“Open the slot and keep your hands clear.”
The command snapped down the stone corridor before the torchlight reached the door. The wardens obeyed with the tidy fear of men who knew the room beyond was not a room at all but a throat that sometimes swallowed. A metal panel scraped back. A wooden bowl slid through. The panel slammed shut again, too fast, as if speed could outpace hunger.
Ryder did not look up.
He sat where the chains put him, back against the pillar in the center of the cell, head bowed, hair damp with the night’s sweat. The floor was cold in a way that held memory; centuries of despair had cooled it and kept it so. Water, patient and unkind, made a music in the far corner, drip into drip, as if counting down a story that would not end.
“Drink,” one warden called, voice m
