Chapter 9– The Summons
The morning began as it always did—with the sound of chains.
Iron links scraped stone as the prisoners were dragged from the pit, shoved into the gray half-light of dawn. Elias rose slower than the rest, body stiff, throat burning with thirst. His shackles pulled him forward, forcing his stumbling feet across the cold ground.
The air was sharp, damp with the fading night. By midday, the quarry would turn into a furnace again.
The line of prisoners was herded toward the wall of stone. Elias shuffled forward, bare feet scraping raw against the gravel. His shoes had not survived long in this place—plain leather, never meant for sharp rock and endless days of toil. He had tried binding them with cloth when the seams first tore, but two days ago they had split apart completely, leaving his feet blistered and bleeding.
Now every step was punishment. Even the ground itself wants to break me, he thought bitterly.
His clothes fared little better. The shirt that had once been whole now clung stiff with grime and torn at the sleeves, while his trousers hung ragged, fraying at the edges. Everything about him screamed out of place among these broken men, and yet the quarry was remorseless.
The work began. Pick in hand, Elias swung with the others. The rhythm of labor blurred the hours into one endless strike of metal and ache of bone. His arms trembled, his palms split and bled, but he forced himself to keep pace. The lash waited for those who slowed.
He thought of the whisper from nights before—Orravia. The word had lodged in his mind like a thorn, sharp and unshakable. A name for this place. A tether in the dark.
The sun climbed. Heat pressed on his back, sweat stung his eyes. His vision blurred. His body moved by sheer will, nothing more.
Then, the rhythm broke.
A sharp voice rang across the quarry, commanding and clear. The guards stilled, prisoners froze mid-swing. Elias lifted his head, breath ragged.
A group of soldiers was crossing the yard—different from the ragged overseers who carried whips. These men bore polished steel, cloaks marked with a crest Elias did not know. The weight of their presence alone silenced the pit.
Their captain's gaze swept across the quarry before fixing on him. His arm lifted, pointing straight at Elias.
Rough hands seized him instantly, yanking him out of the line. His pick clattered against stone, abandoned.
Heart hammering, Elias stumbled as the guards dragged him forward, his raw feet screaming with each step. Why me? Why now?
Then it struck him—he had been dragged before once already. Days ago, to the hall where a lord had watched him like a specimen under glass. He remembered the cold eyes, the silent judgment. He had been spared then, sent back to the pit instead of ending on a blade.
And now, summoned again.
The captain barked, slower this time, words sharp as steel. Though Elias did not understand the language, the weight of them carried clear enough.
"Bring him to me."
The chains rattled as they pulled him away. Prisoners' eyes followed in silence, hollow and gray, watching him vanish from their ranks.
The pit, the dust, the rhythm of chains—behind him. Ahead, the summons of the lord whose shadow loomed over all of this.
And Elias knew—whatever waited for him there, it would not be mercy.