The days bled together, each one as merciless as the sun. But small things began to shift.
Kael still bore the weight of despair, but I felt it loosen in strange moments—when Tomas stumbled but kept rising, when another slave shared half a crust of bread, when a woman in the corner hummed a lullaby no one remembered the words to.
Even Kael's rage, once a fire consuming him from the inside, started to smolder differently. Not less, but redirected. It wasn't just against himself anymore. It was against the overseer, against the system, against the chains.
Rourke must have sensed it. He circled Kael more often, whip coiled like a snake, his grin daring him to strike. He thrived on that spark of rebellion, because he believed he could crush it just as easily.
One evening, when Kael's hoe slowed with exhaustion, Rourke leaned close, his voice low and venomous.
"You think I don't see it? That flicker in your eyes? You want to fight, don't you? Go on. Give me a reason."
Kael's hands tightened on the hoe. My own breath caught. I could feel him trembling on the edge of choice—the same edge where I had once stood on a rooftop, where Elias had sat with a pistol, where the boy had stared at the window.
But Kael swallowed hard, his voice rough. "Not today."
Rourke laughed, cruel and satisfied, walking away.
Kael's shoulders slumped. He hadn't chosen rebellion. He hadn't chosen rope. He had chosen to endure.
And in endurance, a different kind of strength was born.