Chapter Thirteen — The Rot Beneath the Stone
The heat was unbearable.
Not the dry desert heat from before—that had at least come with open skies, wind, and distance. This was wet heat. Sour and clinging, like something breathing too long in one place. The air didn't move. It stuck to his skin. Thick with sweat, piss, blood, and things unnamed because naming them made them real.
He'd stopped breathing through his nose long ago.
The stink was constant, but it shifted—evolved.
A week ago, it was the smell of men unwashed for too long, of torn flesh left to fester, of cracked leather and mold. Then it turned sweet, sickly, like something rotting beneath the floorboards of the world.
The bodies weren't removed right away.
Some died quietly in corners. Others curled up and stopped moving after days of starvation or fever. One man slit his own throat with a sharpened bone and bled for hours before anyone noticed.
The guards came eventually.
Not out of care.
Only to keep the stink from choking the corridor outside.
Rowan watched as they dragged corpses by ankles, dumped them into carts, and left.
No ceremony.
No burial.
Sometimes the dead weren't even dead yet.
He didn't look anymore.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't blink.
Because blinking meant weakness.
And weakness got you noticed.
The cell's floor was packed dirt, long since turned into sludge. Piss, blood, spit, vomit, and worse. It never dried—not in this heat, not with the weight of a hundred barefoot men pacing, fighting, dying. No drains. No buckets. The stink rose like steam from a swamp.
The corners were worst—dark, wet, alive with flies.
Rowan had once seen a rat crawl from a man's open stomach.
That had been the first week.
Now?
He'd kill for that rat. For the meat.
The water trough filled once a day, maybe twice. A shallow metal bowl near the barred door. Everyone fought for it. No lines. No order.
Just fists.
He drank only if he won.
Otherwise, he went thirsty.
The guards didn't speak. Or didn't care to.
They opened the door.
Kicked in a tray of dry bread.
Sometimes meat so rancid it moved on its own.
Once, Rowan found a beetle crawling in his portion.
He ate it anyway.
Everyone here looked like ghosts.
Ribs pressed tight beneath pale skin.
Eyes sunken deep in bruised sockets.
Lips cracked and black.
Clothes hanging like rags, soaked in sweat, fear, failure.
Underneath it all—the smell of man left too long to rot.
Rowan couldn't remember what clean smelled like.
Or home.
Or the sun on skin that wasn't blistered and broken.
He'd stopped dreaming.
Sleep came shallow and light, always in half-hour bursts.
Sleep too deep meant waking bruised. Or worse.
He made his corner work.
Stayed where the stone was cooler. Guarded his back.
Never fully lay down.
Curled around his food like a dog.
His body—or the body he inhabited—had grown leaner but still held more mass than most.
Bigger bones. Stronger legs. Wider shoulders.
That gave him an edge. He used it.
The others didn't bother him much anymore.
They'd tried. Once.
A group of three, when the food tray came short.
They thought numbers mattered.
Thought desperation could replace strength.
He cracked a skull on the wall.
Broke a jaw with his knee before the others pulled back.
Now they just watched from shadows.
Eyes hollow. Full of hate. But not courage.
Rowan didn't care.
Let them hate him.
Let them all die.
If that was what it took to get through this—whatever this was—he'd do it.
The worst part wasn't the heat.
Or the rot.
Or the fights.
It was the silence after.
When the others lay still.
When no one begged.
When the screams faded and breathing slowed.
When he sat alone in that dark corner and listened to the air pulse like a dying lung.
When the hunger stopped screaming and started whispering.
That was when it got dangerous.
That was when the thoughts came.
Who he used to be.
What he'd left behind.
What he'd become.
Whether he'd already died back in that desert…
…and this was just punishment.
Some Trial.
He couldn't tell anymore.
All he knew was the cell.
The heat.
The stink.
And that the next tray would come.
And he would be ready.
Always ready.