His breath was suffocated.
He searched for air, but it was as if an invisible force was pressing against his chest. Kaen's eyes opened wide, but his vision was blurred. He still tried to move, but something cold and thick chained his wrists and ankles to the creaking wood of the wall.
Riven's blood and that of the guards stained the floor.
Kaen looked at the Archmage and tried once more to resist his controlling spell, kicking and screaming, but only a weak growl escaped his throat.
"Fight, coward!" he whispered again in a feeble voice. As he tried to speak, Kaen felt his eyelids give way. His chest could no longer rise from the wall, his lungs unable to breathe. A chill enveloped his neck, as if something was sucking away his consciousness.
Then the Archmage's voice broke the silence. "Let the Guardians of Mana judge you."
The house around Kaen slowly began to dissolve as his eyes watered. The wizard's fingers closed on his palm. Everything went dark.
.....
Kaen's awakening made his eyes bug out in shock. His heart was still beating as if his body was still against the wall, and his head was throbbing. He touched the dried blood on his forehead and looked down at the floor between his hands, able to feel his heavy breathing on the floor.
A stench of iron, urine, blood and mould filled his lungs in an instant, causing him to fall backwards. Kaen had just woken up in a cell.
Despite the low light, Kaen examined every corner of the place.The walls, carved into the living rock, oozed moisture. The stone was porous, mottled with green and brown encrustations, rotten moss and drops slowly descended, ticking on the floor. The walls seemed to breathe, as if this prison were a dying being.
The floor, paved with uneven blocks of stone, was wet and sticky. A slimy mud covered every corner. To one side lay a dirty rag that must have once been a blanket.
Kaen's breathing intensified.
The light from a dim torch hanging outside the entrance illuminated the cell. A sound came from there, a constant groaning. The sound of rats gnawing at something behind the walls joined the distant, perhaps imaginary, screams of other prisoners.
Kaen felt his anger rise like a fire as soon as he realised that he had been imprisoned for responding to the Grey Mantle's raid on his home. He turned away from the other side of the entrance and looked at a small barred window a few metres up.
"Damn it! Fuck!" he said loudly, slamming his palms against the cell wall. "I can't stay here! Riven! Riven, where are you?"
Kaen ran to the bars of the door, trying to stick his head in and lean out as far as he could. He couldn't. Out of the corner of his eye he could only see an endless corridor and more cells than he could count. Again he sprinted to the window. Then back to the door, then back again.
A heavy sense of guilt made room in his chest, fuelled by a rage that had become almost unbearable. Where was Riven? Which other cell had he ended up in? Was he still alive?
Through the window of the cramped, dark cell, the morning light began to break as the sun rose behind the grey clouds of Drosven Hollow. The buzzing of people came closer and closer. With a firm grip on the bars and his toes wedged into the cracks in the wall, Kaen stood up nimbly and looked around.
As everyone knew, Drosven Hollow Prison was horseshoe-shaped. In the centre was a large square. Kaen waited a second before opening his eyes, afraid to realise what was about to happen. The noise of the crowd, the place of execution. Someone was about to be killed in front of the paesants.
In addition to the people lined up along the edges of the square, a small wooden stage stood in the centre. On the stage, a tall man dressed as an executioner wielded a double-bladed axe almost as tall as he was. Behind him, steps led up to a higher area of the stage.
The Archmage sat in the centre, on a throne-like wooden chair. Beside him, the mustached Grey Mantle kept himself upright with the aid of a crutch, flanked by four other guards. This time, in addition to the Archmage, two other figures wore hooded cloaks: they must have been Keepers of the Seal, mages of much lower rank but still capable of wielding mana.
A fant "No" came from Kaen's dry lips, a word without his will. His eyes glazed over and his hands gripped the window bars even tighter as he saw what he had feared from the moment of his awakening.
