Happiness was a marvelous feeling, but Arawn soon realized that it didn't come cheap. The moment they were in the middle of the sixth game, Cayote jumped forward.
He was so fast that Arawn only saw a blur before a sharp stone was pressed against Corwal's neck. "Don't move, boy," Cayote snarled, his eyes focused only on Arawn. "I see anything, he dies."
Fury bordering on madness surged through Arawn, but he sat still, watchful. He blamed himself for being stupid. If he lost himself in the joy of having a friend to play with for the first time, it didn't mean others would too. Not Cayote at least.
The man was as bulky as Feist, maybe even more so, but his body hadn't been lined with scars before he came to the Gutter. He was the kind that played others until they fell into his trap and could no longer struggle. More than a few prisoners had met their end like that.
"I—"
Corwal buried his elbow in the man's stomach, then whirled around and kicked him in the lower region. Cayote shook, about to keel over, and Corwal punched him to make sure he did fall.
"If you try that again, I'll gouge your eyes out," he promised in a low voice.
There was silence in the cell, save for Cayote's ragged breathing where he lay on the ground. Although seeing wasn't a luxury anyone possessed in the Gutter, they'd lived in it for long enough to know what had happened based on hearing.
And they were surprised. It wasn't rare for newcomers to be stronger than expected, but they usually didn't give a beating to the second strongest out of nowhere.
"Should we continue the game?" Corwal asked upon sitting back down. His heart was racing and his face was flushed from the sudden excess of movement, but he didn't betray it with sound. His breathing was calm, his movements leisurely and confident.
'He's not just a random noble.' Arawn was suddenly certain of that. It piqued his curiosity, and he wanted to ask more, but Corwal didn't seem like one to share his secrets with a cell-full of prisoners. 'Maybe once he stays here for a while and realizes that he's never leaving.'
They finished their game without anymore interference. Corwal lost as usual, but his mind didn't seem to be on the game any longer. Arawn called it a day then and went to rest. Sleep was out of the question, but he could still rest his eyes for a moment.
As he did so, he heard Corwal rise to his feet. The young man stood up and walked by the wall, exploring it with his fingers from bottom to as far up as he could reach. He was moving slow, but he had to stop soon to not leave Arawn's side.
His trick against Cayote had worked because the man had underestimated him. It wouldn't work a second time, so his only choice was to stay glued to Arawn.
"So there really isn't any way out?" Corwal asked in the end, returning to his original seat.
"Do you think all of them would still be here if that wasn't the case?" Arawn motioned with his head at the ten men on the other side of the cell. "The Gutter was built from large slabs of onyx. You can neither move them nor dig through them."
Corwal's expression grew grim at his words, but it didn't look like he'd lost his confidence. A part of him still thought that he would be able to leave.
It was a dream that Arawn had seen die so many times that he could no longer count. Every single criminal came with it, and each one lost hold of it after circling the Gutter a thousand times.
That day, they didn't receive food. Everyone grumbled, but they couldn't do anything. A few tried calling to the guards above, but there was no answer. The few torches on the staircase leading out had also went out, leaving them in pitch black.
"Is that normal?" Corwal asked in a low voice through the hooting and hollering of Liam and Ginger.
Arawn was sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, since he had a feeling that it was the only way to keep the other safe. His power might be great, but it was a wild beast out for itself, and his reaction speed wasn't up to par, like the incident earlier had proven.
"No," Feist said, coming over to them.
Arawn tensed, but didn't move, not betraying his weariness. "He's right," he echoed Feist's reply. "Food is usually barely edible, but it's there. They wouldn't dare to let me starve after the last incident."
They fell in silence then and waited. At some point, Arawn dozed off. When he opened his eyes again, his vision swam. His heartbeat picked up, but the next moment he heard Corwal breathing steadily by his side.
His slight exhale didn't go unnoticed by Feist. The scarred man tilted his head in thought, then looked in the direction of the other prisoners. None of them had dared to approach the two rulers of the Gutter without explicit permission.
"You're making a mistake," Feist said in a low voice. It sounded strangely old and tired.
