His heart throbbed painfully in his chest as he awakened from his slumber. Sleep still fogged his eyes, and he struggled to find his bearings once more in the coldness of the damp cell shrouded by velvety shadows.
Unlike the many days before, this day was darker. He could feel the coolness from the absence of the sun leaking into his cell, and though he couldn't see the outside world, he could tell from the temperature drop that it was indeed a rainy day.
Something he feared. He was ashamed of being so afraid of so many things, especially something like storms. He couldn't help but associate the rain and storms with much darker memories, and the loud noises they produced was something that he was sensitive to.
A sigh escaped his lips as he leaned against the cold, stone wall. He waited for the guards to retrieve him, he knew that he would be considered healed enough to continue the day's trial.
The wounds ached from the cold, but they were sealed. Monstrous he looked with his unkempt hair, his scars, his wounds. He felt like a butchered piece of meat and knew he likely looked like it, too. He didn't want to feel any more physical pain, it was becoming too much to handle. His body shook with fear and he resembled an abused, forgotten puppy.
What did Asheria mean when she said not to thank him yet? What had she done? What was she going to do?
He had noticed something in the last couple of days.
He no longer had an appetite.
He had refused his meal when it was pushed through the door and chose to sleep instead. Lately, that's all he's been able to do. He found that he hadn't even woken up when one of the guards entered his cell to retrieve the tray of food after Kyros had never pushed it back under the door, like he normally does after eating.
Because when he woke up, the tray of food was gone.
He was always so tired, never having the desire to eat or even open his eyes.
He was convinced he was a dead man walking.
Guards bustled down the hallways and stopped at Kyro's cell once more. They roughly jammed the key in the lock and opened the door, entering his cell with haste. They were surprised, again, to find his food untouched, but they kicked the tray of food out of the way. It clattered against the wall loudly, the liquidy contents spilling onto the floor in a warm goo.
Kyros didn't move, his eyes were locked shut. His body was still and the guards studied him for a moment.
"Is he even alive?" One of the guard's voices broke the silence. He poked Kyros with the end of his sword, watching as Kyros only let out a shallow breath.
Two guards bent down and gripped him by each arm and hauled him up to his feet. His feet immediately gave out, and he landed on his knees instead. His eyes snapped open, wild, glowing, and terrified, and he launched himself backward in an attempt to free himself.
His back collided with the wall, pulling the two guards along with him. But once he calmed from being startled from sleep, he stopped fighting and cowered away from the fists which came down to strike him.
He lived in the shadows of raised fists above his head.
They led him out of the cell, but unlike the day before, they didn't take him to the ring. They walked passed it. He was nudged hard in the back, the guards urging him to walk faster and not gawk in realization.
"Where are we going?" Kyros asked, voice barely above a whisper.
"No talking." Came the guard's short, irritated reply.
His eyes widened in fear when they entered the outside walls of the ring, his bare feet squished into the moist earth which told of earlier rainfall. The dark clouds above hung heavily in the sky, swollen with rain and promising a storm that Kyros feared.
There was green grass everywhere, but when he looked further, he noticed a spot worn away from constant use. It was a muddy circle with a short, metal stake in the ground and a few people were gathered around to watch the scene.
The whole city was encouraged to watch the spectacle all throughout the day and could come at any time they pleased since that day was an open one. Because of so, the gathering wasn't as large as the time he spent in the ring, instead, there would be a fluctuation of people to mock him throughout the day.
They were not allowed to touch him, however, they were only permitted to watch.
They jeered at him, making a mockery of his existence and Kyros turned his gaze to the ground as he was led through the crowd of people. His bare feet were cut up and bruised and he flinched when he felt saliva land on his cheeks and roll down his arms.
They were spitting at him.
"You're worthless, the scum of the earth!" The man who shouted at him rushed to him with a large clump of dirt clutched in his fists. Before Kyros could even blink, the mud was smashed against his face. The dirt fragments sprayed into his eyes and nose and he coughed, shaking his head.
Breathe.
Around him, laughter sounded and he felt his cheeks heat up in humiliation. He was naked, which only fueled his embarrassment as the crowd around him mocked his body and shamed him. They said disgusting and crude things to him, and he wanted to die.
"When you die, you will become as forgotten people will live happier without your existence. The kingdom will celebrate your demise as you scream in hell." A woman spat bitterly, narrowing her gray eyes at him.
His weak legs carried him to the muddy spot and the guards threw him to the ground roughly.
Mud covered his body and made its way into his wounds. It was an uncomfortable, gritty feeling that stung the opened and bloody flesh.
"Get up!" They commanded him.
He got into position as quickly as possible, sitting on his knees, head bowed in submission, and hands behind his back.
Heavy, thick silver cuffs were clamped around his wrists tightly behind his back. They sizzled when they enclosed around his skin and he was startled to find that they were binding his ankles together with another set of silver cuffs.
