “End of your first week. Learned anything?”

He nodded.

“Regretting the choices that landed you here?” The overseer plucked a burr from his uniform, tutting.

He ground out, “I don’t have regrets, sir.”

The overseer smirked. “Perhaps not yet.”

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“No regrets, you say.” The overseer picked another burr off the prisoner’s uniform. “How about when I beat your ass for being a cocky bastard, and for this embarrassing inspection?”

Burr still clutched in his fingers, the overseer grabbed his chin, digging the prickly spines into his sunburnt skin. “Some around here might find you a pretty little thing, you know, boy. I wonder how long it’ll take for this face to be disfigured beyond recognition?”

The lie about regretting nothing burned through him as the overseer’s grip tightened.

“Should I start, or let the guards take care of you?”

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Dirt. Blood. Mingling on his tongue. Sharp, cracking blows of the club. Duller, deeper pain from polished boots. Helpless limbs, trapped in chains.

“You have something to say to me.” The overseer watched, arms folded, satisfaction gleaming bright in his eyes.

The prisoner groaned, desperate to catch his breath.

“Nice and loud,” said the overseer. “Let me hear you. So everyone can hear.”

Hot blood dribbled out the side of his mouth. He struggled to his knees, staring at his shackled hands.

“Eyes on me when you apologize, mutt. Down the rest of the time.”

The prisoner rasped, “I’m sorry.”

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“Talk back to me again, scum.” The chief overseer’s face twisted, a garish mask of scorn and hate contorting what might have been a passably handsome countenance into the grisly snarl of a bloodthirsty beast. “Try it. See what happens.”

He kept silent, watching the overseer’s eyes. They snapped and glinted, blazing with savage fury.

“Nothing more to say, huh?”

Without warning, the overseer swung his club, cracking it into his jaw. He fell, tasting the bitterness of blood on his tongue.

“You keep your mouth shut and your eyes down, rat, or next time, I won’t be so gentle.”

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The dormitory door burst open, letting inside a flood of guards.

“Up!” The order through the room, sending half-sleeping men to their feet while they still swayed. Heavy-lidded, red-rimmed eyes watched as the guards lifted lanterns, peering into every face.

“This one.” A boy, the youngest, stumbled forward as he was wrenched from the lineup. “He’s the one who started the brawl.”

“Let me go!” The boy struggled, wailing, “Wasn’t only me fighting!”

“Too bad.” The guard dragged him toward the door. “We just want you.”

The prisoner’s mouth moved before he could think better of it.

“Leave him alone.”

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“Let me get this straight.” The overseer smirked, delight illuminating every line of his face. “You want me to allow you to take his punishment?”

The prisoner nodded, keeping his eyes on the ground. Beside him, the boy they were about to whip strained against the guards’ unyielding grip. Between frantic breaths, he sniffled, the tragedy of his youth on full display.

“No,” said the overseer.

The prisoner snarled, “He’s just a kid! You can’t—”

Grinning, the overseer crowed, “Twenty lashes for his brawl. Ten lashes for your neverending insolence.” He chuckled. “How should I divvy them up? You decide.”

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“Twenty-nine and one,” said the prisoner tightly. “One for him. I’ll take the rest.”

The overseer howled with laughter. “Are you certain you did your math correctly, boy?”

The moment the prisoner muttered, “Yes,” he was seized, hauled roughly into the centre of camp, and hurled into the dirt to watch the first punishment. Despite his whimpering and thrashing, the boy took his single lash bravely, and when he met the prisoner’s gaze, his eyes welled with gratitude.

The prisoner was dragged forward for his turn.

“Say aah,” sneered the guard as a wooden bit was lodged between his teeth.

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“Naïve fool.” The overseer stood nearby, smiling. Laughing. “You believe you’ve made yourself a hero. You’ve only made yourself look weak.”

The prisoner’s growl of, “Go fuck yourself,” was lost to the wood pressed against his tongue.

His face burned with humiliation. He’d endured a great number of indignities since his arrest, trial, and sentence to hard labour. He could bear the stares and sneers and shackles. He could bear this. Yet it still felt shameful, standing half-naked and immobilized.

Now: silenced, too.

The whip bit into his back.

He choked out an involuntary scream, blinded by slicing, white-hot pain.

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His chest heaved. Up, down, in, out, each inhale a dagger, each exhale a rasp. The guards lifted their clubs. The chief overseer gripped the blade at his side.

“Get back in there,” said the chief overseer, his eyes narrowed. “Who told you you could stop?”

