The transition from the void back to the physical world felt like a slow drowning in liquid lead. Luigi Twac gasped, a sound that emerged from his throat as a wet, pathetic rattle. His lungs burned with the sudden intake of air that was thick with the cloying, sweet rot of a thousand decomposing bodies. For a long moment, he could not move, he simply lay there as the weight of the corpses above him pressed down like the judgment of a dead god. The coldness of the limbs tangled with his own was indistinguishable from the chill of his own skin. He was a fragment of royalty buried in a mountain of refuse.
"Wake up, you piece of filth," a voice echoed from high above the pit, followed by the sharp, rhythmic cracking of a whip.
Luigi flinched, the sudden movement sending a white-hot spike of agony through his side. He reached down instinctively, his fingers brushing against a jagged, open gash along his ribs. It was not the clean separation of the blade he remembered from his execution, but a ragged, infected tear that pulsed with every heartbeat. He looked at his hands through the dim, filtered light of the moon. They were small, skeletal, and caked in a thick layer of grime and dried blood.
"This is not my body," Luigi whispered, his voice cracking. "What have they done to me?"
The realization hit him with more force than the King’s sword. He was no longer the silver-haired prince of Aetheris. He was trapped in the vessel of a boy, a slave whose memories of hunger and misery flickered at the edges of his consciousness. The name Boru drifted through his mind like a ghost, a hollow identity for a hollow body. He was the lowliest of the low, a scavenger of the dead, now discarded amongst the very thing he used to collect.
"Is anyone still breathing down there," the guard shouted from the rim of the pit. "Move, or the hounds get to choose their first bite."
The sound of deep, guttural growls vibrated through the air. Luigi froze as he heard the frantic scratching of claws against the stone walls of the pit. The guard dogs of Veridian-Xylos were not mere animals; they were starved beasts trained to recognize the scent of fear and the stillness of the dead. He knew that if he remained motionless, he would be shredded before he could even stand.
"I will not die twice in one night," Luigi hissed through gritted teeth. "Not in a hole like this."
He began to crawl, pushing aside the stiffened arms and bloated torsos that blocked his path. Each movement was a battle against the searing pain in his side. He needed to close the wound, or the scent of his fresh blood would act as a beacon for the hounds. His hand brushed against something metallic and sharp near the waist of a fallen slave. It was a rusted sewing needle, still threaded with a coarse, dirty string of hemp.
"Hold steady," he commanded himself, his breath coming in shallow, ragged bursts. "You have felt worse than this. You have felt your own life pulled out of you."
He slumped against the cold, damp wall of the pit, shielding himself from the view of the guards above with the torso of a large man who had recently perished. He gripped the rusted needle, his fingers trembling from the cold and the shock. There was no alcohol to numb the skin, no clean water to wash away the filth. There was only the necessity of survival.
"Do it now, Boru," he muttered, using the slave’s name as if it were a shield against his own royal pride.
He pushed the needle through the edge of the jagged skin. The sensation was like a bolt of lightning striking his hip. He let out a muffled groan, biting down on his own sleeve to keep from screaming. The coarse thread dragged through his flesh, a slow and agonizing friction that made his vision swim with black spots. He pulled the stitch tight, watching as dark, sluggish blood bubal out around the hemp.
"Keep going," he urged, his voice a mere tremor. "One more. Just one more."
He forced the needle back through the other side, his heart hammering against his ribs. The pain was visceral, a raw and primal reminder that he was truly alive. He could feel the infection already brewing in the wound, the heat of it radiating against his cold hands. By the time he reached the fifth stitch, his tunic was soaked in a fresh layer of perspiration and gore. He tied off the thread with a clumsy knot, his head falling back against the stone wall as he struggled to maintain consciousness.
"The hounds are hungry tonight, captain," a second voice called out from above, followed by a cruel laugh. "Let the leashes go. Let them clear the top layer."
The sound of the gate clicking open sent a jolt of adrenaline through Luigi’s veins. He heard the heavy thuds of the dogs landing on the piles of corpses. Their panting was loud and wet, punctuated by the snapping of bone as they began to feed on the outer edges of the mass grave. He had to move. If he stayed in the shadows of the wall, they would eventually find him by scent alone.
