"What?" Gareth whispered. "He had no numen.."
Norvin's muscles bulged, veins popping against his skin. This was pure Numen. Raw, unadulterated physical force driven by hatred.
SNAP!
With a roar that shook the dust from the ceiling, Norvin ripped the iron bolts straight out of the stone wall. He swung his arms, the broken chains acting like flails.
Gareth barely ducked in time as a heavy iron cuff smashed into the wall where his head had been a second ago, shattering the brick.
For a split second, the Torturer felt fear. The pressure coming off this starving, beaten boy was immense.
Norvin landed on his feet, chest heaving, the broken chains dangling from his wrists. He glared at Gareth.
"Yara," Norvin demanded, stepping forward. "My sister. The girl the other guy took that day. Where is she?"
Gareth regained his composure. He was a seasoned warrior, after all. He straightened his coat, hiding his surprise behind a sneer. He pushed Norvin back to the wall. He didn't remember a girl. He didn't remember any of them. But he knew how to hurt people.
Norvin was still putting enormous pressure on Gareth, 'Even after being tortured and his ribs broken, this kid was a lot of strength left.'
"Oh, her?" Gareth replied smoothly. "We used her up. Then we slit her throat. She died just like the rest. Screaming."
The strength left Norvin's body instantly. Hie eyes widened with denial.
The rage evaporated, replaced by a cold, hollow void.
'Used her up? Dead?'
Gareth saw the opening. He simply kicked Norvin in the chest, a strike reinforced with numen.
Norvin flew back, crashing into the rear wall of the cell. He slid to the floor, too broken to stand up again.
"Put him back in the hole," Gareth ordered the guards who had rushed in. "And double the chains. He's feisty"
Norvin lay on the cold stone floor of his cell. The darkness was total.
He wasn't trying to escape anymore. He wasn't trying to fight. He was curled into a ball, his body shaking with silent sobs.
'Noo….Yara is dead.'
The words echoed in his mind, louder than Gareth's threats.
He closed his eyes, and the darkness of the prison shifted into the bright sunlight of Northwood.
He remembered the weight of her. He was small then, and his legs would get tired walking through the forest. Yara, though she was thin and tired herself, would always crouch down.
"Hop on, Norvin," she would say, her voice low and kind, like a soft breeze.
He remembered the smell of her hair—like pine needles and rain. He remembered how she would carry him on her back, walking miles to find food.
She would stop at the wild cherry trees. She knew he loved them. She would pick the reddest, sweetest ones and pass them back to him over her shoulder.
"For you, Norvin. Eat up so you can grow big and strong."
She would hum as she walked. The same tune their mother used to hum. It was a sweet tune, but when Yara hummed it, there was always a sadness underneath.
Norvin remembered looking at her face from over her shoulder. She would smile at him—an innocent, beaming smile meant to protect him from the world. But he could see the bruises on her neck. He could see the burns on her arms from where the nobles had punished her for working too slow.
She lived in hell. They had made her life a misery. But she never let him see it. She swallowed her pain so he wouldn't have to taste it.
"I'm going to take us back, sis," he used to promise her. "I'll get strong. I'll protect you."
Whenever she heard her little brother's vows, Yara would turn back and smile. It wasn't just a smile; it was a radiance that lit up the gloom of their cage.
"Yes, Norvin. One day, just you and me," she would whisper. "We will see the world with no chains, no walls. And finally... finally, we will taste what these Nobles call 'ice cream'."
She would close her eyes, imagining a sweetness she had never known.
"Ahh... I really want to eat ice cream."
"What do you think it feels like?" Norvin whispered, picking at a loose thread on his rags. "does it taste like cherry?"
Yara shook her head, her eyes wide with the secret knowledge she had gleaned from overhearing the Noble children.
"No, silly. It's not hard like the ice in the horse troughs. They say it's soft. Like eating a cloud that's been chilled by the winter wind."
"A cloud?" Norvin frowned, trying to imagine it. "But clouds are just air. Does it vanish when you bite it?"
"Maybe," Yara giggled, poking his nose. "But before it vanishes, it tastes like magic. I heard the cook say they have pink ones that taste like strawberries, and brown ones that taste like dark chocolate."
