~ Broken Forest, Silver's Shadow, 9846 ~
The cell door slammed, echoing through the stone corridors like a death knell. Calder hit the floor hard, his wings crumpling beneath him. The damp air bit into his skin, heavy with mildew and iron. For a long while, he just lay there—gasping, trembling, tasting blood.
His wrists burned from the cuffs. He tugged at them uselessly until his breathing broke into shallow, panicked bursts. Nothing. No spark. No flicker. The power that once pulsed faintly through his feathers was gone.
"Don't bother," a soft voice murmured.
Calder froze, eyes darting toward the sound.
In the far corner of the cell sat a girl—no, a young woman. She was maybe around his age, maybe older, with long brown hair spilling down her shoulders, and a tunic that shimmered faintly, like woven seaweed. Her skin, pale as driftwood, was traced with large pale blue patches that caught the dim light. Behind her, two sets of wings rested limply, feathers dulled by the gloom. Small antlers curved from her head, glistening.
She regarded him quietly, her brown eyes soft but unreadable. "You'll only hurt yourself," she added. "Those cuffs are enchanted. They block everything—even your strength."
Calder sat up slowly, chest still heaving. "Who are you?" he rasped.
"Adva," she said, voice even and calm, like water lapping against stone. "And you're loud."
He blinked at her, a growl rumbling low in his throat. "They took my mother," he hissed. "What was I supposed to do—sit quiet?"
Adva's gaze softened, but she didn't answer right away. Instead, she drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, wings shifting subtly as she studied him.
"I'm sorry," she said finally. "But screaming won't bring her back. Not here."
The words hit like a stone. Calder's wings twitched—a reflexive, angry shudder—but he said nothing. He turned his face toward the wall, jaw tight.
From her corner, Adva watched him. She didn't move closer, didn't comfort him, not yet. But something in her eyes changed, a quiet flicker of sympathy. She had seen this before: the new ones, broken from light into dark, still burning with fight before the cold set in.
After a long silence, she spoke again, softer now. "What's your name?"
He hesitated. "Calder."
"Calder," she repeated, tasting the word as if memorizing it. "You're a Rank One, aren't you?"
He glared at her over his shoulder. "So what if I am?"
Adva gave a small, almost sad smile. "Then you shouldn't even be alive."
"I know." He hissed at her.
Calder pressed his back to the cold wall, knees pulled to his chest. His feathers drooped, their usual luster dimmed beneath the dim torchlight. Every sound in the dark—the drip of water, the shuffle of chains from neighboring cells—made his chest tighten.
He didn't know how long he sat there before the lady spoke again.
"You should rest while you can."
Calder's head jerked up. "Rest?" His voice cracked, rough with disbelief. "They took my mother, and you want me to rest?"
Across the cell, Adva didn't respond right away. She sat cross-legged on the ground, her wings folded neatly behind her, eyes fixed on the faint light outside the bars.
When she finally spoke, her tone was calm but edged like glass. "Everyone in here has lost something."
Calder blinked, startled.
She turned to meet his eyes, her expression hard. "You're not the only one who's lost something important to them, boy. Parents, children, wings, freedom—pick one. None of us came here untouched."
Calder's feathers bristled. "You think that makes it easier?" he snapped.
"No." Her voice didn't rise. "It just makes it real."
For a long moment, the only sound was the faint clink of his chains as he shifted. Adva turned her gaze back to the stone wall, the pale blue patches on her arm catching the torchlight like cold water.
She sighed. "Listen—the sooner you understand how things work here, the better chance you have of surviving long enough to hate it properly."
He swallowed hard, the sting of her words cutting through the haze in his head.
"They feed us twice a day," she continued, steady. "Morning and night. After morning rations, they take everyone out to work. Where you go depends on your rank and gender. Higher ranks go above ground. Lower ranks…" she trailed off, her tone flattening, "are more unfortunate."
Calder's wings tensed, his feathers puffing as he drew them in. "And you just let them do that?"
Adva turned her head, gaze sharp now. "You can't fight iron with air."
He fell silent, the faint tremor in his hands betraying his anger.
"When the suns dip below the horizon," she went on quietly, "they'll herd us back. Dinner, then the torches go dark. Try to sleep, you'll need it."
Calder didn't answer. He just sat there, staring at the stone floor, his heart a storm he couldn't control.