He stared down at his hands, blackened and bloodied from hours of labour. The gaping maw of the mine lay behind him. Ravenous. Dark.

The chief overseer stepped forward, eyes flashing in the sun. “Don’t make me order you again.”

The clanking of his fettered ankles followed as he retreated, swallowed by the dark.

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“Water?”

In the dark of the mine, it was difficult to know who spoke. Faces remained shadowed; hands scrabbled, reached, and scraped like the indistinct phantoms of nightmares; pick-axes rose, fell, and clanged in secluded, miniature explosions. Voices were disembodied and eerie.

Whomever pleaded for water was young. Foolishly hopeful. The air in the mine was close and dry, choked with black dust. Everyone wanted more water. No one had enough.

The prisoner reached into the gloom, holding out his flask.

He licked his dry, cracked lips, waiting.

A grimy hand, small and fine-boned, snatched his water away.

“Thank you.”

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An accident, or retribution earned? Rocks rained from the ceiling: the wrath of vengeful gods hurling punishment onto the heads of deserving sinners?

Some survived. Some didn’t.

The prisoner heard the rabble from where he toiled: crack, thud, fatal thunder, burying men whose chains did not permit them to flee.

He believed them when they said it was an accident. To kill, to permanently maim, their captive workforce? Folly.

He saw, though, the callousness in their eyes. The detachment in their voices when they ordered the men to go back down the next morning.

He decided then.

I’m getting out.

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The handle was smooth in his fingers, its natural texture dulled and polished from years of cracking convicts’ skulls.

Foreign, heavy, forbidden.

“C’mon.” Any minute now, the guard would lose patience. “Put that down.” He’d strike, and the chance to flee would be lost on the wind.

Not if he struck first.

Narrowing his eyes, the guard finished, “Before someone gets hurt.”

All he had to do: swing. Catch the guard on his temple. Break the skin, make him bleed. Return the favour for doing the same so many times before.

The guard lunged.

The club thudded to the floor.

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“You stupid bastard.” The chief overseer chuckled, gaze alight with burgeoning pleasure at the prospect of fresh, brutal punishment. “You thought you could get away with this? You? Really? You really thought you could escape?”

The prisoner writhed in his chains. Took a boot to his back. Fell still.

“String him up over there,” said the overseer, pointing. “Let’s learn what happens to disobedient dogs who try to run.”

A tall wooden pole, hung with metal chains and wreathed in barbed wire.

He screamed, skin torn open and shredded as he was slammed against the pole and chained in place.

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Barbed wire raked over his skin at the slightest movement.

Agonized screams lay heavy in his throat.

Bound in tightly cinched iron shackles, his hands were long numb.

His legs trembled, supporting a body that could not fall.

All night, all day. He’d been left alone, acknowledged only occasionally with a gulp of water, and more frequently, with scathing jeers.

The overseer approached, jangling his keys. Slow, taunting, swinging. “So? Was your little stunt worthwhile?”

Tongue dry as sand, the prisoner remained silent.

“Tell me how it feels,” the overseer said. “To have failed. To know you’ll only fail again.”

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He closed his eyes when the water ran red. He didn’t want to see the results of his pathetic attempt at escape: hours chained to a pole, barbed wire biting into his skin. Unable to move. Forced to hear the jeers and titters of every guard and prisoner who passed.

The medic lay a few strips of cotton over his ruined back and bade him lie still.

When he staggered back to the dorm, wounds cleaned and chains unlocked, sad, sympathetic voices rose.

Foolishly, they always held out hope when someone tried to run.

“I’m fine,” he said.

He lied.

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It was wrong, choosing now to run. Voracious flames, set by an errant lightning strike, already ravaged the main dorm; someone might be hurt or even dead. But he’d done so many good turns, and for such paltry reward: sharing what little he had, sowing kindness where it was deserved.

Now, fate had wrought an opportunity that might never arise again.

The gaping hole in the fence would soon be discovered. He’d hardly be the only prisoner to use the storm as a cover to escape. But it would certainly pay to be the first.

The challenge: leave no trail.

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The fugitive ran until he couldn’t feel the impact of his feet against the slick, sodden ground. Couldn’t recall a time when his lungs didn’t burn and his eyes didn’t stream with the effort of not squandering his precious chance at freedom.

The world beyond was treacherous, however. It ensnared him with its promise of escape, then struck as viciously and silently as an assassin.

His foot slipped, and with no strength left to catch his balance, he tumbled down to the riverbank, pain exploding in his back. Cut by sharp rocks? Impaled on a broken branch? He couldn’t tell.

