The room was of cold stone; damp, dark, and depressing. Days rolled into nights without the prisoner seeing the light of the sun. The only difference to him was the slop, supposedly food, brought in exactly at midnight.
When the feeding slot in the door opened and the ugly jail-keeper threw the pad inside, the prisoner knew; at that time he knew it was midnight. Such was the way he kept track of the days he was in there. After every feeding period a scratch was carved into the wall; there were so far eighteen hundred and thirty. So much time wasted rotting in the dungeon.
It mattered little, the prisoner had nothing to return to. His past life was erased from under him; it was now confined to this cell. Intermittent boughs of sleep were his only release, and even those were becoming fitful of late. Curled under rags of a blanket, dressed in rags of clothes, the prisoner closed his eyes and slept.
--
His eyes weakly fluttered open at the sound of voices. They were coming from outside his cell. One of them was even distinctly female! Who knew he was here besides the ugly jail-keeper?
Again the female voice spoke, this time more insistently. The prisoner couldn't make out her words, catching only brief pieces: "blood repaid", "honor", and "retribution." The speaking grew quiet and a foreign sound came; his cell door being unlocked, the sound of an unremembered dream.
Before the door could be swung open, there came another sound. A sound long forgotten, a sound that stirred memories in the prisoner; the sound of cold steel piercing living flesh. Next came the muffled thud of a corpse hitting cobble stone flooring just before the cell door crashed open. A female form appeared, and by the time the prisoner forced himself to his shaky knees the woman was latched to his chest and crying softly.
"Arloth ... I thought you were dead ... " she whimpered into his dirty rags. His head leaned forward and greasy black hair spilled over the woman's head and shoulders.
"Si..- Silvia w-what..?" His once smooth and powerful voice rasped, weak from disuse. The simple effort of speaking sent the prisoner's body into a fit of painful coughs.
Silvia produced a filled water skin and slid it into his grasp. The cool water felt good in his dry mouth and parched throat. Soon the water skin was drained and forgotten on the floor; it helped, but not much.
His clouded gray eyes caught her green orbs and stared tiredly, a simple question forced from his lips: "Why?"
The woman, Silvia by name, smiled lightly up at the prisoner. "Because I love you, dear brother."
His words were coming easier, if not more clearly. "Bullshit."
"You helped me when I needed it. I care for your continual existence. Our debts are now paid."
He smiled for the first time since his imprisonment. "That sounds like my sister."
She helped him to his feet and held him while he regained his lost balance. The long years in the dark had nearly broken him; his body was incredibly weak. His eyes, so accustomed to the dark, burned in the meager torchlight.
"Arloth, you must listen to me. Follow the hall on your right once leaving this cell. An equu and provisions are waiting outside." She sighed and his expression was grim.
"Brother, you cannot stay here any longer. Get as far from the country as possible or father..." Her proud green eyes dropped to the floor.
"What did f-father do, Silvia?"
Her eyes remained on the cobblestones. "The mor forced me to become his concubine. He wants a pure heir; you have been displaced."
It was something he feared, yet had anticipated. With Arloth imprisoned, the mor was free to breed another heir: one he could easily manipulate.
His gray eyes cleared and darkened with his newfound emotionless. "Arloth is dead. When I return, it shall be the doom of the bloodline. For your kindness, you have been forewarned."
Leaving his astonished sibling behind, Arloth picked his way from the dungeon. Leaning against the walls for support, he left the hall and the entrance into the darkness of his future.