"
The iron wheels of the prisoner transport thundered against the transition of the road, the jarring vibration shooting up through the floorboards and into Eren's bones. The smooth, rune-inscribed flagstones of the Inner City gave way to the uneven, mud-packed cobbles of the Outer Ring. Every jolt was a physical reminder of his descent.
He sat huddled in the corner of the cage, his knees drawn up to his chest. The silk robes of the Vale clan had been torn from his back hours ago, replaced by a rough-spun sackcloth tunic that chafed against his skin, smelling of mildew and old sweat. The iron shackles around his wrists were cold, heavy enough to bruise the bone with every shift of his weight.
But it was the silence that hurt more than the iron.
Eren pressed his arm against his side, feeling the hard, small lump hidden beneath the coarse fabric of his tunic. A small wooden doll. Crude. Unfinished. His mother had been carving it the week before she died, her hands guided by a gentle mortal love that the clan elders deemed a weakness. It was the only piece of her left in this world. It was the only piece of *him* left.
"Comfortable back there, Young Master?"
The voice was like grinding gravel. Eren didn't look up, but he knew the face. Sergeant Kael. A man whose cultivation had stalled at the 3rd Stage of Body Tempering for two decades—a bitter, stagnating pool of resentment wrapped in city guard armor.
Kael shifted on the bench seat at the front of the wagon, twisting his torso to peer through the thick iron bars. His helmet was off, revealing a scalp scarred by old battles and a face twisted into a sneer that exposed yellowed teeth.
"I asked you a question, trash," Kael barked, grabbing the bars and rattling the cage. The sound clanged violently, ringing in Eren's ears. "Are you comfortable?"
Eren kept his eyes fixed on the wooden floorboards, watching a splinter vibrate with the motion of the cart. "I am fine," he whispered, his throat dry as sandpaper.
"Fine? He says he's *fine*," Kael laughed, turning to the driver, a younger guard who looked more nervous than amused. "Did you hear that, Rook? The Young Master is fine. He thinks he's on a scenic tour."
Kael turned back, his eyes narrowing. He spat, a glob of saliva flying through the bars and landing on Eren's bare foot.
"You aren't a Young Master anymore, boy," Kael said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. "You're an exile. You're meat. Do you know what the Grey Wastes do to soft little things with Mortal Roots?"
Eren pulled his foot back, wiping the spit against the wood. He said nothing.
"Look at me when I speak to you!" Kael roared.
He snatched a spear resting against the bench and jabbed the butt end through the bars. The wood struck Eren hard in the shoulder.
Pain flared—sharp and immediate. Eren gasped, his body instinctively curling tighter, but he forced his head up. He looked Kael in the eye.
"Is this what the City Guard does?" Eren asked, his voice shaking but distinct. "Beat shackled prisoners?"
Kael froze. The air in the wagon seemed to thicken. The sergeant's face went a mottled shade of red, the veins in his neck bulging against his collar.
"Reaction," Kael muttered, a cruel smile stretching his lips. "That's what I wanted. A reaction. You Vales... you always look through people like me. Like we're furniture. Like we're dust."
Kael leaned in, the spear tip resting against the iron bar now, mere inches from Eren's face.
"My brother served in the Vale household guard," Kael said softly. "Five years ago. He bumped into your cousin, Kaelen, in the hallway. Didn't bow low enough. Kaelen broke his legs. Said he 'cluttered the path.' My brother walks with a cane now. He begs for copper in the Lower District."
Eren's grip on his hidden doll tightened until his knuckles turned white. "I am not Kaelen."
"No," Kael chuckled, pulling the spear back. "You're worse. You're a failure. Even the Heavens spat you out. Kaelen is a genius. A Chosen Scion. You? You're a mistake that needs correcting."
The wagon hit a deep rut, sending Eren slamming against the side of the cage. He bit his tongue, tasting copper, but swallowed the cry of pain.
"Where are we?" Eren asked, trying to steer the conversation away from the guard's brewing violence. He looked past Kael, out the back of the wagon.
The architecture was changing rapidly. The orderly, multi-story pagodas of the mid-city were gone. In their place were sprawling shanties, buildings constructed from the refuse of the upper city—scrap metal, rotted timber, and baked mud. The air here was heavy, thick with the smell of unwashed bodies, coal smoke, and desperation.
"The Slag District," Kael answered, seemingly bored now that he had drawn blood. "Last stop before the wall. Take a good look, boy. These people? They would kill you for your shoes. But where you're going... they'll kill you just to see what color your insides are."
Rook, the driver, finally spoke up, his voice cracking. "Sergeant... is it true? About the Wastes? They say the spiritual runoff twists the animals. Makes them... wrong."
Kael laughed, a harsh, barking sound. "Animals? Animals are the least of your worries out there. It's the failures, Rook. The failed cultivators. The ones who went mad trying to breakthrough, or the ones exiled for practicing forbidden arts. They don't die in the Wastes. They rot. And while they rot, they get hungry."
Kael turned his gaze back to Eren, his eyes gleaming with malicious delight.
"They love fresh meat. Especially tender meat with a noble bloodline, even a crippled one. They think eating you might give them a taste of the luck they lost."
Eren felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. *Cannibalism.* It was a rumor in the Inner City, a ghost story told to scare children into practicing their cultivation forms. *If you don't work hard, you'll end up in the Wastes, and the ghouls will eat your spirit.*
"I won't die," Eren said. It wasn't a boast. It was a desperate affirmation.
Kael snorted. "You think you have a choice? Your father signed the order, boy. Do you know what the specific wording was?"
Eren closed his eyes. He didn't want to hear it.
" 'Discarded Matter'," Kael recited, savoring the syllables. "Not 'Exiled Son.' Not 'Eren Vale.' You are classified as biological waste. We aren't transporting a prisoner. We're taking out the trash."