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Steeped in rain and blood, he prised his shaking body off the slippery ground. He knew he was an imbecile to consider running with blood flowing freely from his back. Yet it would be still more unwise to remain.

He staggered away from the river.

Night fell; the rain ceased; the bleeding slowed. So, too, did his footsteps, but he knew he could not rest. When a sombre dawn crept greyly over the horizon, he tried in vain to glimpse his wound. He only descried the ragged edge of his uniform, stained crimson, pasted in grisly folds against his skin.

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He was barely awake, delirious with fatigue and pain and cold, when his knees slammed into the ground.

Twigs bit sharply into his skin. Gnarled tree roots pressed against his weary bones.

His relief at finally being off his feet, however, overpowered the discomfort.

Just a moment’s rest, he vowed. Mere minutes. Then he’d keep moving. He wouldn’t stop, not until he had no other choice.

As his eyes closed, his body sank.

He knew then he was a fool, a dead man. He ought never to have paused.

Now, his body, exhausted and bleeding, refused to move at all.

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A lantern flickered amber in the swelling gloom of morning. “Who’s there?” A woman’s voice. Tremulous.

She was right to be afraid.

Her nightgown, gossamery white, blinding against the greyish dawn, billowed gently in the breeze. He lay still, blood oozing from his back, soaking hot, repulsive slickness into the ground. Biting his hand to stifle his ragged gasps of pain, he battled the urge to answer: Please help me.

No. He wouldn’t imperil a stranger. Wouldn’t poison an innocent’s life with his.

But she drifted forward, spilling yellow light over his bloodied form. Softly, she gasped.

“Who are you?”

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“Stay away  . . .” His words sounded strange: foreign, unintelligible. “Don’t come close.”

If she knew what was good for her, she’d heed his command.

She drifted forward, light and graceful as a ghost. “Why are you here? Who are you?” The question, demanded a second time, made him recoil.

The brightness of her lantern stung.

“You’re hurt,” she breathed.

Her voice was fading. Was it?

“Aren’t you?”

He closed his eyes.

“Let . . . hold you up . . .” Her voice trailed off, dipping too quiet for him to hear. “I can . . . Let . . . help you. Can you stand?”

“Please,” he whispered. “Please just stay away.”

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The woman drew close. Too close.

He scrambled backwards, forcing his exhausted body to rise, to put distance between them.

“Wait . . .” Her eyes widened, seeming to glow in the harsh light. “Are you afraid of me?”

“Just leave me,” he begged. “I’ll be gone soon. I swear. I’ll go. Just. Please. Stay away.”

Her gaze drifted downwards. Followed a path away from him.

The blood trail he’d left in his wake.

“Please let me help you,” she said pleadingly. “I think you’re very hurt.”

When he tried to lift himself to his feet, his limbs gave out beneath him.

“Please!”

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“I’m not giving you a choice,” she said. Her voice trembled. Her fingers did, too, as she reached for him. But she persisted. “You’re hurt. If you don’t let me help you, you’ll die.”

Good.

He knew he should wriggle away, crawl if he had to. But when he tried, his strength failed.

“I’m going to touch you,” she said. “Try to stop the bleeding.”

He screamed when she pressed something to the wound on his back. Blacked out.

“I can’t carry you,” she said when he woke. “You’ll have to walk. I’ll take you somewhere safe. Lean on me.”

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“You shouldn’t be doing this,” he whispered. He only dimly registered where they were, his energy exhausted by a slow, shambling walk he suspected had only been a short distance and yet felt like many leagues. “You don’t understand.”

A fugitive. He was a fugitive, cursed and hunted and condemned. If she helped him, she risked condemning herself.

“Hush now,” she said, “and close your eyes.”

“I’m a . . .”

“You can tell me after you’ve rested,” she said. “You’re safe. Hidden.” He heard her gulp. “I don’t know what you’re so frightened of, stranger. But I promise. You’re safe for now.”

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Silence greeted the fugitive when he woke. So, too, did pain, but that was nothing new. The tight bandage wrapped around his waist, however, situated neatly over the gash in his back, was.

You’re safe now. He recalled a woman’s face. Soft words. Gentle hands.

The memories lulled him back to uneasy sleep.

He was roused again when she returned. He watched as she set down a bowl of water.

You’re trembling, he wanted to say. Call her out on her obvious distrust. Give her a reason to rat him out.

“Good morning,” she said softly. “How are you feeling?”

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Instead of answering her question, he croaked, “You’re helping me.”

