Chapter 2: Chains of the Weak

The iron shackles bit into Alexis's wrists, cold and unyielding. Each step he took sent a fresh wave of pain through his body, but he kept moving — because the alternative was death. The knights of the Holy Church did not tolerate weakness, but they despised defiance even more.

The caravan snaked through the charred remains of Vaelcrest. The kingdom was no more — its villages burned, its people slaughtered or taken as prisoners. Alexis shuffled alongside a line of survivors, though the word felt hollow. These were broken people, hollow-eyed and silent, their spirits crushed beneath the weight of loss.

He wondered if he looked the same.

The knight who led them — Commander Ulrich Veldan — rode ahead on a black steed, his silver armor gleaming in the morning sun. He never looked back at the prisoners. He didn't need to. The soldiers who flanked them were more than enough to keep them in line.

"Move faster!" one of the guards barked, slamming the butt of his spear into the back of an elderly man who stumbled. The man crumpled without a sound, and the line kept moving, stepping over his still form.

Alexis clenched his fists. But he didn't stop. He didn't speak.

Because the weak had no voice.

---

Days bled together in a haze of exhaustion and pain. They passed through ruined towns and forests stripped bare, and with every mile, their numbers dwindled. The sick and injured were left behind — or put down. Food was scarce, and water even more so.

Through it all, Alexis endured. He was used to hunger, to pain. But something deeper gnawed at him now — a hollow ache where his heart had once been. The faces of the dead haunted his every step.

Jareth. Elen. Maela.

The ones who'd given him kindness, now gone.

When the caravan finally stopped at a makeshift camp near the border, Alexis was barely standing. The prisoners were herded into a crude pen of wooden stakes, and the knights set up their gleaming tents on the opposite side — far from the stench of fear and despair.

He slumped against the fence, his breath ragged. The night air was cold, but the numbness inside him kept him from feeling it.

"You're tougher than you look."

The voice was low and rough, and when Alexis looked up, he saw a man crouching nearby — older, his face weathered and scarred. His eyes were sharp, but there was something almost kind in them.

"The name's Gareth," the man said. "And you?"

"Alexis," he murmured.

Gareth grunted. "You've got the look of someone who's lost everything. You planning on surviving, boy?"

Alexis didn't answer. He didn't know how.

But Gareth didn't press. "Stick close to me," he said instead. "The Church doesn't take prisoners for mercy. Whatever they've got planned… it won't be kind."

He was right.

---

The next day, the executions began.

The Church called it "cleansing" — a purge of heretics and demon sympathizers. The prisoners were dragged one by one before the Inquisitor, a thin, pale man with sunken eyes and a voice like rusted iron. Those who confessed were granted a swift death. Those who denied were made an example of.

By nightfall, the air stank of blood and burning flesh.

Alexis sat in the dirt, his wrists raw from the chains. Gareth sat beside him, silent and grim.

"We can't stay here," Gareth muttered. "If we wait for our turn, we're dead."

Alexis glanced at the fence. It was high, the stakes sharpened, and the guards were always watching. "How?" he whispered.

"Leave that to me," Gareth said. "When the time comes — you run."

---

The time came sooner than expected.

The attack hit just after midnight.

A group of bandits, drawn by the scent of blood and weakness, descended on the camp like wolves. The first arrow flew with a hiss, embedding itself in a knight's throat. Then the screaming started.

The camp erupted in chaos.

"Now!" Gareth hissed, yanking Alexis to his feet. He drove his shoulder into the wooden stakes, and the weakened wood cracked. Alexis scrambled through the gap, his heart pounding, and Gareth followed close behind.

They ran.

The forest swallowed them, the sounds of battle fading behind them. Alexis's lungs burned, his legs threatening to give out — but fear drove him forward.

They didn't stop until the sun rose.

---

By the time they reached the outskirts of Ravaryn, a crumbling border town, Alexis was barely conscious. Gareth carried him the last mile, cursing under his breath the entire way.

The town was no paradise, but it was a chance. A place where the strong ruled and the weak survived however they could. Gareth found work as a mercenary, and Alexis did whatever was needed to stay fed — cleaning stables, running errands, even stealing when it came to that.

Years passed.

He learned to fight — not well, but enough to survive. He learned when to stand his ground and when to run. He made friends, of a sort — Mira, a sharp-tongued pickpocket who taught him how to vanish in a crowd, and Thalos, a one-armed blacksmith who showed him how to hold a blade without cutting his own fingers off.

He even smiled, sometimes.

But the hollow ache never left. And the dreams… the dreams grew worse.

Visions of blood and fire. A woman's voice, calling his name. And eyes — red and endless, filled with power and hunger.

When he woke, his hands shook. And deep inside, something whispered.

Not yet.

---

The war found him again when he was seventeen.

The Holy Church declared Ravaryn a haven for heretics. The first wave of soldiers hit the town like a hammer.

Mira died in the first attack, cut down in the streets. Thalos's forge burned. Gareth fought — and fell.

By the time Alexis stood among the ruins of his second home, there was nothing left but ash and silence.

And when the knights dragged him to his knees before the Inquisitor's blade, the whisper inside him grew louder.

Not yet.

But soon.