They thought I was defeated.
But soon, very soon, they would learn?—
A gilded cage did not make a man tame.
It made him patient.
And patience was the deadliest weapon of all.
The front of the cage swung open with a creak, a sound that might have signaled captivity—but to me, it was the sound of inevitability.
I let my body slump forward, every movement slow, designed to deceive.To sell the illusion.A man beaten, broken, stripped of the fight that once made him dangerous.
They wanted to believe it.
And so, I let them.
The guards sneered as they shoved me forward, their laughter grating against the dungeon walls, thick with cruelty and arrogance.
“Get in there, you sorry excuse for a rebel,” one barked, shoving me into the metallic enclosure with a force that might have meant something had I truly been as weak as they thought.
I offered no struggle.
No protest.
My limbs buckled on command, my body crumbling onto the cage’s cold floor like a hollow shell of the man I once was.
They jeered at my pathetic collapse, watching with smug satisfaction as I curled into myself, nothing more than a shattered relic of defiance.
Fools.
They saw a prisoner.
They did not see the embers smoldering beneath the ash.
With a grunt, the guards hoisted the prison onto their shoulders, removing me from the dungeon’s suffocating depths into the crisp night air.The cold bit into my skin, starkly contrasting to the heat thrumming beneath my ribs—the fire of what was coming.
The cage rattled, the metal groaning beneath the shifting weight.Every footstep sent vibrations through the bars, the clanking of iron against cobblestone ringing through the streets like a death knell.
They grunted beneath the weight, their breaths puffing in the thick and heavy chill as they labored to carry their demise.
They did not know it yet.
But I did.
With each jolt of the wagon as they loaded me into its darkened belly, my body swayed with the motion, but within—my heartbeat was constant.
A drum of impending retribution.
They thought I was being delivered to my execution.
But I was being delivered to theirs.
I let out a low, guttural moan, feigning pain, my voice weaving through the wooden slats of the wagon, threading weakness into the night.Each sound was a deliberate note in the symphony of deception, a carefully crafted illusion meant for any watchful ear lurking in the shadows.
The ride was brutal, each jolt and lurch rattling my cage, throwing my body against the iron bars.I let it.Every shudder, every groan was a calculated performance.
But beneath the veil of frailty, strength pulsed through my veins.
