The cot's rough fibers dug into my chest and stomach. The searing heat on my back was a distant star, eclipsed by the void in my chest where my hope for Dalia used to be. Once again I saw the Desert Starsuckle crushed under the King's slipper.
Elias was carefully applying a fresh poultice to my back, just as he had done yesterday. The sharp, clean scent of an antiseptic herb fought with the sour smell of sweat and sickness.
I was barely aware of the others, trapped in a fever of regret. The physical pain was a dull echo compared to the sharp agony of my failure. My attempt to steal the flower wasn't bravery, but unforgivable arrogance. Why would I even conceive of the thought that I could be clever enough to outmatch the King? What childish fantasy! My thoughts circled endlessly around the now-departed Dalia. She had died alone and afraid instead of with me to hold her hand.
The snick of thread being cut was a distant annoyance, a sound from a world that no longer mattered. Each cut might as well have been severing a memory of Dalia's laugh. Elias's poultice felt less like a cure and more like a futile attempt to mend my body when my spirit was already gone.
I lifted my head. The old woman sat at a small, well-kept workbench, meticulously stitching a patch onto a guard's tunic. Her needlework was of such fine quality, so different from the crude repairs made elsewhere. The focus in her hands. She took such care. She looked up. It felt like she was measuring me, and I'd come up short.
"You know, for a boy who tried to rob the King, you make a terrible patient. Stop chewing on yesterday. It's gristle. All it does is wear down your teeth for the meal you need to eat today."
The sliver of morning sun cut through the bars and fell on the floor. A mountain of a man, late middle-aged, stood with rigid posture, unnaturally still. Was he mad? Just another prisoner broken in a strange way? He wasn't looking out the window; he was staring at the light on the floor. Bizarre. The intensity of it was unsettling. An unreadable display of discipline? It was focused, silent reverence - a soldier at attention before his god. He had done this yesterday morning too. His daily, non-negotiable ritual: to greet the sun, the source of all life and order.
Without turning from the window he spoke, his voice flat. "The sun rises. The sun will set. These are facts. Your pain is also a fact. It is neither good nor evil. It simply is. To wallow in it is to give it power it has not earned. That is a failure of discipline." He finally turned, his gaze assessing me not as a person, but as a compromised asset. "The operation is complete. The outcome was unfavorable. Debriefing the dead serves no tactical purpose. Control your response to the current field of engagement."
Elias looked at me, offering a different perspective. "Commander Kael is right. The past is a stone tablet, already carved. But letters on it, what you learn, that can build a future. Mara is right that you must survive today. Kael is right that you must endure the pain without breaking your spirit. But why? Because a principle cannot be flogged. Justice cannot be imprisoned. Wisdom is knowing the patterns of the world." He picked up a shard of charcoal from a cold brazier and, on the smooth, flat side of a discarded clay poultice pot, he drew a single, elegant symbol. "It all begins with knowing the patterns."
I stared at the mark, it was nothing like I could have produced. It was perfect, balanced: the swift, confident stroke of a master scribe. I had seen that exact curve, that precise angle, a hundred times before. On scrolls pulled from the palace dump, detailing the movements of planets. In codices describing the foundations of law. It was the hand that had filled my Cave of Treasures.
The mental fog parted. The sound of the infirmary sharpened. The pain in my back flared. I looked from the letter to the old man's stained fingers, to the kind, weary eyes. I whispered, raw with awe, "The scrolls, the codices... in the city dump... It was you. You are not just Elias, you are Elias the Philosopher."
A dry, rattling cough shook Elias's frame. It wasn't the wet, desperate cough of the lung fever he'd heard from Dalia, but something brittle and dusty, a sound like small stones grinding together deep in his chest. Once the spasm ended, I watched the old man's gaze drop to the scratch on the clay pot, tracing that looped curve with an unspoken ache. The old man's shoulders tightened. Grief flared in his eyes, silent but undeniable. I felt it strike him like the tormentor's whip.
He raised his head and met my stare, voice gentle and unwavering: "I was advisor to the King. Now I am just Elias. And you are Nadim. And that is enough. As I said, the King can break your body, but he cannot break a principle. Understanding that is the only armor that matters here."
