The chains groaned gently with each breath.

  Rell hung in the dimness, but not still. His body moved in small circles — deliberate ones. He flexed just enough to shift the pressure from his joints to his core, controlling his blood flow, slowing the numbness in his legs. One eye tracked the light bleeding in through a vine-covered slit in the stone ceiling. The other stayed focused on the patterns in the guard shifts.

  Three steps. Turn. Spit. Stretch. Yawn.

  He counted them.

  He listened to every creak in the wall, every change in humidity.

  To most, he was meditating. Broken. Hanging.

  But he was planning.

  From behind the cover of a supply tarp strung between two crates, Neyxa watched him. Her posture was relaxed. Her expression? Completely unreadable. She hadn’t spoken since the deal. Hadn’t returned to his cell.

  But she watched.

  Every day since.

  Rell didn’t look at her.

  But he knew.

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  Out in the camp, the pirates were already preparing to sell.

  Four children, including two barely older than toddlers, had been pulled from the holding pen and stripped of their identifiers — tribal beads, carved bone tokens, names.

  They stood silently by the trade platform as Yvonne circled them like cattle.

  He tilted one child’s chin upward.

  “Soft hands,” he muttered. “Good for house work.”

  The girl didn’t blink.

  He moved to the next.

  “Eyes too sharp,” he grunted. “Might try to run.”

  He raised a hand to mark her with ash for denial.

  That’s when a tall, lean figure appeared behind him — long hair tied back, coat dusty with sea-wind and ash. His name was Vice Admiral Darsen Voss, and everyone in camp stepped out of his way.

  Voss: “Captain.”

  Yvonne paused, not looking back.

  Yvonne: “Speak.”

  Voss: “We’ve got a situation on the east ridge. Tech quarter and coastal squad are scrapping over inventory split. Turned ugly. Explosives were used.”

  Yvonne lowered his hand.

  He turned, eyes narrowing.

  “How many dead?”

  “Four confirmed. And rising.”

  Yvonne’s jaw clicked once.

  He looked back at the children.

  Then at his camp.

  Then at the dark tree line beyond it.

  “Hold the sale.”

  Voss gave a curt nod.

  Yvonne swept his coat around and barked at two elite guards to follow.

  “To the ridge,” he ordered. “Let’s remind them what kind of kingdom this is.”

  Back in the cell vault, Rell had seen the whole thing — not with his eyes, but in the tremor of footsteps, the sudden shift in sound, the absence of Yvonne’s presence like a predator leaving the jungle.

  He exhaled.

  And opened the link.

  ::Ko Mala.::

  ::Still breathing, jungle boy.::

  ::Yvonne just left. Faction fight east side. He’s not here. We might not get a second window.::

  ::Then we do it now?::

  ::Not yet. We wait till the camp sleeps. The guards left behind — they don’t respect orders. They’ll make mistakes.::

  ::You’re thinking like me now.::

  ::No. Just thinking clear.::

  Ko Mala gave a soft grunt of approval.

  ::How’s your strength?::

  ::I been saving it. Might only get one roar before they bring the steel.::

  ::One will be enough.::

  And across the camp, from the shadows behind a lean-to, Neyxa still watched the boy in chains.

  She couldn’t hear his words.

  But something about the tension in his shoulders… the way his breathing slowed, synced to the guards… the way his body refused to sag like the others—

  He wasn’t broken.

  He was preparing.

  And she felt it in her chest, a dull, slow beat.

  Badump.

  Badump.

  She turned before it could grow louder and vanished into the shade.

  Chapter End.