"Hey, over here," a faint, dying voice whispered from a few feet away.
Luigi turned his head slowly, seeing a young girl lying half-buried under a pile of limbs. Her eyes were wide with terror, her small hand reaching out toward him. She was another slave, one who had clearly survived the initial purge only to be thrown here.
"Help me," she whimpered, her voice barely audible over the snarling of the hounds.
Luigi looked at her, his expression hardening into a mask of cold indifference. The prince he once was might have felt a flicker of pity, but the man who had been disemboweled by his own father had no room left for mercy. He knew that if he tried to help her, her cries would draw the dogs directly to his location.
"Be quiet if you want to live," Luigi whispered back, his voice devoid of warmth. "The dogs are coming."
"I can't move my legs," she sobbed, her fingers scratching feebly at the dirt. "Please, don't leave me."
"Your legs do not matter anymore," Luigi said, his eyes scanning the pit for an escape route. "Only silence matters now."
He turned away from her, ignoring the desperate clutching of her hand at his ankle. He began to climb the far side of the pit, using the protruding bones and tangled clothing of the dead as makeshift handholds. The stench was overwhelming, the gases of decomposition hissing as he disturbed the bodies. Above him, he could see the silhouette of a guard pacing the perimeter, the glow of a neural-binding lantern casting long, flickering shadows across the landscape.
"I smell something fresh," the guard muttered, stopping his pace directly above where Luigi was climbing. "The dogs are getting excited."
Luigi froze, his body pressed flat against the wall. A massive hound, its fur matted with blood and its eyes glowing with a supernatural red hue, bounded onto a pile of corpses just three feet below him. It sniffed the air, its snout wrinkling as it caught the metallic scent of his fresh stitches. It turned its head, its predatory gaze locking onto the shadow where Luigi hid.
"Easy, beast," Luigi thought, his hand slowly reaching for a heavy, jagged piece of broken crystal that lay embedded in the wall. "Don't make a sound."
The hound let out a low, vibrating growl, its hackles rising. It prepared to spring, its powerful hind legs tensing for the jump. Just as the beast opened its maw to let out a bark, a sharp cry erupted from the other side of the pit. The young girl had finally broken under the pressure, her screams echoing off the stone walls.
"There! Over there, you brutes," the guard shouted, pointing his lantern toward the source of the noise. "Go on! Get her!"
The hound below Luigi spun around, distracted by the easier, louder prey. It leaped across the pit with terrifying speed, joined by its pack mates. Luigi watched with a grim, hollow feeling in his chest as the shadows of the dogs converged on the girl. Her screams were cut short by a sickening crunch, followed by the wet sounds of tearing flesh.
"Forgive me," Luigi muttered, though his heart felt no weight of guilt. "Your death bought me my life. I will not waste it."
He used the distraction to haul himself over the lip of the pit. He rolled onto the hard, cold ground of the outer rim, pressing himself into the tall, blackened grass of the Veridian-Xylos outskirts. The guards were occupied with the spectacle in the pit, their laughter drowning out the sound of his heavy breathing.
"What a waste of a good slave," one guard remarked, spitting into the darkness. "But at least the dogs are quiet now."
"Check the rest of the perimeter," the captain ordered. "We move out at dawn."
Luigi didn't wait to hear the rest. He stayed low to the ground, his new, small body moving with a frantic, desperate energy through the shadows. The pain in his side was a constant, throbbing reminder of his mortality, but the cold fire of revenge burned even brighter. He looked back one last time at the city of crystal, its spires gleaming like the teeth of a monster in the moonlight.
"You thought you killed the prince," Luigi whispered into the wind, his eyes burning with a heterochromatic intensity. "But you only gave the monster a new skin."
He disappeared into the darkness of the trees, the image of his father’s descending blade burned into the back of his mind. The impact of death had not broken him; it had forged him into something far more dangerous than a pangeran. He was a ghost in the body of a boy, and the kingdom of Aetheris was about to learn that some graves are never deep enough.
Aksara