“Yes.”

“You shouldn’t. You’ll get in trouble.”

She tilted her head and studied him. In the golden light tumbling through the open cellar door, he saw her clearly: green eyes, wispy brown hair, a determined line to her pursed pink lips.

And a telltale swell to her stomach.

“I’m dangerous,” he gasped. “And I can’t repay you. I’m sorry. I have to go.”

He struggled to his feet.

“You’ll open that wound again,” she said. “But I won’t stop you. If you’re determined to go.”

Her voice was achingly sad.

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Whatever kindness she thought she granted him by tending to his injuries, it wasn’t worth the risk.

Soldiers. Guards. A mob of angry citizens driven to vigilantism by the news of his escape. They’d come for him, endangering this kind-hearted woman and her unborn child.

“Aren’t you listening to me?” he demanded. “Stay away! Get back! I’m dangerous!”

She didn’t back away, but she flinched.

“Are you?” Her eyes remained on his. “Or merely frightened and hungry and injured?”

All of the above.

“You’re not a prisoner here,” she said gently. “But . . . please. Eat. Drink. Then do as you please.”

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He watched her, panting. Pain prickled behind his ribs; his chest heaving erratically. She took another step closer.

You’re not a prisoner here. Why had she chosen that word?

His gaze slid away from her, landing on his chest—the numbers below his collarbone, the raised digits of the brand visible through the ragged scraps of his shirt.

She knew.

“A bleeding man collapses on my property,” she said, “and I’ll give him food and rest. You’re safe. Hidden. No one knows you're here.”

“You didn’t summon . . .”

“I haven’t told anyone.”

She hadn’t sent for soldiers to drag him back.

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At first, he didn’t remember where he was. Once the cellar registered in his consciousness, he still took several moments to recall how he’d gotten there, too many breathless, heart-pounding seconds of bewilderment and fear.

Then it struck.

A woman, lonely and gentle and too kind for her own good. Pregnant. Seemingly alone. Risking her own neck to help him.

Why? he wished he could ask her, but he was afraid to learn her answer.

It mattered little, anyhow. He couldn’t stay, couldn’t impale himself on her foolhardy selflessness any longer than necessary.

Once he healed, he had to go.

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“You’re leaving, then.”

He stood, panting, hands pressed into the weathered wood of the fence bordering the cottage. The cottage, he now saw, beneath which he’d been recuperating for nearly three days.

“Yes.” Anxious sweat dripped down his back. Why? He couldn’t have said.

She made no move to come closer, merely asking, “Is that wise? Practical?”

Wise? Wise didn’t matter. He couldn’t remain, couldn’t rely on borrowing kindness from what had to be a rapidly draining well.

“There’s no rush,” she said. “My brother’s gone for nearly a month. Hunting. For the winter.”

Gruffly, he said, “Not the point.”

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“What, pray tell, is the point?” She crossed her arms. “You’re hardly in fit condition to go wandering through the woods. I doubt you’ll even make it there. I doubt you’ll make it out of the orchard.”

He began to walk away, one hand trailing along the fence. “Thanks. For your help. I can’t stay any longer.”

“I’m not going to turn you in.”

He didn’t turn around.

“If you hurt yourself again, break a leg or arm or hit your head—”

“Just forget about me. You should never have helped me in the first place.”

“I’m quickly realizing that.”

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He spun to see her in the cottage doorway, her chin held high.

“I really do just want to help you,” she said, speaking so quietly now that he struggled to catch each word.

She did. For some godforsaken reason, she had decided not to let him die. Not to sentence him to death.

“I don’t want you to be hurt because of me,” he said. “To get in trouble for my . . .”

My crimes.

My worthless life.

“That says a lot,” she said. “I think you might be a good man, you know.”

His eyes began to burn with tears.

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For a few terrifying moments, he couldn’t breathe. I think you might be a good man, she’d said.

How would she know?

“I’ve told you before . . .” she began.

Her form was blurred now, because he was crying. Crying, because she’d said . . .

“You’re not a prisoner. You’re not trapped. It’s still true.” He saw the muzzy shape of her arm lift and point. “But you’re still injured. Why don’t you just wait a few more days? Get your strength back up?”

“I’m f—”

“You’re about to fall over.”

His legs were trembling.

“Another few days,” he said.

“Just another few days.”

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She told her tale by candlelight, liquid gold illuminating grief the prisoner wished he could banish: decimate, crush into a thousand fragments, bury, and cage it for eternity.

