A sharp, biting pain crept along his cheekbone, sending razor-sharp needles stabbing toward his jaw joint and ear. Mart groaned. A cold, rough surface pressed against the other side of his face. He struggled to open his heavy eyelids.

Dead eyes stared back at him. Green, full of life, yet so lifeless.

A shiver ran through his chest as his heart clenched painfully. “Vince?”

Mart dragged himself upright. It felt as if his insides were being roughly torn out while his gaze locked onto the steel pipe piercing straight through Vince’s stomach.

“Vince!” His voice broke. Tears blurred his vision and quickly streamed down his cheeks. He crawled toward his friend. They hadn’t known each other long, but... he had liked him. His trembling fingers brushed against Vince’s sleeve. Before he could desperately lean over the boy, someone grabbed his arm and yanked him to his feet.

“Not a step closer, you nobody.”

Mart was as startled by the man who grabbed him as by the insult. It had been at least ten years since his mothers had taken him out of the Cradle of the Lost, and since then his status as an orphan had officially vanished. Only an unforgivable crime could undo that. And he hadn’t... he hadn’t done anything, had he?

His gaze snapped back to Vince’s lifeless body, to the grim pipe sticking out of his belly. Just moments ago, they had been playing knights there, jumping over all the junk on the grounds of this abandoned factory, shouting and laughing like they were twelve. Sometimes they just needed that: to shake off their responsibilities and be kids again for a little while. Aravin and—

Aravin.

Wildly, Mart looked around. Where was his best friend?

The boy stood a few meters away, staring with an ashen face at Vince’s corpse. The bushes separating the grounds from the road were withered, even shriveled.

A hard shove made him stumble forward. Mart fell, scraping his knees on the ground. The man who held him roughly pulled him back up. “Keep moving, rust boy.”

For a moment, his eyes met Aravin’s before his best friend turned his head away and left him to his fate.

Mart grabbed his pillow, pressed it to his face, and screamed. Always those damn memories, intertwining with his dreams, with every thought, with every cursed breath. Yearning for the smothering silence of the pillow, knowing he would never find it, he hurled it across his cell.

He took a deep breath and hated that simple act.

If only he could stop. But no.

By some curse, he couldn’t die. He had tried to suffocate himself, to hang himself. Had gone three months without food or water, and though he had felt as weak as a rag then, he was still alive. They were letting him rot here, for eternity.

He collapsed back onto his bed and stared at the steel ceiling. Like a shadow you could never shake off, the image of Vince pressed back into his mind. He didn’t know how much of his memories were real; sometimes it felt like they had a life of their own. As if they warped reality a little more each time, so he could justify what he had done. If I did anything at all.

There was a huge gap between the moment they had just been fooling around, the three of them, and the moment he opened his eyes to see that body lying there. Although at first he had refused to believe it and stubbornly insisted he was innocent, that his best friend had played him a trick to eliminate a rival, an increasingly sickening doubt gnawed at him.

Maybe he had rammed that steel pipe through Vince’s stomach, and his brain just wanted him to forget. To protect him from himself. Which made no sense, since not knowing tormented him just as much. The constant questions were maddening. Am I really a murderer? Why on earth would I want to kill that new kid I actually liked? Was it an accident? But then why didn’t Aravin stand up for me and why does he act like I don’t exist? Did my best friend set me up after all? But why? Why, why, why? Just because of Alyss? Yeah — Mart had known his friend was jealous. Somehow he had just felt it. But he never thought he— that he...

Stop, Mart. It was pointless. Day in, day out, he obsessed over it, and the answers were as far out of reach as his freedom.

Mart let the water drain from the basin, grabbed the towel delivered weekly via the food chute, and dried himself off. There were worse dungeons, he told himself yet again. At least in the books he’d read. Damp underground complexes with no furniture, with chains forcing prisoners to sit in their own filth. It wasn’t that bad here. He could wash, go to the toilet, had a bed, a chair, and sometimes a book. But the lack of daylight, fresh air, and another living soul made his world so small, so lonely. And the hopelessness of his situation weighed heavily on him.

