The camp smelled of smoke, sweat, and iron. The firelight threw sharp angles across faces, highlighting the harsh lines of men who had long forgotten softness. Ares clutched his mother's hand, small and trembling, feeling the warmth of her resolve, even as fear tried to crawl beneath his skin.
The captain moved among the men, a figure carved of authority and danger. Every step he took spoke of a world ruled not by right or wrong, but by fear and obedience. Aris—no, Ares—watched him with a gaze sharpened by instinct. Each movement was measured. Each glance, deliberate. Ares noted it all. Every detail might matter one day.
Eliza had pressed him close when they entered the camp. "Watch and learn," she whispered. Her hands smoothed over his hair, her voice steady despite the dark pulse of panic beneath it. "Every man here has rules, even if you can't see them. Observe. Survive."
Chains clicked behind them as they were led to the outer edges of the camp. Slaves moved like shadows, eyes downcast, limbs heavy with exhaustion and fear. Some glanced at Eliza, then quickly turned their heads. They were alive, but only because the world had told them to obey. Ares felt the bitter weight of that lesson sink into him.
That night, as the fire burned low, Eliza did something she had kept hidden—a small knife, folded and worn, tucked in the folds of her dress. Her fingers brushed it as she spoke to him in whispers. "This is for protection. If the moment comes… you must be ready."
Ares's small hands itched to touch it, to understand the sharp certainty it represented. His mother's eyes met his, carrying the gravity of someone who had survived storms beyond his comprehension. The knife was not just metal—it was hope, defiance, and a measure of control in a world that had taken everything from them.
The men slept, but not all. Shadows shifted along the edges of the camp, and Ares saw the half-seen cruelty in the eyes of those who did not hold power yet understood how to wield fear in subtle ways. Whispers, glances, a push here, a shove there—the small, silent violence that made chains heavier than steel.
Ares noticed the youngest of the slaves, Edmund, a boy older than him, too eager to please. He laughed at the wrong moments, offered assistance when it was not asked for, and moved through the camp like someone who had learned that survival sometimes meant pleasing monsters. Ares did not yet know the full extent of Edmund's cunning, but he felt the tension that radiated from him.
Eliza's face hardened as she spoke. "They are worse than wolves," she said softly. "Remember this. Nothing they teach is fair. Nothing is sacred."
Ares nodded, gripping the small knife she had pressed into his palm. It was heavier than it looked, not in weight, but in the promise it carried. He felt the first seeds of understanding: the world could take life in countless ways, and the strongest sometimes survived only by taking what was theirs before the world took it first.
The night stretched on. Firelight flickered over faces, casting some into brilliance, others into shadow. Every shadow became a story, every movement a possible threat. Ares could feel his heart thudding, but he also felt something else: clarity. Survival was no longer abstract. It had teeth, and soon he would learn how to use them.
Then came the first hint of opportunity.
Edmund moved too close to one of the chained slaves, brushing past with a mock politeness that carried an undertone of something darker, something Ares did not yet name. He watched, his small body tense, ready to act. His mother's hand pressed against his back, a silent reassurance, a reminder that observation was power.
Ares realized something important: the men who ruled the camp could crush bones and spirits alike, but the men who followed blindly, who ignored suffering, were no better. Their silence made them complicit. And one day, he thought coldly, he would not forget any of it.
The night deepened, the camp fell into an uneasy quiet, and Ares's eyes did not close. He memorized the positions of the guards, the sleeping forms of the men, the shadows that lingered at the edges of light. He understood that every detail mattered, and that knowledge was as sharp a weapon as any knife.
Then came the sound—a twig snapping underfoot, a faint shuffle. Someone stirred among the sleeping men. Ares tensed, hand brushing the small knife's hilt. He could not yet strike, not without guidance, not without understanding, but he felt the pulse of possibility.
His mother's voice was a breath in his ear. "Patience. Wait for the right moment."
Ares's heart beat with anticipation and fear. He understood something essential: survival required patience, cunning, and the willingness to act when the world did not expect it.
A wolf howled somewhere beyond the camp, a long, hollow note that seemed to carry the weight of everything that had happened and everything yet to come. It reminded Ares that the world had teeth and claws in more forms than one.
He pressed the knife closer to his palm, feeling the cold certainty of metal and the responsibility it represented. The fire flickered, shadows danced, and for the first time, Ares felt that he was no longer just a boy being dragged through cruelty—he was a participant in his own destiny.
And then a shadow moved at the edge of the firelight—a figure neither fully human nor fully beast, moving with intent.
Ares froze. His mother's hand gripped his shoulder. Breath caught. The camp held its collective exhale, as if time itself had paused.
Something was coming. Something that would change everything.
And Ares, small, ten years old, with nothing but a mother's guidance and a hidden knife, understood that the first act of the story he would write with his own hands was about to begin.