I didn't have the scrolls anymore, I had something so much better, I had their author. Right in front of me. I could see him, feel his hands, talk to him. He continued writing on the pot.
"You managed to read the scrolls you found. Perhaps with difficulty, but I know you did. The common script they're written in is a clumsy tool, my son. It is for carving proclamations into stone. It is slow. To write 'the grain shipment is short by three sacks' takes time and space."
I stared at the marks. They were not the elegant formal script from the body of the writings. I recognized them instantly. They were the strange, seemingly random scribbles from the margins of the codices on law and astronomy. The notes I had dismissed as stray ink marks, decorations, or perhaps the doodling of a bored scribe.
Elias said, "Workshop Overseer Borin uses mismatched tally sticks. A merchant uses his slow, blocky letters. But a scholar, an administrator... he uses the Scribe's Hand. This," he says, tapping the strange marks. It records the truth faster than a lie can be told. To a fool like Borin, it is a doodle. To the Warden, it is efficiency."
"Teach me," I implored with every fiber of my being. "Teach me everything."
The heavy scrape of a guard's boots announced an arrival. He entered the infirmary and scowled at the gathering.
"He's had enough rest. The Overseer needs backs in the brickyard." His words for Elias were clipped. It wasn't a direct command, just stating the Overseer's needs. I could see the guard's frustration at being unable to simply grab Elias as he would any other prisoner.
"With all due respect, Head Guard Tarik, he's still feverish. To work him now is to risk permanent injury."
The guard turned to face the old woman: "And what are you doing here, Mara? Did Borin finally run out of things for you to fix?"
Mara didn't even glance up from her stitching: "Overseer Borin understands the value of maintaining the Warden's property. He knows a torn tunic today is an ordeal when Prince Kareem comes for an inspection. He also remembers who found the loom weights he misplaced last week. It's called foresight, Tarik. Competence earns certain privileges."
Anger flushed on Tarik's neck. There was no effective comeback. Mara had power that had nothing to do with brute force.
Commander Kael was unnervingly still but he commented, "This asset is damaged. To deploy him now is an illogical use of prison property. "
Tarik turned to Commander Kael, "And you. Still praying to the light? The Warden may let you wander around staring at walls and indulging your morning sacraments out of respect for old campaigns, Commander, but your authority died at the border. Don't think for a second you give orders here."
I filed that away: morning sacraments and authority died at the border. This strange, silent man was a Commander and, for some reason, the Warden still allowed him certain dignities.
When Kael finally turned from the window, his shadow fell across Tarik like a dropped shroud. The guard, who had been puffed with indignation, unconsciously took a half-step back, his bravado deflating slightly under the weight of that silent, unyielding gaze. "I am giving an assessment, Guard. Using the boy now introduces chaos into the system and risks further, unnecessary expenditure of resources." He met Tarik's glare. "The Warden, unlike you, understands the cost of a broken supply line. He remembers what happens when quartermasters fail. And the Warden dislikes inefficiency."
Tarik's redness only increased, "I'll take lessons on efficiency when you're wearing a commander's cloak again. Until then, I'm taking this 'asset' to the workshops. The Overseer needs a strong back."
Mara interjected, "He'll have to borrow yours, then."
Tarik ignored the insult, grabbed me by the arm, and ripped me off the table. I could barely stand, let alone walk. The pain made me gasp.
As I was dragged away from the infirmary, I looked back at the three of them: Elias's look of sorrowful encouragement, Mara's defiant smirk, and Kael's unyielding, stoic gaze that offered no pity, only the expectation of endurance.
As Tarik's grip dug into my arm, the pain was a sharp, clear note. I looked back at the three of them: a philosopher, a weaver, a commander. Their parting words weren't just advice; they were tools.
A principle cannot be flogged. Elias's anchor against despair.
Competence earns privileges. Mara's defiant smirk was proof of it.
Control your response. Kael's gaze demanded it.
My body was a prisoner, but my mind felt the a glimmer of hope for more than just survival.