The chains were gone, but the weight remained.
When the iron shackles had been struck off his wrists that particular morning, Elias had flexed his hands as though they belonged to someone else. For weeks, the bite of rusted links had been constant companions—every clink, every bruise a reminder that he was property, not a man.
Now? He walked without them. A guard followed him at every step, but the clatter of chain was gone.
A small freedom, but one he meant to use.
---
The keep was a living thing. That was Elias' first impression as he trailed through its stone arteries under his escort's silent eye. Soldiers marched in the yard with the rhythm of hammers. Servants darted like blood through halls, balancing baskets of bread, rolls of cloth, buckets of steaming water. Nobles stalked the corridors in finery, their whispers lingering like perfume.
Everywhere Elias looked, he saw cracks.
The kitchens smoked like battlefields, their stores poorly tallied. He noted sacks of grain spilling from a carelessly tied bag, rats darting where no cook looked. In the barracks, soldiers drilled, but the formations bled discipline—their spears misaligned, their timing sloppy. Even the guards watching him had boots worn through at the heel.
This place breathes war, but bleeds waste.
And waste, Elias thought, was the death of kingdoms.
---
His guard, a bored man with a pockmarked face, caught him staring at the soldiers' lines. "Something amuse you, stranger?"
Elias tilted his head, hiding his thoughts behind a faint smirk. "If they fought an enemy as sloppily as they drill, they'd be corpses before the hour's end."
The guard bristled. "Mind your tongue. These men serve Lord Hadrien."
"Then they should serve better," Elias replied, not lowering his voice.
That earned him a hard shove to keep him moving, but the words had already flown. A few soldiers had overheard and muttered among themselves. Some sneered. A few looked ashamed.
---
The market within the outer ward told the same story. Merchants haggled, but the weights on their scales were rigged. The blacksmith sweated over half-finished swords, edges dull, grips cheap. Elias' eye, sharpened by years of reading history, recognized the truth: this was a realm preparing for war, but poorly.
He stopped before a cart where a woman sold bread. Her loaves were small, too small for the coin she asked. Elias said nothing, but the thought stamped itself into his mind: A warlord who cannot feed his people loses before he marches.
"Move along," the guard grunted.
Elias did, lips twitching at his own audacity. Weeks ago, he had been a trembling thing dragged to the pit. Now, he spoke aloud in a lord's halls, letting remarks fall like daggers in the open. Perhaps he was mad. Or perhaps he had finally remembered who he was—a man who had stared down history itself.
---
By nightfall, the whispers began.
"The foreigner walks free of chains."
"He insulted the drill in the yard."
"Called the men sloppy."
"Did you see him in the market? He looked at the bread like a judge weighing sin."
Some scoffed, others cursed. But more than a few leaned closer to catch each rumor. The stranger was not trembling. He was speaking. And he spoke with the voice of someone who saw things they could not.
---
Later, when he was returned to his new quarters—no longer the pits, but a small chamber with a bed of straw and a barred window—Elias sat with his thoughts.
The keep's weaknesses unfolded in his mind like a map. Supply. Training. Morale. He didn't need to swing a sword to see where the cracks would spread. And cracks, if pressed, could bring down walls.
He pressed a hand to his wrist where the chains had been. "Not free," he whispered to himself. "But freer."
The mark on his arm pulsed faintly, hidden beneath cloth. As if mocking him. As if reminding him that freedom was never without its leash.
Elias leaned back, closing his eyes. He had survived chains by telling a story. Now he would survive freedom by writing one.
And the keep would not forget his words