She was a widow, still dressed in mourning black, preparing to bear the only remainder she had left of a husband whose love, or its memory, still rendered her radiant, the loss of which transformed her green eyes into endless pools of sorrow.

“He was a good man,” she said quietly, fingering her wedding ring. “He didn’t deserve to die. But I feel so lucky to have loved him while I could.”

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“I’m sorry,” he said, watching her wipe her tears. “It’s a terrible thing to lose someone.” Like he’d almost lost his brother. Like his family had lost him.

“I’ll overcome,” she said, though new tears assailed her, replacing those she’d banished. “I’ll grieve. But I’m strong. I have to be.”

His throat ached. “Are you alone here?”

She shook her head. “Alone? No. I’m with my brother now, until mourning’s done. Then I’ll remarry.” Although a shadow crossed her face, she chuckled weakly, caressing her stomach, tenderly reverent. “And it won’t be long before I'll never have a moment’s peace.”

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“I mean this in the nicest way…”

She smiled, raising her eyebrows curiously. “Well, now I’m frightened of whatever you’re about to say.”

But the light in her eyes said she wasn’t afraid at all.

Although he felt like a buffoon, he plunged ahead with his question. “What’s with all the apples?”

“Oh!” She burst into a laugh. “My family owns an orchard. You walked—” She paused, seeming almost mischievous when she continued, “Stumbled through it the night you arrived. Apples are our livelihood.”

“Well. That explains a lot. I’ve never had stew that contained literal chunks of apple before.”

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Her needle moved artfully, glinting in the candlelight and the dregs of day that slunk through the cellar door. The silver caught the light, blinding as the glistering scales of a leaping fish or the iridescent gleam of a hummingbird’s throat.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said, unable to meet her eye.

“I suppose you’re going to do it instead?” she teased.

He tore his attention from her sewing, directing it to his scarred, grimy fingers, decidedly less deft and graceful than those currently weaving magic with needle and thread. “I just wish I could repay you. Somehow.”

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“Now there’s a lovely sight.”

He blinked, setting down the bowl of thick porridge, speckled with cinnamon and sweetened with apple. “What is?”

“That.” She nodded toward him. “You’re smiling.”

“No, I’m not,” he said, embarrassed. Unsure of what to say. Unsure that he deserved to smile after all he’d done. All she’d done for his sake.

“Yes, you are. My food must be quite delicious.” He laughed, and she grinned, triumphant. “See? You’ve found your smile again. And I’m glad.”

Sobering, he scooped up another spoonful. “You’re the one who brought it out.” He met her gaze. “Thank you.”

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“Come outside.”

She stood at the bottom of the cellar stairs, gazing at a crepuscular sky. The fugitive blinked, puzzled by the invitation: glittering diamond-drops of water peppered her face.

“But it’s raining,” he said stupidly.

“Yes. Don’t you want to feel it?” She tilted her face upward. Without waiting for him to acquiesce, she ascended the stairs.

He followed, moving slowly, wincing as each step tugged at the healing wound on his back.

“I’ve always loved the rain.” Her graceful hands rested upon her stomach. “Even when times are hard, it reminds me of how beautiful life can be.”

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He should’ve known. The footsteps were too rapid, too heavy. She always walked with cautious, musical grace, each movement measured. This gait was frantic.

Even if he’d been forewarned, there was nowhere to hide.

“He saw the extra dishes,” she said helplessly from above as a man who looked just like her, only bearded and bespectacled, skidded to a halt for one precious moment.

Then, he leapt.

“Don’t!” she cried, halfway down the stairs, but her brother, for that was who he had to be, already had the fugitive shoved against the wall.

“What are you doing in my house?”

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She was shouting when she made it down the stairs, more out of breath than he’d ever seen her.  “Just stop and listen to me? I let him in! I invited him!”

“Why?” Her brother didn’t release his grip. “A strange man in our cellar, and you alone with him here? What were you thinking? What will people say?”

Strange man. Not fugitive. Not criminal.

He didn’t know.

“They will say nothing,” she said, “because no one else knows. And I’ve been perfectly safe. This man needed shelter, and I gave it. That’s all. You have nothing to worry about.”

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He spent his days listening.

The cellar brought little light and little sound, but some things he could hear, and what he heard? Distant sadness, even coldness, between his rescuer and her fiancé. She spoke politely, if aloofly; he spoke with a cutting frigidity that broke his heart.

“Why do you love him?” he asked when she visited.

She started, confused and taken aback. After a moment, she smiled sadly. “I don’t.”

“But you’re going to marry him.”

