Page 29 of Severed Heir

The others cleared out fast, Myla included. Her cheers echoed down the hall, bright and careless, like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t just helped destroy another girl too hopeless to stand.

Ellison stared at me, pale. “Did I hear that right?” he whispered. “Your brother killed someone in your family?”

I stared at the fresh blood on the stone. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “Charles is a lead guard. He also killed my brother.” And maybe, just maybe, putting me here was his way of finishing the job he didn’t complete at the king’s estate.

Ellison shook his head slowly. “That’s... messed up. Like, depressing-messed-up.”

“Now you get it,” I muttered. “I have to get out of here.”

The iron door clanged shut, sealing us in. A soft sob broke the silence. One of the dungeon girls, curled against the wall, barely lifted her voice to speak. “You better start cleaning,” she whispered. “Win tomorrow… or be trapped down here for years.”

“They can’t do that,” I said.

She dipped her rag back into the rust-colored bucket. “Yes, they can. And they will. You’ll see.”

And she was right.

Two days had passed in the dark. Food and water were rationed, given every six hours if you were lucky. The only way out was to fight. You had to beat the lowest-ranking guard, claw your way above them, and hope the next rung didn’t crush you on the way up.

I lost every battle.

Sleep came in fragments, shallow and stolen. Time unraveled, twisting in on itself, stretched thin between the shuffle of feet and the muffled sobs swallowed by stone. One hour bled into the next, then another, until somehow two days became four. My fingers were blistered from scrubbing. My knees ached likeold wounds. My flame stayed silent. And with each shift of gray, the weight of failure pressed harder.

The walls devoured everything. Another nameless guard ascending while the rest of us bled quietly into the stone.

And me?

I was breaking.

Ellison shook me awake a day later. Or maybe it was two. Time didn’t seem to exist anymore. “Hey, guards are coming,” he said. “Get up.”

“It’s not… dueling yet,” I croaked, half-delirious. There was supposed to be more time between fights. It couldn’t be this soon. Then boots thundered down the dungeon stairs and Rok clapped once.

“Wake up,” he barked. “It’s Survival Day.”

“Survival Day?” My voice cracked, too dry to sound surprised.

Rok was already walking away. I grabbed my tattered vest and staggered after him. The air outside the dungeon felt heavier, sharper. I hadn’t seen the sun in nearly four days. The others were already gathering in the main hall.

“What… what is Survival Day?” I muttered as I caught up to him.

His grin spread, cold and cruel. “A night in the woods,” he said. “Consider it a break from the blood.”

Ellison fell in beside me. “I’ve heard of this,” he murmured. “They drop you into barren terrain, and you’re supposed to survive the night.”

“So… a break?” I asked, too tired to mean it.

“Yeah,” he said. “A break.”

They armed us with rusted daggers, too dull to cut bark, let alone whatever prowled beyond the trees. I tripped over roots and loose stones, lungs burning with cedar and rot. But Gods, the fresh air felt like salvation.

Rok led the way, hacking through bramble and vines that twisted like the carnivorous ones back at the academy. “Most territories we guard are barren,” he called. “No shelter. Use the trees. Build something worth sleeping in.”

Ellison muttered behind me, “Why is he such an asshole? He was almost human on day one.”

I shook my head. “Maybe he’s just an asshole.”

Up ahead, I spotted Myla crouched by a log with a few other guards, studying a set of paw tracks pressed into the dirt.

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