Eren stared at his hands. They were trembling. *Discarded Matter.* His father, Patriarch Silas, had looked at him with such cold indifference at the ceremony. No anger. No sadness. Just the efficiency of a man pruning a dead branch from a prize bonsai.
"Hey!"
A shout from the street interrupted Eren's spiral.
The wagon was passing through a crowded market street in the Slag District. Beggars lined the road, their bowls raised. But one figure, a gangly youth with dirt-smeared cheeks, was running alongside the cart.
"That him?" the boy shouted, pointing a jagged finger at the cage. "That the Vale cripple?"
"Back off, rat!" Kael shouted, brandishing his spear.
"It is!" The boy cackled, turning to the crowd. "Look! The Heavens are blind, but they eventually smell the shit! A Vale in a cage!"
A rock flew from the crowd. It clanged against the bars. Then came a piece of rotting fruit, splattering against the iron mesh and spraying juice over Eren's cheek.
"Hit him!" someone screamed.
"Make him bleed like us!"
Kael didn't order the driver to speed up. He laughed. He sat back, crossing his arms, watching the spectacle. "Popular wherever you go, aren't you?"
Eren wiped the fruit pulp from his face. He didn't cower. He didn't hide in the center of the cage. He sat perfectly still, staring out at the angry, distorted faces of the commoners. They hated him. Not for anything he had done, but for what his name represented. For the years of taxes, the arrogance of the cultivators who flew overhead on swords while they starved in the mud.
*They hate me because they think I am one of them,* Eren thought, a strange clarity piercing his fear. *But I am lower than them. At least they are allowed to live within the walls.*
Another rock struck him, this time grazing his forehead. A trickle of warm blood ran down into his eye.
"Enough," Kael barked, though he looked satisfied. "Pick up the pace, Rook. I want to be back at the barracks before sundown. I have a bottle of wine waiting."
The driver whipped the horses. The wagon surged forward, leaving the jeering crowd behind in a cloud of dust.
The journey stretched on, the sun dipping lower, turning the sky a bruised purple. The buildings thinned out until there was nothing but barren earth, cracked and dry.
Ahead, looming like a tombstone against the horizon, was the Wall.
It wasn't like the pristine white walls of the Inner City. This was a jagged monstrosity of black iron and grey stone, rising three hundred feet into the air. It didn't look designed to keep enemies out; it looked designed to keep something *in*.
Massive runes etched into the surface of the wall pulsed with a dim, sickly green light—the containment array.
"The Gate of Silence," Kael announced, standing up and stretching his back. "End of the line."
The wagon slowed as it approached the colossal iron gates at the base of the wall. There were no other travelers here. No merchants. No guards patrolling outside. Just the monolithic barrier and the wind that howled with a hollow, mournful sound.
Two guards atop the wall saw their approach. Kael signaled with a raised fist.
With a sound like the earth grinding its teeth, the massive gates began to crack open. They didn't open fully—just enough to create a slit of darkness, a vertical mouth leading into the unknown.
Rook pulled on the reins, bringing the wagon to a halt twenty yards from the gap. The horses whinnied, tossing their heads, refusing to go closer. They smelled the predator scent of the Wastes.
"Out," Kael ordered.
He hopped down from the wagon, keys jingling at his belt. He walked around to the back of the cage.
Clack. Click.
The heavy padlock groaned and released. The cage door swung open with a screech.
Eren didn't move immediately. His legs were cramped, his body sore.
"I said move!" Kael grabbed Eren by the ankle and yanked.
Eren tumbled out of the cage, hitting the hard-packed dirt shoulder-first. The breath left his lungs. He scrambled to his knees, checking his side—the doll was still there.
Kael loomed over him, blocking out the dying sun. He reached down and grabbed the chain connecting Eren's wrist shackles. He unlocked them, not out of kindness, but because the iron was property of the City Guard.
"We keep the steel," Kael grunted, pocketing the shackles. "You go in with nothing."
Eren rubbed his raw wrists. He stood up, swaying slightly. He looked at the crack in the wall. A breeze was blowing *out* from the Wastes. It smelled of sulfur, old blood, and ozone.
"Go on," Kael said, pointing his spear at the darkness. "Your new kingdom awaits."
Eren hesitated. He looked back at the wagon, at the road leading back to the city. The city that had birthed him, raised him, and now vomited him out.
"Don't look back," Kael sneered. "There's nothing for you there. If you try to return to the gate, the archers on the wall have orders to shoot on sight."
Eren turned his back on Kael. He stepped toward the gate. Every step was heavy, as if the gravity here was stronger.
"One piece of advice, 'Discarded Matter'," Kael called out, his voice echoing off the massive wall.
Eren stopped, but didn't turn.
"If you see something beautiful in there," Kael said, his tone dropping to a whisper that carried on the wind, "run. In the Wastes, only the traps are beautiful."
Eren grit his teeth. He forced his legs to move. He walked into the shadow of the gate. The darkness was absolute, swallowing the light of the setting sun. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in a single step.
As he crossed the threshold, the heavy grinding sound returned. The gates were closing behind him.
He was alone.
The sliver of light from the civilized world narrowed, becoming a thin line, then a thread.
*Clang.*
The darkness was total, save for a faint, bioluminescent glow rising from the fog ahead—a grey, swirling mist that covered the ground like a shroud.
Eren took a breath, the air tasting of ash. He reached into his tunic and gripped the wooden doll, his thumb tracing the rough carving of its face.
"I am Eren Vale," he whispered to the silence, his voice small against the vast, oppressive weight of the Wastes. "And I am still alive."
From the fog ahead, a pair of eyes—luminescent and yellow—blinked open. Then another pair. Then a dozen.
Something in the mist began to laugh.