Oh, that smile she gave him sometimes, like she knew things he couldn’t possibly understand.

Perhaps it was true. Perhaps he didn’t.

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“I don’t suppose my grief will ever truly numb.” He hated himself for asking his foolish question: tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheek, cutting a graceful ribbon into her skin. “And he feels it as keenly as I do.”

She laid a hand on her swollen belly.

“I want my child to have a father. We both know there will never be love between us like I had with . . .” She paused. Swallowed thickly. “He wants to care for his brother’s child, and I want my baby to be cared for. It’s an arrangement, and nothing more.”

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“He sounds . . .”

She met his eye then, waiting for him to finish his thought. His question. His implicit accusation.

“Unkind.”

She smiled, not hiding the sweep of her gaze over his collarbone, where the brand, the evidence of his crime, lay concealed beneath his shirt. “He would never hurt me,” she said evenly. “He respects his brother’s memory too much.”

“His brother’s memory,” he echoed. “Nobody else?”

She appeared to realize then what she’d said; her gaze wavered. “He’d never hurt me,” she repeated.

The fugitive let the conversation lapse. For everyone’s sake, he hoped what she said was true.

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Her fiancé’s face. Not hers. That was what he saw when the cellar door opened.

A face, triumphant. Radiant with glee. Brimming with spite.

“Nowhere to run, crook.”

Furious shouts echoed outside.

Soldiers.

Her fiancé stood aside, and armed men poured in.

The fugitive—

The prisoner sank to his knees.

“Take me, then,” he said, resting his hands on his head. He wondered: would she ever know what had happened while she was away? Would she resent him for never saying goodbye?

“On the floor!” a soldier barked. Kicking him down. Shackling his wrists.

Just like that, it was over.

Chapter Text

He felt her fiancé’s eyes on him, although one side of his face was crushed against the cold cellar floor and all he could see was a sea of polished boots.

“Thought you could run forever, huh?” a soldier asked. “Cocky idiot.”

Nearly, he thought. Would have. Could have.

“Planned to rob the house, did you?” The soldier aimed a kick into his side.

“Bastard,” her fiancé crowed, smug. “Not that smart, though, were you, in the end?”

Sudden rage burned his tongue. “Rot in hell,” he spat through gritted teeth.

A kick to the head turned his vision pitch-dark.

Chapter Text

“Why?” He met her brother’s gaze as the soldiers hauled him up the cellar stairs. His green eyes were downcast. He must have been the one to rat him out. “Why?”

“Shut up!” a soldier barked.

When the prisoner asked again, something was shoved between his teeth and strapped behind his head.

It was her fiancé who answered. “You really want to know, you miserable, freeloading, murdering prick?” He sauntered right up; the soldiers halted, letting him speak. “It was her. She wanted you gone.”

His body went cold.

Her?

Skulking silently behind, her brother did not lift his gaze.

Chapter Text

It was her.

He stared dully into the weathered wagon floor. Was it true? Had she been the one to sell him out?

She wanted you gone.

If she had, could he blame her?

He was a fool. He’d stayed too long, worn out his welcome. Thrown himself upon her mercy when he should have fled.

She’d suffered, and he’d made it worse. She had a beautiful future with her child, and he, with no future, had jeopardized it. Of course she wanted him gone. Of course she wanted to forget him.

Just . . .

To be forgotten by her . . .

It hurt.

Chapter Text

The chief overseer gloated, eyes gleaming maniacally as he beheld his recaptured quarry.

At the sight of that familiar sheen, the prisoner shrank away.

Not that he could flee: chains bound his wrists and ankles, fastened securely to a ring bolted to the floor.

“What’s the matter?” The overseer grabbed his hair, grown just long enough now that he could tangle his fingers into it and yank. “Don’t tell me you forgot about me.”

The prisoner grunted into the gag they’d shoved in his mouth, choking on the saliva pooling in his throat.

“Rest assured. I didn’t forget about you.”

Chapter Text

“You know,” said the overseer, “it’s been too long since I’ve seen that fear in your eyes. Much too long.”

As if it would protect him, the prisoner closed his eyes, desperate to hide whatever the overseer sought.

“Look at me, mutt,” the overseer said. “I have news for you.”

He didn’t open his eyes until the back of the overseer’s hand cracked against his cheek.

“Disobedient dogs like you . . .” The overseer smirked. “They don’t get to stay in the lap of luxury like this. You lost your chance, scum.”

The prisoner’s eyes widened; the overseer grinned.

“There it is.”

