The days after the fight were heavy with silence.
Jalen kept to the shadows, his ribs bound with rags, his jaw swollen purple. Each step reminded him of the butcher's fists, each breath a sharp sting. Yet what lingered most was not the pain, but the sound — Darrin's scream when his teeth had torn flesh. It replayed in Jalen's mind like a song. Crude, savage, but undeniably his. For once, he had not merely endured. He had made someone else bleed.
The First Ring, however, had no songs for him.
When he walked the alleys, eyes followed differently now. Not pitying, not mocking, but wary. Mothers pulled their children closer. Men paused in their work, hammers still, knives hovering over cutting blocks, to watch him pass. No words, only silence. The rat had bared teeth, and they did not know if he might bite again.
Jalen felt the weight of their stares like stones pressing against his back. He tried to shrink into himself, but shrinking only made him smaller, weaker. And the whispers in the back of his mind — the whispers of the Hole — did not approve of shrinking.
At the temple, the priests' hollow-eyed masks seemed to linger longer on him. He had given what little coin he had on tithe-day, letting it clink into the bowl like the most pitiful of offerings. One priest had tilted his head, voice echoing behind the mask:
"The Hollow stirs strangely around you, boy."
The words chilled him, but also lit a spark of something sharper — pride.
That night, the Hole's breath was strong again. Jalen lay on his back in the hovel, staring at the slanted roof beams as the wind from the abyss carried the faint taste of ash into his lungs. Whispers slid into the cracks of his skull like water finding stone.
You bleed, yet you endure.
You hunger, yet you rise.
The Hollow chooses the lean, the forgotten, the broken. You are mine.
The words did not frighten him as they once had. They filled the emptiness where hunger gnawed, where loneliness ached. The Hole did not mock him, did not strike him down. It spoke to him as if he mattered.
For the first time, Jalen whispered back, lips barely moving: "Then give me strength."
The darkness answered with a pulse that thrummed through his chest like another heartbeat.
The next morning, he discovered something odd.
His ribs still hurt, but less than before. The bruises along his arms were fading faster than they should. He tested his body, lifting his basket, twisting his shoulders. Pain came, but it was dulled, numbed as if by unseen hands.
He almost smiled.
But the Hole never gave gifts without cost.
By noon, two guards found him at the fishmonger's well. Leather and iron creaked as they pressed him against the wall, one fist knotted in his collar.
"The priests say you carry unrest," one growled, breath stinking of sour ale. "They say the Hollow whispers too loud near you."
Jalen's stomach dropped. "I've done nothing."
"Nothing?" The other slammed him hard enough against the wall that his teeth clacked together. "You bit Darrin like a dog in the street. You draw eyes. That is enough."
Before Jalen could protest again, they dragged him into the square. Dust rose under his bare feet, sharp and gritty. A crowd gathered — always hungry for spectacle.
The whipmaster waited at the center, coil of leather dangling from his thick hand. His face was a wall of scars and cruelty.
"Ten lashes," he announced, voice booming. "For defiance. For violence unbecoming of prey."
The word cut sharper than the whip ever could. Prey.
The first lash tore across his back, hot as fire. Jalen gasped but clamped his mouth shut. The second fell, then the third, slicing skin, turning fabric into ribbons. His breath hitched, but still he stayed silent.
The guards struck harder, eager to break him. The leather sang through the air, cracking against bone and muscle. Blood slicked his shirt.
The whispers rose with each strike. Endure. Bite the pain. The fat cry out. The lean remain silent.
By the seventh lash, he no longer felt sting, only a strange warmth, as though the Hole itself was drinking the pain on his behalf. His storm-grey eyes lifted to the crowd, unblinking. One by one, gazes faltered and turned away.
The eighth lash split a wound already raw. White light burst behind his eyes. The ninth made his knees buckle, dust scraping his palms as he caught himself. His body trembled, every nerve screaming — but still not a sound escaped.
And then came the tenth.
The leather cracked like thunder. Jalen's body seized, then gave way. He pitched forward into the dust. His cheek pressed against the cold earth, blood dripping into the grit. A single tear slid from the corner of his swollen eye, carving a clean track through the dirt. Yet even in that collapse, even with his chest heaving, not a cry escaped his mouth.
The whipmaster scowled. "Take him away."
The crowd murmured. Some with fear, others with awe. A boy should have screamed. A boy should have begged. Instead, this one bled in silence, a tear his only surrender.
The guards dragged him back through the alleys, dropping him at the edge of his hovel like refuse. He lay there long after they left, his skin a map of pain, his breath shallow. The shirt clung to his back, red and sticky. Every heartbeat echoed in the wounds like drums.
And yet, beneath it all, a strange fire burned. He had not broken. The Hole had been with him, drinking his pain, feeding his silence.
That night, when the Hole's whispers came, they were no longer faint, no longer carried only on the wind. They were inside him, deep as marrow.
You are mine, Jalen.
The Hollow has no heirs, no crowns. Only those who endure. And you endure.
His lips cracked into a smile that hurt. He closed his eyes, bloody and trembling, and whispered back, "Then use me."
The abyss shuddered in reply.