Every day was the same. Endlessly long.

Mart hung the towel over the chair’s backrest and swung his arms to loosen his muscles. On days when his lethargy was bearable, he did a series of exercises to help get through the day easier. He was just doing sit-ups when he heard a sound.

Sounds were rare here. Instantly, he sat upright and listened. Shuffling. Or no... soft thuds. What could that be? Footsteps? Was someone coming?

Mart stood up. In all these years, he had never seen another prisoner, as if everyone was kept away from him. He walked to the part of his metal cage that faced the hallway and gripped the thick bars.

In the dimly lit corridor, he indeed saw someone approaching. No, there were two. His shoulders and arms stiffened. After all this time, seeing someone… It was as if the gears holding his soul and body together stalled. His mouth went dry and suddenly he felt dizzy. He squeezed the cold metal bars tighter.

The shadows stopped in front of him. One of them broke into a sob, cutting through the fog in Mart’s mind all at once.

Alyss.

Her hands wrapped around his. They were warm, so warm. His legs went weak, his whole world wobbled. On reflex, he pulled his hands back and stumbled backward.

His gaze shot to the person beside her, but without seeing their face, he already knew who it was.

“What are you doing here?” His voice was hoarse, like a stranger’s. Even speaking hurt, though maybe it was because emotions clawed at his throat.

Alyss wiped her eyes. “Mart… I…” She looked away. “He…”

“We’re here to get you out,” Aravin said. He avoided his gaze.

Still. And just like during those countless hours of brooding, Mart couldn’t tell what that evasive look meant — guilt or disgust?

Mart swallowed hard. As much as he had hoped for a change in his life, this... this was just impossible. His lungs felt tangled; he couldn’t breathe. He stepped back until his calves hit his bed, and he sank down onto it.

A rattling noise sounded. Alyss turned a wheel, and the cell door slowly slid open. Mart stared at the widening gap. He wanted them to stay away, to leave him alone. The pain of the past years had ebbed and flowed, but now it flared hot again.

Something stirred inside him, behind his breastbone.

Something unwelcome, like an intruder. It gathered and spread again, sending a network of regret through his body that he didn’t understand.

His gaze flicked to Aravin, who was still looking down, his brown hair falling over his eyes.

Alyss stepped through the narrow opening. She walked toward him with slow, cautious steps, as if he were a caged animal that might lash out, clawing her open.

Or shove a steel pipe through her stomach.

He watched her silently. Finally, she knelt before him and looked up. Tears glistened in her blue eyes. Her golden-blonde hair framed her delicate face, sharper-featured than he remembered.

Her full lips trembled. “May I… may I please hold you?”

Mart stiffly shrugged his shoulders, though a shiver ran through him. To be held by her—that was what he had dreamed of for so long. But… “Why now? I’ve been here for five years.”

She sighed shakily and glanced over her shoulder.

“That’s my fault,” Aravin said. “I’ll explain later. We have to get out of here. I bribed the guards, but you never know…”

Bribed the guards?

He wasn’t being released. They were here to break him out.

After five years. Five horrible years.

“After all this time, you might as well have left me here,” Mart muttered.

“It was never supposed to take this long. Things… didn’t go as planned. Come with us. Please. I know you hate me, and if you want to slit my throat later, go ahead. Just as long as we get out of here. Alyss needs you.”

Mart looked again at the girl kneeling before him. A woman now, she was. He used to long for her touch, his heart racing wildly whenever she sought his closeness. But now… He felt like a cracked vase, ready to shatter at the slightest touch. So he didn’t answer Alyss’s question.

His gaze drifted to the open door. They were really offering him a way out. The reason was a mystery, and it was clear he couldn’t continue the life he had before. Maybe he could reach one of the oases, get a wealth meter there, and build a new life in anonymity. Life there seemed hard—though he had never left Tranendal—but what else could he do? Stay here? Somewhere, it bruised his pride to accept help from the one who might have condemned him to this imprisonment. But he wanted out. He had been willing to die for that, so he could handle this too.

“Alright,” he muttered. “I’ll come with you.”

He’d figure out the rest later.