Chapter Text

“Seems you’ve guessed.” The overseer pretended to inspect his knuckles for bruising, but his gaze wandered. Watched the prisoner’s eyes grow wild. “Can’t trust you to stay put? You’re off to the Pits. Tomorrow.”

The prisoner’s breaths shallowed.

The Pits. A death sentence disguised as mercy: deep ravines marbled with precious minerals, painstakingly collected by convicts who went down—and never returned.

The prisoner’s head sank low.

The overseer loosened the straps of the gag, yet the prisoner could not speak even once his tongue was free.

“You’ll wish for this place again.” The overseer laughed. “You’ll wish for death.”

Chapter Text

Unlucky convicts who escaped and got caught didn’t go back to the chain gang, or the mines, or the dorms.

They stayed in the cells, and they didn’t leave until their day of reckoning.

The sun set, light leaking through the bars on his tiny window, turning from yellow to gold to blood-red.

If the overseer spoke truly, the prisoner’s day of reckoning was mere hours away: “Enjoy your last night here, scum.” The overseer sauntered away.

“Fuck you,” the prisoner said, but the overseer only laughed.

“My, but you’re so angry,” he remarked. “Didn’t you bring this upon yourself?”

Chapter Text

“Aren’t you getting what you deserve? You broke the rules.” The overseer’s words were amused and oily, dripping lazily back towards the cell one by one. “Now you’re a broken man.”

“No.”

His footsteps paused. “No, what?”

“No.”

“Still talking back, are you, boy?”

“Yeah. Because. I’m not broken.”

Soft laughter drifted toward him. “Well. Perhaps. Not yet.”

The prisoner scuffed his fingers against the metal still clasped on his wrists. Broken, he said. Not yet, he said. Perhaps the day would come. Until then . . .

“Screw you.”

“What you are, though?” The door slammed, muffling the overseer’s words. “Totally fucked.”

Chapter Text

The guards had a field day.

“Why d’you look so miserable? Didn’t have no fun on your little adventure?”

“Musta been nice.”

“Hope you enjoyed the last taste of freedom you’ll ever have.”

The prisoner ignored them and received a slap for his inattention.

“C’mon. Let’s see a pretty smile on that pretty face.”

“Pretty? Won’t be so pretty after a few months in the Pits.”

New jeers rose. “Grey and rotted, maybe. Maggots comin’ out your eye sockets.”

“Sounds nice, huh?”

The prisoner kept his gaze on the ground. A meaty hand grabbed his throat.

“So. Go on. Smile.”

Chapter Text

The soldiers from the Pits approached.

“Chin up,” said the overseer. “They’re not executing you. They could’ve, you know. I spoke up for you.”

What mercy, sending him to a slow death instead.

“What, no ‘thank you’?” the overseer asked, mock-offended. “I saved you from the shame of a public death. You ought to be grovelling at my feet.” He leaned closer, cupping a hand to his ear. “Well?”

Glowering, the prisoner held his tongue. He’d be damned if he subjugated himself further by thanking the bastard. He was gagged, anyway; the overseer just wanted to elicit one last humiliation.

Chapter Text

They’d dragged him from her cellar chained and bleeding, thrown him into the wagon like a writhing, cursing sack of flour.

Now, as they took him from the camp, they made him walk: a shambling spectre that once was a man. The chain between his ankles permitted only slow, hobbled steps; another chain linked his wrists and ankles.

“Get in,” ordered the soldier who’d come to retrieve him and drop him in the vile Pit, the cursed quarry that would become his tomb.

Laughter followed as he struggled inside, swelling louder when he tripped and crashed to the wagon floor.

Chapter Text

The prisoner struggled to rise from where he’d fallen. Disgusted, the soldier clambered into the wagon behind him. “Get up.”

Easy for him to say, with his hands and feet free. Resentfully, the prisoner growled into the gag they’d strapped back in his mouth for the journey.

“Sit.” The soldier gestured. “Against the wall. Head down.”

How tired he was of being leashed, muzzled, and ordered around like a beast.

Leashed. An apt comparison, made even more so by the next indignity bestowed on his already-humiliated body: an iron ring, locked around his neck and chained securely to the wall.

Chapter Text

The Pits: a collection of vermin, the most despicable souls spat out from the depths of hell itself. Men long lost to the world, to the light, exiled for their crimes and never forgiven.

They lived half-lives in the dust. Beneath scorching sun. In torrents of rain. When sheets of ice coated the ground and made phantoms of their worthless, laboured breaths.

