Page 34 of Stormvein

No relief comes with darkness. The guards take shifts, ensuring I remain awake through the night. When my eye closes for too long, they prod broken ribs through the bars with wooden sticks, or shake the cage, or throw more water.

“Why do we have to keep him awake?” A younger guard is unable to hide his discomfort. “He’s not going anywhere.”

“Exhaustion. Sleep deprivation breaks the mind faster than pain breaks the body. High Commander’s orders,” the older one explains.

Neither of them sound comfortable with their orders.

But he’s right. As night wears on, the inability to sleep becomes its own special torture. Reality blurs at the edges. Hallucinations creep in. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Voices whisper from empty air. The cage seems to shrink further, the bars pressing closer. My thoughts scatter, coherence slipping away.

I try to focus on hatred. For Sereven, for the Authority, for what they have done to me and countless others. Anger has always been a tether, a way to maintain focus when all else fails. But even that begins to slip, replaced by something more elemental.

Simple animal suffering, and the desperate need for respite.

Dawn breaks after an eternity of sleepless torment. The convoy stirs to life around me. Guards change shifts, new faces appear at my cage. One offers water. Not thrown this time, but held in a flask with a spout pushed between the bars.

“Drink.” Pity coats his voice.

I manage a few swallows, the liquid painful against my throat, but desperately needed. Yet even this small mercy serves a larger cruelty, ensuring I survive to face what awaits me at Blackvault.

The journey resumes. Mountains loom larger around us, the road growing steeper, rougher. Each jolt finds a new nerve. Pain moves with the wagon, redistributing itself across broken bones and open wounds, a reminder that I’m still alive when death would be mercy.

We approach the first settlement by high sun. Thornbend is a farming village clustered around a stone bridge crossing a narrow stream. Word of the convoy’s approach has been sent ahead of us, and villagers line the road, directed there by Authority soldiers.

Younger faces show curiosity, uncertainty. They’ve no doubt heard stories of the terrible Shadowvein Lord, the enemy of order. But the older villagers, those who lived through the early days of the purges, their expressions are blank masks. Occasionally, I see recognition flicker across faces before being hastily suppressed.

They remember. They remember when I rode through this village twenty-eight years ago, warning them of Authority patrols. When my shadows helped hide their food stores from seizure. When Veinbloods and ordinary folk worked side by side to defend what mattered.

An elderly woman’s hand flies to her mouth, then drops quickly when a guard glances her way. An old farmer removes his hat in a gesture of respect for the dead. Their faces are stone, but their eyes tell a different story.

Horror. Grief. Carefully hidden rage.

“Look upon the fate of those who defy the Authority,” one of the guards announces to the crowd, his voice carrying across everyone watching.

But I see the truth in the older faces. They’re not looking at an enemy brought to justice. They’re watching the destruction of someone who once stood between them and the Authority’s hatred.

A young mother pulls her child closer, whispering urgently in his ear, probably warnings to stay quiet, to show no reaction. The boy’s eyes are wide with confusion, too young to understand the performance required for survival.

The convoy captain signals for faster movement, sensing the dangerous undercurrent in this crowd’s silence. These people remember too much.Feeltoo much. Their compliance is surface-deep, kept under control only by fear.

The second settlement is larger. Millhaven, built around a cluster of grain mills powered by a rushing river. Here, the Authority has clearly prepared for our arrival. Officials have gathered the expected crowd, coaching them in the proper responses.

“Death to the enemies of order!” They chant the words, but they sound forced. Most of the voices belong to younger people. Those who have only known Authority rule, who have been raised on stories of Veinblood terror.

But behind the orchestrated display, I see the real audience. Faces in upper windows, quickly withdrawn when guards look up. An old miller who stops his work to stare, his expression neutral, but his grip tight on his tools. A grandmother who pulls her grandson away from the front of the crowd, shielding him from seeing what they’ve done.

A few stones are thrown, but they fall short. The guards don’t seem to notice that most come from the same handful of vocal supporters, thrown again and again to keep the illusion of anger.

“Justice is served!” one of the Authority officials shouts, but his voice breaks slightly on the words. Even some of the guards look uncomfortable, their eyes avoiding the cage as they march through the village.

I catch parts of whispered conversations as we pass.

“—that really him? He looks half-dead?—”

“—remember when he helped us during the river flooding?—”

“—hush, don’t let them hear you?—”

The performance continues, but underneath it runs a current of suppressed grief and remembered loyalty that the Authority cannot fully erase.