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Chapter 5
    Nox was tortured, not just physically, but mentally. Not knowing what happened, where he was, or why he was all alone caused as much agony as his injuries. But the thing that drove him to both delirium and nausea with equal intensity was as shocking as it was brutal. At first, when he found the spear sticking out of his stomach, he thought he was hallucinating, but when he touched it, barbs of pain shot from his lower back and down his legs. In that instant he knew every centimetre of that smooth rod, from the twenty or so that he could see in front of him to however much of it stuck out his back, was very, very real.
    Movement out the corner of his eye caught his attention. But no matter how much he wanted to see what it was, he couldn’t move or turn around enough to see it.
    â€˜Who’s there?’
    The sweeping silence had his mind playing tricks on him. The damn wind alternated between howling gusts, like forced whispers rippling through the cracks in the building walls, to protracted quiet, like now. But even that remained as a hollow whistle in his ears. He’d had endless silence before; in fact, he usually cherished being alone and devoid of any incessant noise. But now, as the whistling winds paused in its freakish onslaught, and he lay on his side, all alone in this strange room, fear engulfed him like he was drowning in sewerage.
    He froze at a new noise and jerked his head backwards, desperate to see who was there. His breath caught in his throat at the agony piercing his lower back.
    â€˜What do you want?’
    The sound continued in a strange repetitive motion. It was like someone shuffling in slippers. But as suddenly as it started, it stopped.
    Father Benedici often wandered the halls of their church in his slippers, and Nox had lost count of the amount of times he had to literally clench his jaw closed to stop himself from yelling at the father to pick up his feet. The damn old fool would trudge to the toilet several times during the night. It was a wonder Nox hadn’t killed him many years earlier than he did.
    Nox clenched his teeth now, focusing solely on the shuffling. It stopped again.
    â€˜Talk to me, damn you.’ He slammed his fist on the wood he was lying on. Searing pain ripped down his legs and he howled at the agony. And then for the hell of it, he screamed as loud as his tortured throat would allow.
    â€˜Help. Help me!’
    His screaming reduced to tears and soon deteriorated into sobbing … something he hadn’t done since he was a child. It was inexplicable that he couldn’t remember how he ended in the state he was in right now, and yet he could remember the last time he’d cried his eyes dry. He was only ten years old at the time, locked in a cupboard, sitting on the floor with his knees tucked up to his chest. It was a vivid memory.
    He went back there now, taking in the cold stone floor and the cramped space that seemed to nudge in that little bit more with every breath he took. Without any natural light as a reference, or any light at all, he’d lost all sense of time. Minutes ticked by, hours dragged on. For seven hours he was trapped in that cupboard. It had felt like a week. But he’d do every second of it over again, as it turned out to be his most important life lesson. He’d ridden all the emotions while hugging his knees in the darkness: fear, disbelief, embarrassment, complete uselessness. But one emotion grew like a festering wound: anger. By the time Father Benedici found him, he was no longer a snivelling little boy. He was driven. Driven by anger like a pride of lions are driven by hunger.
    He’d allowed his anger to charge his revenge. And when he got it, that little boy who locked him in the cupboard, a fellow orphan who was supposedly his friend, had been begging for his forgiveness.
    He’d never forget his name, Shyain. Until the day he killed him, Nox repeated his name all day long.