The sentiment wasn't one that Arawn shared, and he ignored the old man. He rubbed his stomach, wondering when they'd receive their next meal. His intestines were hungry enough to eat one another.
To distract himself, Arawn asked Corwal about the world outside again and marveled at his tales. But soon, it grew hard to concentrate on them. His stomach growled, demanding sustenance; water could no longer calm it down.
Noticing his restlessness, Feist frowned. "How are you?"
"Hungry," Arawn told the truth. Feist, who had been a guard in the Gutter seven years ago, was the only one who knew what had happened back then, and so he was rightfully worried.
More time passed. Corwal slept to forget about the pangs of his empty stomach, but Arawn couldn't manage the same. No matter how much he tried, his thoughts circled back to the dried bread, the rotten broth they had allowed the guard to retrieve.
At that moment, Arawn would have even eaten that.
How much time had passed since they'd last eaten? It had to be days. Their food had never come on a strict schedule, but a few hours' difference had never meant much.
When another forever passed and there was still no change, flashes of white light shimmered before Arawn. Others saw it too, and their eyes went wide in horror. This was akin to a rattle snake's distinctive rattle warning them to leave or face its wrath.
Yet there was nowhere to escape. They were all locked up together in an underground cell built of blocks of solid stone.
"Calm yourself!" Feist ordered. "Do you want to kill everyone again?"
Memories of the past flashed through Arawn's mind, and he shuddered. He couldn't let that happen again. No way. There wa too much blood on his hands already.
He took a deep breath and forced a calm upon himself. The lights stopped flashing straight away, but Arawn could feel how tentative was his control over the power within him. It felt its existence threatened, and like a cornered animal, it reacted by lashing out.
For the moment, Arawn could still restrain it, but if he didn't get food soon, horrible things would happen.
While he worked on keeping his power in check, Feist went to talk to Corwal. "Anything happen up top? Something big?"
Corwal was still for a moment, then nodded. "The warden is dead."
"What?" Feist almost jumped out of his skin. "Karren can't be dead!"
"But that's the truth of it," Corwal said with a shrug. "When drinking in the tavern, I heard everyone gossiping about it. Some said she got done in by one of the prisoners, others that she got in some noble's way, while another claimed that she couldn't take it anymore and jumped into the sea herself. Whatever's the case though, she's gone."
Before Feist could call him out again, he added, "And there's been another warden chosen. Some noble kid by surname Addler. Oh, and the king is preparing for a grand ball, so he raised taxes again and lowered the pay for all the military, prison guards included."
"The bastard," Feist cursed.
"Shithead, just call him what he is," Cayote sneered. If anyone had a bone to pick with the king, then it would certainly be a general who won a war by sacrificing all his soldiers and ended up in the Gutter for that.
Liam looked above with a frown. "You think they're protesting up there?"
"No doubt," one of the other prisoners muttered. "And we're left here to starve to death."
"This shouldn't have happened," Feist murmured to himself, not looking at anyone. "There were specific instructions given to everyone. The whole place can go to hell, but not us here. Not us…"
It was the first time Arawn heard about it, but he wasn't surprised. He'd had a feeling that no one would want a repeat of what had happened back then.
Yet it seemed like they were destined for a repeat. Time passed a snail's pace, but it went by, and it got harder and harder for Arawn to control the raging power within him. It wanted to fight, to lash out at anything and everything for making it suffer.
On the fourth or fifth day, when Arawn was starting to see stars in his vision, Feist walked toward Corwal. Arawn could see and hear it, but his power was too unstable. Even moving might set it off, and he couldn't do that. He couldn't be responsible for the destruction that would follow.
Yet Feist didn't do anything. He just shook Corwal's shoulder and woke him from the moment of fitful sleep he'd managed to catch.
When the young man's eyes cleared some, he was dragged to Arawn's side. Feist crouched down so they were staring at each other eye-to-eye.
"Use your power," he said in a soft voice. "Blast a way out for yourself. That's the only way for us to avert a disaster."
While Arawn gawked at him, rolling the words in his mind to make sure he'd understood them correctly, Feist held up Corwal by the scruff of his rags. "As for you, make sure nothing happens to him. If he receives even a scratch, you'll regret having been born. Understood?"