His feet were locked tightly together, forcing him to collapse onto his side in a fetal position. He fought against the bonds, but they only rubbed into his burned skin and tore into his flesh.
Thunder suddenly crashed above him which immediately caused him to freeze.
The rain started to fall on his face. On his body. The droplets splashed against him like ice - cold and sharp to the touch. He shivered, trying to breathe but could find no air.
They felt like little fingers creeping across the surface of his skin. Biting. Tearing. Gnawing. Ripping through his barriers and challenging the walls he built up in his mind.
Memories tore through his mind like the lightning that momentarily decorated the sky in a vein of electricity. Dark memories resurfaced, resurrecting themselves from the dead.
"Please, I don't want to die." The little girl begged his wolf all those years ago. Even when surrounded by the slain, brutalized body of her family, she didn't want to die. She was only seven years old yet she was brave.
She cried, looking up at him as she backed against the corner. She shrank into a tiny being, trying to make herself smaller. "I don't want to die!"
But his wolf showed no mercy.
Thunder boomed around them as he launched himself to her small, fragile body.
The screams she made as she took her last breath were horrendous and terrorizing.
He hated the storms because they made him relive every dark moment of his life. Every death he caused, every life he forever impacted. He always ran from his past, but the storms made him collide back into reality. They forced him to look at those he killed right in the eyes once more.
He could only run for so long before he was tossed back into the rain.
Another loud, earth-shaking thunder echoed across the sky. He could feel the ground rumble from the intensity of it. He fought to free his wrists from the cuffs so that he might cover his ears to lessen the noise, but he was rendered helpless.
"Give him a taste of what it's like to be silenced in death. Silence him in the same way he silenced others." King Athros said, emerging from the crowd. He was clothed in a thick, black robe that matched his dark eyes and hair.
A guard rushed to Kyros with a dirty piece of cloth in his hand and forced his jaw open. He shoved the fabric into Kyro's mouth before tightly tying the rest behind his head so that it wouldn't fall out.
Kyros already was struggling to breathe before, but the gag made it much more of a challenge. He became light-headed and dizzy and closed his eyes tightly.
His heart was beating unnaturally fast from the stress and overwhelming fear, and he wondered if the vessel would give out.
Another vein of lightning struck the sky and flashed above him. Moments later, thunder sounded once more, causing Kyros to panic. His eyes, glossy and swollen, shone from terror, and he felt trapped. He was trapped.
They crowd mocked his reactions, marveling at his fear. To them, there was nothing better than to watch a man, known for his brutal, murderous ways, be torn to nothing.
To be reduced to nothing but a sniveling, whimpering, and broken being, covered in mud, wounds, and his own bodily fluids.
Because if one removes the monster from the man and exposes the layers of humanity, what is there to fear, then?
He writhed around in the mud, the chains which bound him burned his skin. The flesh around the area was lumpy, raw, and bleeding profusely, but the amount of moist dirt that clung to his skin covered him completely, hiding the blood he was shedding.
But he feared the sound of thunder more than the physical condition his body was in.
"Breathe." Someone whispered beside him. It was such a gentle, familiar voice but it was so quiet that only he had heard.
Water clung to his eyelashes in droplets and fell down his cheeks. They were quickly washed away by the rain that started to fall from the sky harder and harder.
It wasn't his mate's voice. Asheria was nowhere to be found. Without her, he felt alone and abandoned, and his soul mourned the feeling.
A cluster of dirt and rocks smashed against his chest. Then another impact, and then another. A rock was harshly dropped onto the ridge of his eyebrow, and he could do nothing but hide his bleeding face into the mud.
He gently laid his head against the ground, gasping for air. He felt the sting of blood in his eye from the wound he sustained from the rock and was met with an immediate headache. The noise of those around him, loud and distorted, sounded like it was getting farther and farther away from him.
His hair stuck to his face and he lulled his eyes tightly shut. He could barely touch the edge of unconsciousness, and his head was spinning from the hit. Nausea held his stomach in his grasp, and sour tasting fluids arose from his belly and escaped his lips.
He wretched violently. More fluid was ejected from his slackened jaws and his head pounded with each cough.
His face was pushed deeper into the mud from each hit, nearly suffocating him.
He felt his unconsciousness slipping.
But as the storm continued to worsen, the crowd dispersed. One by one, they left. They left him alone and exposed to the elements. Cold and shivering, his eyes closed.
He knew he wouldn't emerge from the situation with the same mental state he had entered it in.
As his demons mercilessly attacked him, he stopped fighting them.
He finally let them reign victorious over his mind.
And as the storm became severe, only one figure watched him from the distance.
One figure watched his mental state change. One figure watched as reliving his trauma turned a weak man into an even weaker child.
Asheria approached Kyros, the crowd parted upon her presence. He wasn't alone, Asheria was there and he took comfort in that.
"Sleep." She murmured.
His eyes closed.