They came for him at dusk.
Two guards in rust-colored cloaks, faces covered in cracked leather masks. One held a thick chain. The other a branded iron. Neither spoke.
The boy didn't fight.
He knew it was coming.
They shackled his wrists, chained his ankles, and dragged him through the tunnels like a stray dog. Other residents of the Chains shrank into the shadows. No one helped. No one looked twice.
Because when the guards came, you looked away. That was the first rule.
They led him through a tunnel he hadn't seen before narrow, dripping with foul-smelling moisture. The walls were carved with strange symbols, half-buried under layers of soot and time. Faint echoes hummed behind the stones, like someone was whispering prayers too old to understand.
At the end of the tunnel stood a gate.
Not like the others. This one was made of stone, not steel, etched with hands reaching up, fingers broken, eyes hollow.
The guards didn't open it.
They pushed him through it.
He fell.
The world turned upside down as his body tumbled down a narrow shaft, walls slick with moss and blood. He crashed onto something hard a platform? Bone? He didn't know. His arms screamed. His breath caught in his chest.
And then he heard it.
The crowd.
Above him, on ledges carved into the walls, dozens, maybe hundreds, of silhouettes leaned over the edge. Torches in hand. Faces hidden. Laughing. Cheering.
"New meat!"
"Bet he doesn't last a minute!"
"Look at him, tiny little rat!"
The boy stood. Slowly. Legs shaking.
The pit around him was a circle of stone. The center was stained dark. A ring. A cage without bars. Blood marked the lines like paint.
Across from him, a figure stepped out from the shadows.
Taller. Older. Shirtless. Scarred across the chest. Eyes like two burned coals.
His opponent.
A bell rang.
Not a chime. Not a gong.
It sounded like a scream made of iron.
The man charged.
The boy didn't run. Not because he was brave, but because he had nowhere to go. His eyes locked on the man's feet. His stance. His center of weight.
He wasn't strong. But he was fast.
He ducked the first punch. Spun. Threw a handful of ash into the man's face.
The crowd laughed.
The man snarled, swinging wildly. One fist caught the boy's side. Pain exploded through him. He hit the ground, gasping.
The man raised a foot, ready to stomp,
And then the stone cracked.
It was small. A whisper beneath the pit. But the boy felt it.
Something was wrong with the floor.
He rolled. The stomp missed. He scrambled back, one hand digging into the dust for anything.
And that's when he touched it.
Bone. Cold. Carved. Ancient.
A finger. No—a finger bone, too long for any human, etched with sigils that glowed faintly under his touch.
The moment he made contact, everything stopped.
The sound. The fire. Even the torches above dimmed.
The crowd's cheers turned to whispers.
And then, it spoke.
Not with words. With presence.
A voice deeper than thought. A feeling colder than death.
"You have touched a piece of the Divine.
I see you, child of ash.
I name you unworthy, yet still breathing."
The boy's vision blurred. His ears rang. Blood ran from his nose.
But he didn't let go.
"Do you seek escape?"
He didn't answer.
"Do you seek vengeance?"
Still silence.
"Do you seek… to rise?"
The boy opened his mouth.
And for the first time, he spoke not as prey, but as something beginning to change.
"I seek… to never kneel again."
The bone pulsed.
The pit floor cracked.
The crowd screamed as the torches burst into flame, blue fire, cold and wrong.
The man staggered back, eyes wide with horror. "What are you?!"
The boy stood.
Blood in his mouth. Ash in his eyes. And something old behind his shadow.
"I don't know."
"But I'm done being nothing."