When one died, the rest picked up the slack, with neither time nor will to mourn. Every year buried more convicts, forgotten by all beyond the Pits. Every moment tasted of regret.

Out of spite, the prisoner survived.

Chapter Text

Green eyes, a glittering midsummer aurora. Verdigris angels on the precipice between sky and earth.

Hands soft as moss, hair fine as spider silk. A creature soft, yet wild—untameable. A pixie, a will-o’the-wisp, a dove cooing into the dawn.

He woke with a gasp, reaching for fingers that yearned not for his. Pain in his chest. An ache in his throat. Tears in his eyes.

“Bad dream?” mumbled the convict beside him.

“Huh?”

“Did you have a nightmare?”

Her face flashed in his mind again. “No.” He pulled in a long, rasping breath. “Just a dream. A happy one.”

Chapter Text

The convicts fought for shelter, the violent clanking of their chains lost to the pattering rain. Some shoves and snarls broke over the noise, but most men huddled together, sharing the paltry space beneath an overhanging cliff.

The prisoner stayed where he was, watching the soaked dregs of their fire sputter and hiss with each raindrop until not even smoke survived.

“You not goin’?” This straggler hadn’t moved fast enough, nursing a busted ankle, and he, too, sat sopping wet in the storm.

“No,” said the prisoner, his heart aching. “I don’t mind.” He swallowed. “I’ll always love the rain.”

Chapter Text

Let him drop.

The prisoner heard the panicked voice of the soldier shouting. The terror-slicked cries mingled with another voice—a darker one, steeped in malice. Hatred. Bitter, wolfish hunger for retribution well-deserved. Let the bastard fall and die.

Some long-suppressed, now-unfamiliar compulsion had him reaching. Straining. Pulling the soldier back to solid ground.

Saving him from the fatal drop over the cliff’s sheer edge.

Why? He didn’t know. After five years, he bore enough scars on his skin and his soul to justify letting his jailer splatter on the ground below.

I think you might be a good man.

Chapter Text

The prisoner gaped when his shackles were unlocked. He’d felt certain when he was pulled into the general’s office that he would face naught but wrath and accusation: You did it. You pushed him. You tried to murder one of us.

But the soldier said, “This man saved my life.”

Five years he’d languished in the Pits. Five years he’d toiled, suffered, hardened his heart against a world intent on stamping him out and burying him in an unmarked grave.

Five years of nursing his anger and regret.

Five years to hear the words he never expected: “You are free.”

Chapter Text

They even let him look in a mirror before he went.

The face staring back at him was not the one he remembered: weathered, tired, scarred, and drawn. But it was alive. Warm blood pulsed beneath the brown, leathered skin. Hair that had been forbidden to grow would sprout again—in stripes, doubtless, of charcoal and silver.

He shuddered when he met his own haunted gaze. Such memories. Such pain.

Still, the reflection held a promise for which he’d stopped daring to hope: the promise of a future. So recently, it had been beyond his reach.

Here it was, beckoning.

Chapter Text

After surviving so long in the Pits, a feat with which he’d surprised even himself, a man walked free.

Dawn blushed across the sky, sweeping roses over star-flecked purple. They sent him away early, with little time to bid farewell to the hard-packed ground on which he’d fitfully slept for so many nights, or to the haggard faces that would not be able to hide their resentment that he had won his liberty when they had not.

Beneath fading stars and blooming sun, with nought in his pockets and hope in his heart, a free man began his life anew.

Chapter Text

The air smelled sweet.

Thunder and dirt. Wet leaves and distant hearth-smoke. Spring wildflowers and damp feathers. Each scent heady and aromatic, thrilling in its verdurous . . . mundanity.

He slept outdoors, relishing the cushion of grass and ferns under his back instead of a dusty ravine floor, lulled to slumber by cooing forest birds and the rustling of leaves. He sought shelter in neither inn nor homestead, preferring to keep his distance from those who would recoil at his approach.

He savoured the solitude, the boredom, the freedom.

He didn’t miss the company of others. What comfort could be offered by happy homes embroiled only in quiet, ordinary lives, who knew neither the sting of the lash nor the pang of hunger? What was to be gained by chasing a life he’d relinquished long ago, a life lost the day he was first locked in chains?

No, he didn’t miss the frivolous company of a society that would not want or welcome him.

He didn’t, that is, until he caught that familiar smell on the breeze, rife with memory.

Rain, sweetened with spring, scented with comfort and promise, honeyed by the scent of trees festooned in roseate and alabaster.

Apple blossoms.