Chapter 14

Under a waning sun in the Solassios mines, Zevander receives reduced rations, signaling the warden’s intent to see him fall in an impending pit match against an orgoth. With Kazhimyr and Ravezio, he weighs his chances and the idea of bargaining with Jagron, while witnessing a guard Paingiver torture a defiant new prisoner into licking slop from the floor, reaffirming the guards’ cruelty and the stakes of disobedience.

Afterward, Zevander’s father arrives with the water cart. He warns Zevander not to sacrifice himself, then urgently claims Zevander’s chest mark is tied to sablefyre—an ancient god’s power within him—despite the prison’s magic-shackling glyphs. Zevander rejects the idea, but his father insists he must “find a way” beyond mortal limits.

At the latrine, the father confesses his darkest secret. Long ago, as a Hexman hired by a Solassion general and Lord Belthane, he hunted Lord Vanhelm’s estranged wife, accused of heresy. Finding two scarred, mute children hidden in her home, he mistakenly killed the woman, only to learn with her dying breaths that the children were King Jeret’s abused bastards. Stricken with guilt, he burned the cottage and smuggled the children to Eremicia, then lied under Nilmirth to protect them.

He explains he later sought Cadavros’s power to defend his family, hid the truth from Zevander’s mother, and now lives with regret. He pleads with Zevander to survive the fight and not trade his life for an old man’s, while affirming Zevander’s fate is forged by ancient fire. Zevander offers no embrace, only a promise of bread tomorrow, and returns to face what comes.