Adva leaned back against the wall again, her voice softer now—almost tired. "Grieve later. Right now, you have to survive."
~
The torches hissed in their sconces, splitting pale light against black stone. Calder sat up on the floor of his cell, knees drawn up, wings heavy behind him. Adva rested on the opposite wall, quiet and still, the kelp-thread of her tunic catching what little light reached them.
The silence was broken with the sound of footsteps. Slow. Careful. Not the heavy boots of guards. Something different—deliberate.
Adva's eyes snapped open. She straightened, her wings twitching. Calder frowned, eyeing the lady, then the direction of the footsteps.
The figure appeared at the end of the corridor, shadow spilling before him like a living thing. Six black wings unfurled slightly, the faint shimmer of runic markings tracing along the decorated feathers. The man's presence alone made the air feel heavier.
The guards stepped aside, bowing deeply. He stopped in front of the cell, saying nothing. His eyes—sharp, pale blue like a frozen sea—moved between them, but lingered on Calder.
Calder didn't look away. He refused to. Even when every instinct screamed at him to bow his head, he lifted his chin instead.
The man's gaze deepened, studying him. For a heartbeat, Calder felt the air leave his lungs. Because looking into those eyes was like looking into a mirror. The same shade. The same cut of ice.
For a second, he saw himself standing there, staring back at him.
He blinked, and the image was gone. Just the man, hair as black as his wings, and skin as pale as the moon.
The silence between them pressed heavily against the stone.
Adva shifted nervously. "My king—"
"Quiet," he said softly, the words carrying enough weight to silence the world itself.
Calder's jaw tightened. "You're the one who rules this place?"
The king's expression didn't change. "That's what they call me." His voice was calm, deep, and detached.
Calder's feathers bristled slightly. He watched the king lower his gaze to them for a moment. "Then…why am I here?"
A pause. Then, with quiet finality:
"You shouldn't be."
Calder blinked. "Then—"
"Sleep while you can," the king interrupted, turning to leave. "Morning comes early here." His hand rummaged into the pouch around his leg, pulling out some dried meat.
He started away, but Calder called out, "What do you want from me?"
The king hesitated at the end of the corridor. The torches guttered, their flames leaning toward him. Without turning, he said, "Nothing." His shoulders moved with a shrug. The shadows hid the king's crooked smile.
And then he was gone—swallowed by his own shadow, the echo of his wings the only proof he'd ever been there.
Adva's breath came out shaky. "I wouldn't speak to him like that again," she whispered. "The king doesn't need a reason to make someone disappear.
Calder stared at the dark hall where the man had vanished. His heart slowed, fear subsiding. He could still see those eyes. His eyes.
Days blurred together after that.
Morning. Food. Work. Food. Sleep.
Repeat.
The rhythm carved itself into Calder's bones before he realized it. He stopped thinking about how much time had passed; only that the suns rose and fell, that the guards' keys always jingled before dawn, and that the chains always cut deeper when the cuffs shifted.
He learned the schedule Adva had told him of, not because she reminded him, but because the body had adapted when it had no choice but to.
Wake before the first sun crests the horizon. Bread that tasted like ash. Water that always tasted of iron. Then march to the caverns, hauling stones, clearing rubble, tending the forges. The king made him work among the lower ranks, mostly due to his oddity of being a Rank One.
Evening came when the second sun dipped low, and the shadows lengthened long enough to swallow everything whole. Then food again, thinner this time, and back to the cells.
Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep. Again and again.
Sometimes they talked. Mostly, Adva did.
She told him things in that soft, even tone of hers; things that made Calder feel cold inside.
She said some of the women here didn't work the mines. They worked for the guards instead, in the pleasure halls below the west wing. She didn't flinch when she said it, didn't even look away. Just said as if she were describing the weather.
Calder couldn't bring himself to ask if she'd ever been one of them. But she answered anyway.
"Yes," she said, voice flat. "It's better than the mines. Sometimes."
He didn't know what to say to that.
They talked of smaller things afterward. About the way the torches flickered when both suns set, or how the guards' boots echoed differently when it rained aboveground.
Sometimes new halfbreeds arrived, faces pale and frightened. Others were dragged out and never came back.
Once, one did. But not whole. Her wings were gone; sliced at the roots, leaving only two bleeding stumps.
Calder didn't sleep that night.