Norvin licked his cracked lips. The only thing he had tasted that day was stale bread and watered-down soup.
"I bet the cherry one would be better than those," he decided solemnly.
"I want the brown one," Yara sighed, leaning her head back against the rough wooden wall. "I bet it tastes like how a sunset looks."
Norvin looked at her, his heart swelling with a fierce, childish determination. He grabbed her hand.
"I'll get you the brown one, Yara. When we get out... I'll buy you a whole mountain of brown clouds."
Yara squeezed his hand back, her smile sad but beautiful. "I know you will, dummy. I know you will."
She emitted such a gentle, overpowering kindness that it became Norvin's shield. Because of that smile, no matter how hard the nobles beat him, no matter how much he bled in the mud, Norvin would find himself smiling, too. Her love was the only armour he ever needed.
"Liar," Norvin whispered to the cold stones of the prison.
He hadn't protected anyone. He couldn't save his parents. He couldn't save Yara. The hope of returning to Northwood, of rebuilding their home, was dust.
He was alone. Truly, utterly alone.
A weakness. That's what he was. A small, broken thing that the world stepped on without noticing.
As the tears pooled under his cheek, the words of his grandfather drifted out of the recesses of his memory. The old man, lying on his deathbed, gripping Norvin's small hand with a strength that shouldn't have been possible.
"Listen to me, boy," his grandfather had rasped, his eyes burning with a strange light. "The world will break you countless times. It will take everything you love. But remember... the blood that flows in you does not know how to kneel. Don't end up like your father."
Just moments ago, he had threatened to drain the sea to kill his enemy. Now, curled on the dungeon floor, Norvin felt like he was the one drowning. He wept until he had nothing left to give, creating a silent, salty sea of grief that washed away the last embers of his hope.
He wept until his throat was raw and his eyes burned dry. He wept until the cold stone floor beneath him was slick with sorrow, because he was drowning in a sea of his own tears—a vast, dark ocean where no light could ever reach him again.
He was there once again, the dark sea was gobbled him up again.
"This..I can't endure this, father."
The darkness of the dungeon was a heavy, suffocating blanket. It pressed against Norvin's skin, seeped into his pores, and settled deep within his marrow. He lay curled on the damp, filth-strewn stone, his knees pulled to his chest, shivering not from the cold, but from the hollowness that had opened up inside him.
The tears had stopped flowing, but the sea remained. He was drowning in it. A vast, silent ocean of misery that washed over his head, filling his lungs with salt and regret.
'Yara is dead.'
The sentence looped in his mind, a relentless, jagged echo. 'We used her up. Throat slit. Screaming.'
He could see it. His imagination, cruel and vivid, painted the picture of her final moments. The smile that had been his shield, the radiance that had kept him warm in the bitter winters of their slavery—extinguished in blood and mud. And he hadn't been there. He had been weak. He had been nothing.
"Norvin."
The voice was soft, a whisper that didn't belong in this place of rust and pain.
"Norvin, look at me."
Slowly, painfully, Norvin opened his swollen eyes. "Yara"
She was there. But for just a second, the image of Yara vanished soon and the red ghost was there.
Norvin stared at her through the gloom. He didn't have the energy to speak. He just closed his eyes again, turning his face toward the damp stones. 'Go away', he thought. 'Leave me alone.'
The ghost drifted closer, descending until she was hovering just inches above the floor, face-to-face with him. She reached out a hand, her translucent fingers passing through his shoulder, sending a shiver of phantom cold through his body.
"I saw what happened," she said gently. "I heard what he said. I... I am sorry, Norvin."
"You cannot stay here," the Red Ghost continued, her tone shifting, gaining a serrated edge of urgency. "Gareth. He is done playing with you. The Kvothe Knights do not keep broken toys. Once the sun sets completely, they will come down here. They will not ask questions this time. They will simply execute you."
Norvin remained silent.
'Let them', he thought. 'What is the point? Yara is gone. My parents are gone. Grandfather is gone. If I die, the pain stops.'
The Ghost seemed to hear his thoughts. She frowned, the red mist around her darkening.
