Half-Truths and Broken Ribs

"There's something properly absurd about your kidnapper becoming your only ally. The universe doesn't do irony by halves—it commits to the bit."

I woke to the sound of the door screaming.

Those rusted hinges—that same shriek I'd heard when they'd locked me in. My eyes snapped open. My heart slammed against my ribs. For a moment I couldn't remember where I was, couldn't make sense of the dim light and rough stone walls and the cold that had seeped into every part of me.

Then it came back. All of it. The city. The mob. The Magistra. This cell.

Figures entered. Two of them—guards, by their clothing, different from the ones who'd brought me here but wearing the same grey uniforms threaded with that soft luminescence. They carried something between them.

A body.

My stomach lurched. For a terrible moment I thought they were bringing me a corpse—disposing of the dead by dumping them with the living, some twisted form of torture I couldn't even name. But then the body moved. Made a sound that might have been a groan or might have been a curse. Tried to raise its head and failed.

Nelson.

They dropped him on the floor perhaps a metre from my pallet. Not gently. Not carefully. Just letting him fall like a sack of something spoiled, something that had outlived its usefulness. He landed with a thud that seemed too loud in the small space, his body crumpling into a heap of bloodied clothing and broken pride.

One of the guards spoke—a single word, harsh and dismissive. I didn't understand it. Didn't need to. The tone said everything.

Then they were retreating. Pulling the door closed. The hinges screamed again, and the lock clicked, and the silence rushed back in to fill the space they'd left.

And then there were two.

For a long moment, neither of us moved.

I stared at Nelson from my slumped position against the wall, taking in what they'd done to him. His face was swollen, the skin around his left eye puffed and purple, his lip split in two places. Blood had dried in tracks down his chin, down his neck, soaking into the collar of a shirt that had been torn nearly in half. His hands were bound in front of him now rather than behind—small mercy—but the cord had cut so deep into his wrists that I could see raw flesh where it met skin.

He looked like something that had been through a machine. Something that had been processed.

The vial pulsed against my chest. I'd almost forgotten it was there, had slept with it pressed against my skin, that small warmth in all the cold. Now I was acutely aware of it. Of the light I carried. Of what Sylvie had said about darkness and kindness and people who were lost.

Nelson's eyes opened.

They found mine across the dim space—bloodshot, unfocused at first, then sharpening as consciousness returned. I watched him take in his surroundings. The cell. The pallet. Me, sitting against the wall with my useless legs sprawled in front of me.

"Joel." His voice was barely a whisper. Rough. Wet-sounding, like there was blood in his throat.

"Nelson."

The silence stretched between us. But it was different now—less total, less crushing. The presence of another person, even this person, changed something about the darkness.

I should have felt satisfaction. Should have taken some grim pleasure in seeing the man who'd wanted me dead, who'd dragged me across a wasteland, reduced to this. But I didn't. Couldn't find it in myself. We were both broken now. Both trapped. Both waiting for whatever came next.

"They questioned you," I said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"For how long?"

His eyes drifted to the ceiling. The patches of luminescent moss that provided our only light. "I don't know. Hours. Could have been days. Hard to tell down here."

I thought about that. About time passing without any way to measure it. About the disorientation of existing in a space where day and night had no meaning.

"What did they want to know?"

A sound escaped him—not quite a laugh, not quite a cough. Something caught halfway between, filtered through damaged lips and what might have been a broken rib. "Everything. Names. Routes. Safe houses. The location of every sympathetic Pirate settlement between here and the coast."

"Did you tell them?"

"I told them things." His eyes found mine again, and despite the blood and the bruises, I saw something familiar in them. That cold calculation. That constant assessment. "Some of them were even true."

Typical Nelson. Even now. Even broken and bleeding on the floor of a cell beneath a mountain. He couldn't give a straight answer. Couldn't let anyone see all of his cards.

I watched him try to push himself upright. Watched his arms tremble with the effort, the muscles in his jaw clenching as he fought against whatever pain was screaming through his body. It took him three attempts. Three times he got partway up and collapsed back down, his breathing harsh and ragged. On the fourth try, he managed it—got his back against the wall opposite mine, his bound hands resting in his lap, his head tilted back against the stone.

"My legs still don't work," I said into the silence.

"I know."

"I can't run. Can't fight. Can't do anything except sit here."

"I know."

"So what happens now?"

Nelson was quiet for a long moment. I could hear his breathing—laboured, uneven, catching on something that might have been fluid in his lungs. The sound of a body that had been pushed past its limits and was only barely holding together.

"We wait," he said finally. "We rest. We heal what we can."

"And then?"

"Then we see what opportunities present themselves."

Opportunities. The word felt absurd in this context. We were locked in a cell beneath a mountain, in a city full of people who wanted us dead, surrounded by guards and gates and a maze of corridors I couldn't navigate even if my legs worked.