He learned quickly that most of the halfbreeds were low ranks, Threes and Fours mostly. He'd only seen maybe four others with two sets of wings, aside from Adva. The rest kept their heads down, too beaten or too scared to do anything else.
They were allowed to eat together, though. A single mercy. Adva said it was to keep those in isolation from going mad. Calder thought maybe it was worse this way. Seeing the others. Seeing what waited for them, day after day.
Every night, when the lights dimmed and the whispers faded, he found himself staring at the ceiling, thinking of his mother's voice, her hands in his hair, the sound of the door crashing down. The chains bit into his wrists, but he never stopped tugging at them.
The coming morning was different. They got released to eat, yet instead of ushering them to work, the guards moved them to the main courtyard.
It was silent out there. The kind of silence that pressed against the skin, thick and heavy, like the air before a storm.
Calder stood among the other halfbreeds, chains clinking whenever someone shifted. His breath fogged the chill morning air. The suns hadn't yet met the sky, and the world was caught in that pale, silver light between night and dawn.
The Winged gathers above them, filling the balconies of the stone courtyard. Shadows of wings fanned out against the walls, dark and beautiful and merciless. The smell of iron and cold stone mixed in the air.
When the gates opened, he felt his stomach twist. They dragged her out.
Citrine's steps faltered, but she held her head high, even with her wrist bound. Her white wings trailed behind her, feathers dulled with dust, but still impossibly bright against the grey courtyard.
The king followed, his expression unreadable. Calder couldn't tear his eyes from him, those same eyes that mirrored his own.
The king's voice cut through the air deep and steady. "By decree of the Sanctity of Blood and Rank, as well as the Sin of Halfbreeds, Citrine Agapov is sentenced to death by the Old Way."
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Calder couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. He felt Adva place her hand gently on his shoulder, yet he couldn't move his eyes away.
Citrine's gaze scoured the crowd, coming to rest for a moment on her son.
They forced her to her knees. Her hair fell over her face, hiding her eyes. The executioner stood ready, no hooded stranger, but the king himself.
The blade gleamed, catching the first light of dawn. Calder's heart pounded so loud he swore the guards could hear it. He wanted to scream. To run forward. To throw himself between them. But his chains held fast, and his body wouldn't obey.
The king raised the sword. For one breath, one single, fragile breath, he hesitated. Something passed over his face. A flicker of recognition. A tremor in his grip. The world seemed to still, as if the suns themselves waited.
Then duty won. The sword came down.
The sound, sharp, clean, final, echoed across the courtyard. Her head fell to the ground with a dull thud, blonde hair spilling like silk across the stone.
Calder didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't breathe. He just stood there, staring at the space where his mother had been, her blood already seeping into the cracks of the courtyard floor.
The roar of the crowd came a heartbeat later, but Calder didn't hear it. The crowd's roar was a distant hum, muffled by the fog in his brain. Calder's eyes stayed locked on the space. White feathers on grey stone, crimson seeping into the cracks.
She was gone. Gone, and there was nothing he could do. Nothing he did.
Chains dug into his wrists, biting harder with every tremor in his fingers. His instincts screamed at him to move, to lead forward, to tear through the line of guards. He tried. He willed his powers to flare. Nothing.
The chains shimmered, responding to his thoughts, and then…blocked him. Enchanted. Like a cold wall around his strength, around him. Every attempt to summon wind, to blaze the land, even to strain his muscles beyond capacity… denied.
Panic clawed at his chest. How? Why…? He had flown over mountains, fought Fellbears thrice his size to protect the cattle they had. But here, bound and powerless, he was nothing.
He glanced at the king. The blade still rested in his hand, though the crowd surged behind him, their cries echoing in the empty spaces of Calder's mind. If only…if only I could…
The thought of escape, any escape, became an obsession instantly. If he could just break free of these chains…if he could just touch the sky…he would find a way to save his kind from this torture.
His eyes swept the courtyard, seeking anything: a gap in the guards' line, a shadowed corner, a tool, a distraction. Anything. But the gates were closed, the Winged watching, and the enchanted chains held fast.
And still, something deeper inside him sparked. Rage. Not the hot, immediate fire, something slower, more terrible. A promise. They think they've won. They've made me helpless. But they haven't seen the last of me.
He drew a shaky breath, testing the limits of the chains, willing them to respond. The shimmer held, mocking him. But the seed of rebellion had taken root. He would escape. He would learn. He would rise.
And one day, they would all pay.