Chapter 21 — A New Skin
The iron door groaned open in the early hours, hinges stiff with rust. Lucien didn't move from the pile of straw and frayed fabric until he saw the tray.
Steam curled upward in lazy tendrils from another bowl of thick stew. A hunk of bread—soft, golden, buttered—sat beside it. And next to the food, folded with a strange kind of care, was something new.
Clothes.
Not the scratchy prison-gray shifts he'd grown used to. No numbered tags, no collar, no iron rings stitched into the fabric.
Just… clothes.
A plain linen shirt, dull beige but whole. A pair of brown trousers, slightly worn at the knees but intact. A length of twine tied into a makeshift belt.
He stared at them for a long moment. His eyes lingered not on the fabric but on what they meant.
He sat up, slow and deliberate, and reached for the bread first. Butter melted against his tongue as he bit down. His hands still shook faintly when he lifted the bowl, but they were steadier now—there was strength returning to his limbs. Thin, wiry, unfinished. But it was there.
The stew had bite to it. Not just warmth, but spice—an earthy, sharp heat that lingered on his lips. Someone had seasoned it. On purpose. It was meant to taste good.
He didn't smile. Didn't wonder. Just ate.
He hadn't spoken in months. Not a sound. No whimpers in pain. No pleas. No curses.
The last words he'd spoken belonged to another time—before the desert, before the cage, before the arena floor slicked red. They hung somewhere in the echoing void behind his silence, unreachable.
After the last bite, he set the tray aside. Then he dragged the dented metal bucket across the stone floor. It clanked once, sharp and jarring. He didn't flinch.
The tap coughed out cold water, slapping hard against the bottom of the bucket. He stripped without ceremony and stepped into the chill, using what was left of yesterday's soap. He scrubbed mechanically—behind the ears, beneath the jawline, down the spine. His ribs showed. His skin was marred, but clean.
The grime ran in thin trails down his legs and into the water. He rinsed twice, then dried off with the fabric from his bedding.
The light had shifted when he dressed.
The clothes were coarse, but the seams were tight. The shirt hung loosely at the shoulders. The trousers were a little short. He cinched the belt. Tugged at the sleeves. Rolled them up. Flexed his fingers.
He stood in the center of the room, barefoot, dressed like a person again.
It felt... off.
Like wearing someone else's skin.
He didn't pace. Didn't test the door. Just sat back on the bed and tilted his head toward the slice of sky that framed the upper window.
A breath came. Slow. Heavy. He let it out without sound.
Above, far from the rot-stink and mold-damp walls, the world kept moving.
He thought, for the first time in what felt like years, of his parents.
His mother's laugh, light and quick, always reaching too far into the room. His father's scowl when reading bad news on his console, thumb tapping against the table. The half-finished dinners. The bedtime stories. The warmth of a house powered by clean energy and filtered air.
Did they know?
Had they watched his body collapse? Had someone told them, cold and official, that their son had been Called?
Had they cried?
He couldn't picture it. Couldn't see their faces breaking. He could only see them frozen—his mother with white-knuckled fingers, his father pacing the length of a room too clean, too bright, too far from this one.
He wondered if his father had carried him to the TCF himself.
Or if he couldn't bear to.
He imagined them now, sitting in a hospital room somewhere, beside a body that hadn't moved in weeks. Or months.
The doctors would explain it clinically.
"His consciousness is being Trialed. If he survives, he'll return. If not…"
Lucien stared at his hands. The knuckles were still scraped from the last fight in the pit. He didn't remember the man's name. He barely remembered his face.
There had been too many.
They wouldn't know what he'd become.
They wouldn't know how long he'd gone without speaking, or the way he'd learned to chew slowly so no one would hear how good the food was. They wouldn't know how many times he'd watched someone take their last breath. How many times he'd made sure they did.
They wouldn't recognize him.
And maybe… maybe they weren't supposed to.
He didn't mourn that.
He didn't fear what came next.
He'd known the auction would come. From the moment he was herded into the prison, from the first time he saw the brands on the other prisoners' necks, he'd known. This place was a warehouse. He was inventory.
Now, they'd cleaned him. Fed him. Dressed him.
Because he was ready for the showroom.
It didn't make him feel weak.
It made him feel finished.
Like something had ended.
He leaned his head back against the stone and closed his eyes.
Outside this cell, someone was already naming a price. Deciding his worth. Measuring his body, his scars, his silence.
Let them.
Whatever door opened next, he'd walk through it without flinching.
Not because he wasn't afraid.
But because fear was a wasted currency here.
And he'd already spent all of his.