Escorted by three guards, a man hooded with a sack was dragged along with his hands tied. Ropes hung from his wrists, and his walk was slow from the many wounds on his legs and body. There was no doubt, he was Riven.
"No, nooo! Riven! Riven!" Kaen started to scream. This could not be true. What had happened was worse than his nightmares. Riven climbed the steps of the stage, arriving in front of the executioner. He looked at him, turned him towards the crowd and removed his hood.
Riven's face and hair were drenched in blood. His eyes and cheekbones were so disfigured that he was almost unrecognisable. The guards had surely taken out their anger on him for what had happened to the other Grey Mantles on the night of the raid. As soon as Riven's face was illuminated by the faint sunlight, he grimaced as if he had not seen the light for a while.
Kaen began to shake in panic again. With all his strength he tried to destroy the bars of the cell, to bend them, to tear them from the rock, but to no avail. "Riven! Brother! Look at me, brother!" he shouted again with all the voice he had left. The buzz of the crowd and the distance from the square made Kaen's voice a distant, inaudible echo.
The mustached guard took a step forward. "People of Drosven Hollow! Once again, we gather in this square to remind everyone what happens to those who dishonor the Conclave. Yesterday, once again, someone attempted to steal a crystal of mana, thus offending the Conclave of Arkanor and the ceaseless work of the Mages who have watched over us for centuries!" the murmur of the crowd grew louder.
Many agreed with the Guardian's words. Others did not. In Drosven Hollow, as throughout the land, the disdain for wizards and magic was well established. The totalitarian regime, which saw the Supreme Archmage as the absolute head of government, placed all nullborn at the bottom of the civic hierarchy, favouring instead anyone who could wield mana.
"This man, known as Riven, nullborn, son of a bastard father and a prostitute mother, committed an attempted theft last night! He tried to steal a mana crystal right in front of us, thinking he was fooling me and the guards patrolling the mine, and tried to make us believe he had found it on the ground by accident!" the guard grimaced at the word 'by accident', mocking Riven.
"Stop! You piece of shit! I'll rip your head off! Leave my brother alone!" Kaen continued to shout in vain. His voice did not reach the centre of the square. Riven seemed to search for him with his eyes, but he could see nothing. After the death of his parents, his brother was all he had.
"What happens to those who break the law by outraging the Conclave?" the moustachioed Grey Mantle shouted, waving his hand at the citiziens. Loud boos and jeers erupted from the crowd; many did not seem to like the guard's speech, clashing with other paesants who thought otherwise.
Through all this talk, the Archmage sat motionless. The glassy purple eyes of the mask were focused on Riven. Fingers crossed at waist level, as if blissfully awaiting the moment of execution.
At the guard's nod, the executioner's toe touched Riven's knee. Without strength left in his body, Riven fell to his knees in front of the crowd, his face turned to the sky. Kaen screamed until he lost his voice. Tears dug into his blood-crusted cheeks.
"The Guardians of Mana have decided! Death to the thieves! The Archmage himself has ordered the arrest and execution of this nullborn!" the guard shouted again. "Watch carefully! Any one of you could be in his place! Let this be another symbol of transgression! To the Conclave! Death to thieves!" the guard ordered the execution with a gesture of his hand.
Kaen's cries choked in his throat. The executioner took the axe and raised it. Light reflected off the blade, faintly illuminating Riven's tormented, tear-filled face.
With a sharp motion, Kaen older brother's head was severed and rolled down the steps into the crowd.
Kaen let go of the bars and fell backwards, slamming his back against the floor. His wide, tear-stained eyes stared at the cell wall in disbelief. Riven had been killed by the Conclave. He had been killed for a crime he had never committed. But why? Why had the world chosen to unleash all its cruelty on his family?
Sobbing, Kaen resumed breathing, struggling.
He closed his eyes until everything was black. Anger became a flat, unnatural, silent calm. The screams and sounds of the cell faded, the world around him seemed to crumble: nothing made sense anymore.
He fainted.