Page 36 of Stormvein

“What kind of order requires such cruelty?”

The convoy captain’s face reddens, but he’s trapped. These people aren’t defending the Shadowvein Lord directly, they’re questioning the Authority’s methods. Attacking them would only prove the point they’re making.

“Move out!” he barks instead. “Now!”

As the convoy moves through the square, I see tears on more than one face. One man raises his hand in a traditional gesture of farewell to a fallen warrior. Others see it and do the same, the gesture following us out of the village.

The mountains grow closer, looming over the convoy like silent sentinels. The air is thinner, colder. Breathing is hard, with broken ribs and fever burning through my lungs.

Rain falls when afternoon fades toward evening, cold drops sliding through the cage’s bars, adding bone-deep cold to the ledger of suffering. I have no shelter. No relief. Just more misery layered atop existing torment.

The road steepens, climbing into the foothills of the southern range. The convoy moves more slowly now, wagons struggling against the incline. Each time a wheel catches on rocks, it sends fresh spasms of pain through me.

We make camp in a sheltered valley, the convoy forming a defensive circle with the cage wagon at its center. Guards establish their watch rotations, and torches are lit.

Around midnight, movement in the shadows catches my attention. A figure creeps between the wagons, moving with the careful steps of someone trying not to wake the dead. One of the villagers from Greenvale, I realize, when he gets closer. The blacksmith who spoke out in the square. He must have followed the convoy into the mountains.

He reaches my cage and pulls a small bundle from beneath his coat. Bread. A skin of water. Clean cloth that might serve as bandages.

“Vareth’el,” he whispers. “I can’t stand to see this. You saved my family during the early purges, thirty-five years past. My father told me. You helped hide the children when the Authority first came for the Veinbloods.”

His hands shake as he pushes the items through the bars. “We thought you were dead. We mourned you. But seeing youlike this …” His voice breaks. “This isn’t justice for crimes committed. This is revenge for hope.”

I try to speak, to warn him, but only a croak emerges from my damaged throat. The food is beyond my ability to eat anyway, my mouth is too swollen, my throat is too raw. But the gesture itself is a balm to wounds deeper than flesh.

“No one should die like this,” he continues. “No one who fought for us should?—”

A guard’s shout shatters the night. “Intruder!”

Torches flare as soldiers converge on my cage. The blacksmith tries to run, but he stumbles, falling heavily to his knees as the soldiers surround him.

The convoy captain emerges from his tent, fully armed despite the late hour. His face hardens when he recognizes the man.

“You!” he snarls. “The troublemaker from the square.”

The blacksmith struggles to his feet. “I did nothing wrong.”

“Attempting to aid this enemy of the Authority is treason.” The captain’s voice is cold.

“He’s no enemy.” The blacksmith’s voice carries clearly across the camp. “He fought for us. Bled for us. He was once?—”

The sword falls before he can finish the sentence. The blacksmith’s words are cut short along with his life, blood spattering the ground beside my cage in dark pools that reflect the torchlight like accusation.

His eyes, still open in death, stare toward my cage. His face burns its way into my brain. Another loss to be added to the others. Another death I carry responsibility for. Another payment to be extracted from Sereven’s flesh.

“Dispose of the body,” the captain orders. “And double the watch. Anyone else who approaches dies.”

They drag the corpse away, leaving dark stains on the ground that remind me of the cost of compassion. Another life lost because someone saw suffering and couldn’t ignore it.

Quiet falls across the camp again, while I face another night without sleep. Another cycle of guards ensuring I remain conscious through every moment of suffering.

The fever ebbs slightly, bringing unwanted clarity. I would welcome delirium now. Anything to separate my mind from the relentless assault on my body.

Instead, I drift in a state of hyper awareness, each pain distinct and brilliant in its intensity. The broken ribs that make every breath an exercise in agony. The dislocated shoulder, swollen and throbbing. The brands on my chest and cheek, weeping clear fluid that stings when it meets open wounds. The whip marks. The missing fingernails. The burns. The bruises.

A symphony of suffering played across the instrument of my body.

Morning comes again. How many days now? Two? Three? Four?