The day began before the sun. It always did.
The first sound was the dragging of chains, the rasp of iron links grating against stone as the prisoners were pulled from the pit where they slept. Elias rose slower than the rest, his body aching from the previous day's beatings, his throat dry as if he'd swallowed sand. A guard yanked his shackle, jerking him forward, and he stumbled out into the gray half-light of dawn.
The air was cold, but he knew it wouldn't last. By midday, the sun would burn down with a cruelty that turned the quarry into a furnace.
Work began without words. The prisoners were driven toward the wall of stone, each handed a crude pick or shovel. The tools were rough things, splintered wood and iron heads notched from overuse. When Elias took his in hand, the bite of the wood against his raw palms made him wince. The wounds there had scabbed unevenly, reopened every time he gripped the handle.
A guard barked something sharp, guttural. Elias didn't understand the words, but the lash that cracked against a prisoner's back made the meaning plain enough. Work.
He raised the pick. Swing. Ring of metal. Pain up the arms. Again. Again.
Hours blurred together. Stone dust clung to his skin and clogged his throat. His arms shook after every blow, the weight of the tool turning heavier with each repetition. Around him, men worked in silence, their faces gray with exhaustion. Some collapsed. They were dragged away. Sometimes they came back the next day, weaker than before. Sometimes they didn't return at all.
Elias learned quickly that no one spared a glance. Sympathy was as dead here as hope.
By midday, the sun had risen high, beating against his back until sweat poured into his eyes. His vision wavered. He bit his lip, hard, tasting copper just to stay awake. When his body faltered, a guard's voice slashed through the haze.
"Mordas!"
The word was spat like a whip crack. Elias didn't know its meaning, but he recognized the way it always came before the lash. Move. Faster. Do not stop.
The word stuck in his head. Mordas. He repeated it silently, rolling the sound in his mind as though memorizing the shape might anchor him. It was the first word he knew for certain, born of pain and repetition.
The day dragged on. His body worked on instinct, arms swinging even as his mind swam in the heat. His breath rasped. He felt himself slipping toward collapse, but sheer stubbornness drove him onward.
When the sun finally sank low, the work ended as abruptly as it began. The prisoners were herded back into the pit, their steps stumbling, chains rattling in unison. Elias's legs quivered with every step, but he forced himself not to fall. Falling meant punishment. Punishment meant worse than pain—it meant the guards' eyes on him.
The pit was dark, foul with sweat and damp earth. Elias pressed his back against the wall, every muscle screaming, when a sound cut through the silence.
A whisper.
At first, he thought it was only the muttering of a broken man. The prisoner beside him shifted, lips cracked and bleeding, words spilling out in fragments. Elias leaned closer, straining to hear.
"...Orrav… ria…"
It was faint, half-delirious, spoken as though the man was somewhere far away. A memory? A dream? Perhaps just the last tether to a home long lost. The man's eyes stared past the stone, unfocused, as if he wasn't speaking to anyone at all.
But Elias heard it.
The sound struck him like a spark in the dark. His lips moved, clumsy, forcing the shape of the word.
"Orravia."
The prisoner flinched faintly, eyes flicking toward him. For a moment, Elias thought he had broken through. But then the man turned away, curling against the wall, as silent and hollow as before.
Elias sat in the dark, chest heaving. The mark beneath his skin pulsed once—so faint he wondered if it was real. And for the first time, he had something more than chains.
A name.
Not salvation. Not freedom. But a name.
Orravia.
And he swore to remember it.