Chapter Twelve — No Allies, Only Hunger
They kept the cell full.
Always full.
Every few days — though Lucien had long since lost count of time — the iron door would creak open and cold, unfeeling hands would shove new bodies inside.
New prisoners.
Some looked as broken as the ones already there. Others still burned with the defiant fire of the untested — those who had not yet understood what this place truly was. Their clothes matched Lucien's: faded, sand-crusted tunics and worn sandals stiffened with old sweat and blood. It confirmed what he had begun to suspect.
They had all once fought on the same side.
And now?
Now they were enemies.
Lucien said nothing to them.
He offered no help. No advice.
He just watched.
Like a wolf watching lambs stumble blindly into the pit.
Some newcomers begged. They pleaded in tongues Lucien did not understand. They cried for family. They prayed.
It did not matter.
The cell did not care for prayers.
The men in it did not care for language.
There was only food.
And who had the strength to take it.
Lucien no longer waited.
When the slot in the door scraped open and the trays slid inside, he moved first.
He struck hard. Without warning. Without guilt.
No longer fighting just for scraps — he took what he wanted.
He had grown efficient. Fast. Deadly, even without weapons.
A palm strike could break a nose.
A twist of the arm dislocated elbows in a blink.
A brutal kick drove knees collapsing in screams.
He didn't share.
He didn't apologize.
Others had learned.
They moved aside when they saw him coming — if they could.
If they didn't, they starved.
That was the rule now.
No rules.
No order.
No alliances.
Just survival.
And every time the door opened to bring in new prisoners, Lucien saw the cycle replay.
At first, the fresh ones grouped together — hopeful, still believing in structure, in rescue, in reasons.
That someone might come.
That this was temporary.
Lucien never explained.
He just watched them fall apart.
A day. Two at most.
Then the fights started.
The begging. The stealing. The shaking hands.
Hunger always won.
Those too weak to hold what they took shrank into corners. They became smaller, quieter, until they ceased to be.
Lucien learned not to remember their faces.
Too many came and went.
Some died silently.
Some fought to the end — dragged out by guards, limbs broken and twisted.
He didn't mourn.
There was no space left in him for mourning.
Not after what he had seen.
Not after what men did to each other here.
There were no women in the cell. None since he arrived.
At first, that absence felt like relief.
Then he saw its meaning.
Some prisoners — older, stronger, hungrier in ways deeper than their empty stomachs — began to look at weaker men differently.
Quietly at first.
A hand that lingered too long.
A shadowy corner growing too dark.
Then more openly.
Lucien heard screams.
He heard begging.
The second time, he looked.
And something inside him shattered.
These were not monsters.
They were men.
Men who had worn the same clothes.
Marched beneath the same banners.
Fought for the same side.
And now?
They did this.
Because the cell did not care who you were.
It only broke you.
Lucien knew that if he let his guard slip if he showed even the slightest weakness he would become their next prey.
He had to stay sharp. Stay cold. Stay hard.
Because in this place, mercy was a death sentence.
And the hunger?
The hunger was never just for food.
It was for power.
For control.
For the desperate illusion that, if you could take from others, you might hold onto something — anything — that made you more than a broken shadow.
Rowan swallowed the bitter truth.
This was no Trial for strength or honor.
This was a Trial of survival.
Of becoming less than human.
Of losing everything — except the will to fight.
Even if it meant becoming the monster he feared.
Because in the end, there was only one rule here:
Eat or be eaten.
And Rowan was not ready to be eaten yet.