"What opportunities?" I asked. "We're trapped. They're going to put us on trial, or execute us, or—"

"They haven't killed us yet." Nelson's voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "They had every chance. Could have done it in the foothills. Could have let the mob tear us apart in the streets. But they didn't. They brought us here. Processed us. Put us in a cell together." His eyes met mine. "That means something."

"What does it mean?"

"It means we have value. Or they think we might. And as long as we have value, we have leverage."

I thought about the Magistra. Her questions about my condition. Her mention of healers who would examine me. The Council of Luminarques will render judgment based on truth, not assertion.

"They called you a Portal Pirate," I said. "The Magistra—she said they know your name."

"Yes."

"What does that mean? What did you do to make them hate you so much?"

The silence stretched. I watched Nelson's face, trying to read something in those cold, battered features. But he'd locked everything away behind walls I couldn't penetrate.

"The Portal Pirates have history with Xylora," he said eventually. "Old history. Bad history."

"What kind of history?"

"The kind that gets people killed."

He didn't elaborate. Didn't offer details or explanations or context. Just let the words hang there, another piece of a puzzle I couldn't see the edges of.

Typical Nelson, I thought again. Even now. Even when we're both going to die down here.

"And me?" I pressed. "I'm not a Pirate. I've never stolen anything from anyone. Why am I here?"

Nelson's eyes drifted to my chest. To the vial, visible now above the torn neckline of my shirt, its soft glow pulsing in the dimness.

"Where did you get that?"

The question caught me off guard. "What?"

"The vial. The light." His voice had changed—sharper now, more focused. "Where did you get it?"

"A woman. On the terraces. She gave it to me."

"A Xyloran gave you Les Lumineux?" Something flickered across his face. Surprise, maybe. Or concern. "Why?"

"I don't know. She said..." I hesitated, remembering Sylvie's words. Her grandmother's story. The complicated history she hadn't explained. "She said I looked lost. That everyone should have light when they're lost."

Nelson stared at me for a long moment. Then he made that sound again—the not-quite-laugh that seemed to hurt him to produce.

"Interesting," he said. "Very interesting."

"What's interesting? What does it mean?"

"It means you've made a connection. Someone in this city saw you and decided to show kindness instead of hatred." His eyes met mine. "That's rare. That's valuable. Don't waste it."

I thought about Sylvie. Her dark hair and curious eyes. The way she'd walked beside the grey, matching its pace, watching my face with that quiet intensity. The warmth of the vial as she'd slipped it over my head.

Bonne chance, Joel Gibbons. You will need it here.

"I don't even know her name," I lied. The lie came automatically, instinctively. Some part of me didn't want to share Sylvie with Nelson. Didn't want to give him information he might use, might leverage, might trade to save his own skin.

"Doesn't matter." Nelson's eyes had drifted closed. His voice was fading, the effort of conversation finally exceeding whatever reserves he'd been drawing on. "What matters is that someone saw you. Someone remembered you. In a place like this, that can make all the difference."

He fell silent. His breathing slowed, steadied, took on the rhythm of someone sliding into unconsciousness. Not sleep—something deeper. The body's way of forcing rest when the mind refused to surrender.

I watched him for a long moment.

This man who had almost killed me. Who had kidnapped me. Who had dragged me across a wasteland and gotten me captured by people who wanted me dead.

This man who was now my cellmate. My only source of information. The closest thing I had to an ally in this underground world.

The universe has a sick sense of humour, I thought. Or maybe I'm just the punchline to a joke I don't understand.

Time passed.

I couldn't measure it—had no way of knowing whether minutes or hours were crawling by. The luminescent moss on the ceiling didn't change. The silence didn't break. The cold didn't ease.

I sat with my back against the wall, the vial warm against my chest, and tried to make sense of everything that had happened. The city. The rivers of light. The hostile crowds and the ancient architecture and the Magistra with her cold eyes and careful questions. Sylvie and her grandmother's story. Nelson and his cryptic half-answers.

The Portal Pirates have history with Xylora. Old history. Bad history.

What kind of history? What had they done? What had been done to them?

That's rare. That's valuable. Don't waste it.

Waste what? Sylvie's gift? The connection Nelson seemed to think I'd made?

The questions multiplied, but answers remained scarce. Every piece of information I gathered just revealed how much I didn't know. How much I couldn't know, trapped down here in the dark with only a broken pirate for company.

I let my head fall back against the wall. Let my eyes drift to the ceiling, to the patches of moss that glowed their faint, steady green.

Life finds a way, I'd thought earlier. Even down here. Even in this.

Maybe that was the lesson. Maybe that was all I could hold onto. That life persisted. That moss grew in darkness. That someone had shown kindness to a stranger, and that kindness was still here, still warm against my skin, still glowing with its own small light.