The cell was always too quiet after punishments. The silence pressed in on Anya, broken only by the slow drip of water from somewhere in the dark, the scuttling of rats bold enough to move freely where the captives could not. Pain throbbed in her ribs where the guard's boot had struck, each breath shallow and careful.
But she wasn't alone.
In the far corner, huddled against the stone, sat another captive. Anya hadn't spoken to her before. Most of the prisoners didn't last long enough to trade more than a glance. But this one was different.
Her name was Hella. She was older—seventeen, maybe eighteen—and there was something in her eyes that unsettled Anya. Not fear, not despair. Something sharper. Calculating. Hella had survived longer than anyone else in the cage, and survival left its mark.
That night, while the guards slumped into their drunken stupor, Hella leaned close, her whisper threading through the darkness.
"Listen," she breathed. "The walls aren't the only things that keep us trapped."
Anya blinked at her, unsure. "What do you mean?"
"Watch the patterns," Hella continued, her voice low, steady. "When they bring food. When they change guards. Learn the marks on the walls—the ones you think are scratches. They're not. They're messages. Reminders left by those before us."
Anya turned her head, squinting through the dim. She had seen the lines carved into the stone, faint grooves beneath the grime, but she had thought them meaningless. Signs of boredom, desperation. But now she wondered.
"There are others," Hella whispered, her eyes flicking toward the shadows as if even the stones might betray her. "Ones who disappear. Not the ones they kill—not those poor souls. The ones who are taken."
Anya shivered. "Taken where?"
"Some say by princes," Hella murmured, her gaze distant, as though she were seeing far beyond the cell walls. "Princes in distant lands. Rulers who want servants. Or soldiers. Or something else entirely. I don't know what's true. But I know they don't all die here. And if there's a way out, even if it's dangerous… it might be worth it."
The words hung heavy in the air, more frightening than comforting. Yet Anya clung to them.
Seeds. That was what they felt like—seeds planted in the soil of her mind. Legends of kingdoms across the sea, of powerful men who could tear lives apart with a glance, of others who had vanished into the unknown. She didn't know if it was hope or another kind of trap, but it gave her something to hold onto.
She listened. Every night, she listened.
To Hella's whispers.
To the guards' laughter.
To the restless creak of the walls as if the prison itself shifted in its sleep.
And with each secret she gathered, with every shard of knowledge tucked away inside her, Anya felt herself changing.
The nail in her fist had been her first weapon.
But words—stories, patterns, legends—these might be sharper still.