Chapter 2 – Silence Behind Bars
"Name?"
The guard’s breath reeked of wine and rust. Lia stared past him, silent.
He slammed his fist into the iron bars. "Name, girl."
No response.
She knelt beside the straw pallet, examining the prisoner on the next cot—an older man with burns along his ribs.
“Don’t touch him!” the guard snapped.
She lifted a soaked bandage, then turned her back.
The man groaned. "Let her work, you drunk ox."
The guard cursed, but didn’t stop her.
Three years passed like that.
No words. No tears. No mistakes.
They called her Mute Rose.
She became a ghost in Black-Stone Prison: the girl who never spoke, who lanced abscesses with a sharpened spoon and stitched wounds with threads pulled from her hem. Her silence earned her privacy, and privacy birthed preparation.
At night, when the others groaned or screamed, Lia carved.
A stolen splinter. A crude formula. Scratched into her bunk:
**Wolfbone compound: neutralize with blackroot / dissolve in saltwater / fails in moonlight.**
She memorized every patrol rotation, every guard’s limp, every time the food cart rattled too close to cell #49.
Still no words.
Until one night.
"Medic!" a voice cried down the corridor.
The guards ignored it.
"She's bleeding out!" another prisoner yelled.
Lia rose. She knew the symptoms: ruptured uterus. Maybe miscarriage.
She slipped her satchel under her dress, moved fast.
But at the door, a new guard stepped into her path. Tall. Clean armor.
“Orders are clear,” he said. “No inmate leaves cell after dark.”
Lia looked up.
Silver eyes.
Time stopped.
The last time she'd seen those eyes, they’d been filled with ash and hesitation.
He didn’t recognize her.
“Return to your cot,” he ordered, voice clipped.
A chorus of screams echoed down the hall. Lia didn’t move.
“I said—”
She held out her hands, palms open.
A gesture that said: *Let me help. Let me do what I do.*
For a moment, those eyes narrowed.
Then, reluctantly, he stepped aside.
She ran.
By the time she returned, hands soaked in blood and stomach bile, the boy was gone.
But his face stayed with her.
Cadet Thorne.
No longer a boy.
Now a man. A commander.
The rumor spread days later, whispered between cracked lips and scabbed jaws:
**The new Wolfbone General walks the halls.**
**Silver-eyed. Emotionless. Ruthless.**
Lia stitched a new thread into her pillow: his name.
Karl.
---
“Wake up, Mute.”
A boot nudged her ribs.
Lia blinked, then sat up slowly. Two guards stood there, unsmiling.
“You’ve been requested. Personal transfer.”
She didn’t ask where.
Didn’t flinch when the shackles clicked again.
The wagon rattled like old bones over dry stone.
Outside, desert winds howled like the ghosts of her clan.
Inside, Lia counted her breaths and touched the place where her splinter notes were hidden—beneath a fold of cloth in her waistband.
**This is not the end.**
**This is the turn.**
When they pulled her from the wagon, the sun blinded her.
But not enough to miss the insignia on the fortress gate.
Bloodclaw Legion.
And standing before it—
Silver eyes.
Older now.
Colder.
But still the same heartbeat.
Still alive because of her.