"Is this it?" she asked, her voice hardening slightly. "You will die here, in the dark, smelling of your own filth, while the man who killed your sister eats apples and laughs?"
Norvin flinched. The image of Gareth eating the apple—so casual, so bored—burned in his mind.
"I can't..." Norvin's voice was a cracked, dry rasp. It sounded like tearing paper. "I can't beat him. You saw him. He is... he is strong. And I am... nothing."
"You are not nothing!"
The Red Ghost's shout echoed through the small cell, startling the rats in the corners.
"Do you not understand what you did in that room?" she demanded, her voice cutting through his despair. "You tore iron bolts from solid stone, Norvin. You snapped the iron shackles. You made a Lieutenant of the Bronze Falchion Knights feel fear."
Norvin looked at his hands. They were raw, bloody, and shackled again. "I... I was just angry. It didn't matter. He kicked me down anyway."
"When I possessed you... when I tried to take your body to escape from Cahir... I forced your soul into a corner. I pushed your physical limits to the breaking point."
She paused, looking at him with a mixture of confusion and awe.
"I thought I was just using you as a vessel," she admitted. "But I did something else. I cracked the seal. By forcing my spirit into your blood, I inadvertently unlocked the floodgates of your Numen."
Norvin blinked, astonished. "Numen?"
"Physical domination. Most warriors in this world use Awen, the energy of the mind and the elements. They cast spells, they manipulate nature. But Numen... Numen is the power of the body itself. It is the strength of the blood, the bone, and the muscle amplified to supernatural levels."
She gestured to his bruised arms.
"You do not have Awen, Norvin. You cannot cast spells. You are not a Cipher or Anchor. But your Numen... it is dense. It is heavy. When you got angry, when you tapped into that hate, you bypassed the limits of human flesh. You accessed the strength of a Nexus."
She shook her head, as if she couldn't believe it herself. "I did not expect this. I have seen many humans. I have seen many vessels. But you... you are special. Your body adapted to my possession not by breaking, but by evolving. You have the potential to be a physical calamity."
Norvin listened, but the words felt distant. 'Special? Potential? What good was potential when his heart was a crater?'
A spark of anger, cold and sharp, ignited in his chest. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, the chains rattling loudly.
"Why?" he snapped, his voice gaining volume. "Why are you telling me this? Why are you helping me?"
He glared at the spectral woman.
"I am a slave," he spat. "I am a 'lowborn.' I have nothing to give you. I can't help you escape. I can't break your curse. I couldn't even save my own sister! So why don't you just leave me alone to die?"
The Red Ghost fell silent. She looked at the boy—dirty, bleeding, consumed by self-loathing—and her expression softened into something unreadable.
"Because," she whispered, her form beginning to fade, mist dissipating into the damp air. "I see your pain. Someone who is trapped in a cage, trapped in this pitiful world."
"I cannot break these chains for you, Norvin. My touch passes through iron. But I can give you a chance."
"Wait," Norvin said, sensing her departure.
"I will go to the upper levels," the Red Ghost's voice floated in the air, disembodied now. "I will cause a distraction. When you hear the screams... that is your signal."
"Why..." Norvin started, but she cut him off.
"Use your anger, Norvin. Do not let it consume you; let it fuel you. Recall the feeling of the iron warping in your hands. Channel that heat into your limbs. Bend the bars. Break the door. And run."
The last wisp of red light vanished. The cell plunged back into absolute darkness.
"Run," the echo whispered one last time.
Norvin sat alone in the silence. He wiped the snot and blood from his nose with his shoulder. The damp cold of the floor seeped into his legs, but he didn't feel it anymore.
He sat there, staring into the black void. 'Run?'
'Run where? Back to the forest? Back to starvation? Back to a world that would just hunt me down again?'
He looked at his wrists. The new shackles were thicker than the last ones. Gareth had made sure of that.
He thought of Yara again.
He remembered the cherries. He remembered the sweetness of the fruit bursting in his mouth, the only sweet thing in a bitter life. He remembered her humming that tune.
'She smiled', he realized. 'She always smiled. She was good. She was kind. She was pure. And the world killed her for it.'