Chains Don't Break Songs

Black Tower Prison did not so much loom as sulk. From a distance, it looked like an ulcer; something the city had tried to cauterize and then, on failing, decided to simply wall off and ignore. 

They were shoved into the intake hall, where a clerk scratched in a ledger without looking up. When the runners arrived they were stripped of everything: clothing traded for scratchy beige jumpsuits, boots swapped for thin slippers, even hair pins and belt buckles confiscated with a diligence that spoke more to fear than security. Uvak demanded answers about Radiance, but was met only with the kind of silence that grows teeth. 

Jarren shifted, chains clanking as he tried to brace himself. In the wagon a jagged rivet had raked his palm; the cut still wept, a crescent of red he kept pressed against his shirt. He lifted his manacled hands toward the intake desk.

“Clerk—can we get a healer? Several of us need treatment. Especially Adan.”

One of the guards, uniform neat and new, with a badge on his chest that denoted status, snorted without looking. “You’re lucky to be breathing.”

Before Jarren could answer, the clerk actually glanced up from his ledger, frown tightening. “Per intake, wounds are to be logged and seen by the duty surgeon.”

The man turned, contempt plain. “Not for traitors. We’re not wasting bandage or spellwork on them.”

“Deputy Harkwell, that is not the procedure,” the clerk replied, sharper now. His eyes flicked to the blood dripping from Jarren’s hand, the dried blood on Isylte’s temple, Uvak’s broken nose, and Adan’s pale face; his quill hesitated, blotting the page. “This is not how we do things here. I know you’re new, but—” Then he caught the deputy’s stare and swallowed, shoulders hunching.

“It’s on the Warden’s orders,” another guard cut in. “Treatment is for processed inmates. These aren’t. Mark it ‘no treatment authorized’ and move on.”

The clerk shot a quick, uneasy look to the older, seasoned, West-Wing Deputy, who stood by the door to the corridor. The veteran was already watching with narrowed eyes and a hard set to her jaw. She met his gaze and gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head that told him to be careful, to not put himself at risk. 

The clerk’s mouth pressed thin. “Noted,” he said, voice low, and he scrawled the words with a reluctant hand. 

Jarren protested, looking back towards Adan. “He needs help.”

Deputy Harkwell stepped closer, eyes flat. “Shut it, Saurivier. You’ll get what you’re due when the Warden says it's time. Until then, try not to drip.”

“Time?” Jarren echoed, incredulous. “What kind of—”

Before he could finish, the deputy turned on his heel, dismissing him with a wave of his hand. “Shut it, Saurivier. You’ll get no sympathy here.”

***

No chains were removed. The cuffs stayed tight, edges grinding raw skin. When Orlea shifted her stance, a guard dropped to one knee and snapped shackles around her ankles, chain so short her stride became a hobble.

“Try your little brawls now,” he murmured.

Isylte glared; another pair of irons clamped shut around her legs with a flat, final click. The guard gave the linking chain a tug, forcing her forward. “No kicking. No running.”

They were marched down a corridor that smelled of rust and damp, then up a set of stairs and finally thrust into cells. The half-orc stranger from the wagon was assigned to a single, solitary cell at the end of the corridor. The rest were packed two to a cell. 

The door slammed; the sound went up into the tower and didn’t come back. Jarren braced against the wall, teeth clenched, the slow, warm leak of blood tracing his palm. Around them, iron held. And held. And held.

***

Row A of Cell Block 4 in the East Wing, where the APS runners were shunted, was reserved for “special population:” arcanists, tieflings, anyone whose blood ran dangerous or whose tongue could twist a spell from the right syllable. The Watch had done their work well. Every surface was iron; iron benches, iron bars, even the bedframes were iron, though the mattresses were little more than sacks stuffed with hay and the ghosts of prior occupants.

The guard’s laughter echoed in the corridor, mocking their predicament. Jarren exhaled slowly, defeated. “This isn’t how it ends. We’ll find a way out of here,” he promised, though the uncertainty gnawed at him. Next to him, Valpip nodded silently and immediately set to examining the lock and the hinges, fingers tracing the joins for even the suggestion of a flaw.

They spent the first hour counting. Beds, bars, guards, paces between the cell and the stairwell. It didn’t help. The iron didn’t just dull their magic; it seemed to crowd their thoughts, like a static hum only the desperate could detect.

Uvak started shouting again. “Where is Radiance? What have you done with her?” The first few times, the guards ignored him. By the fourth, a guard with a face like a shovel rapped the bars with his truncheon. “Shut it, or I’ll shut it for you.” Uvak snarled, but the threat landed; the next time he called out, it was quieter, more a prayer than a demand. Then he turned to recheck his cellmate’s pulse. Adan was slumped into a corner, exhausted by the effort it took to stay conscious, and Uvak had been updating the healers every twenty minutes.

Orlea, never one to waste a moment, began tapping her foot on the floor. Not a rhythm at first, just noise, a percussive defiance that set the other runners on edge. But by the second hour, Valpip started humming, a low, droning note that rose and fell in time with Orlea’s tapping. Nyx picked up the tune, weaving it into something almost recognizable; a street song from Nightvalley, one that was banned by both the temples and Watch for its lyrics and its ability to get under your skin.

Before long, the entire cell was singing.

It started as a joke, but it didn’t stay one. They sang the old tavern songs, the ones you learned before you learned your letters. They sang the APS fight songs, half parody and half threat. They sang the dirges of their homelands, even the ones that had been razed or renamed or simply made forbidden. Jarren and Gilene, both usually as rigid as watch springs, harmonized on an ancient hymn, their voices echoing in the iron corridor. Even Isylte, who had spoken maybe three words since their capture, let her voice out, sharp and clear as a knife on glass.

The guards tried to stop it. First with shouts, then with banging on the bars, then by sending in a squad to stand in the corridor and glare. The singing did not stop. It simply got louder, more inventive, the harmonies turning into elaborate, subversive rounds designed to catch and loop and never quite die out. By midnight, the guards stuffed their ears with wax and retreated to the other end of the block, leaving the runners to their choir.

It was Nyx who spotted the opportunity.

“Hey,” they whispered, nudging Niya, “remember the Translation Song?”

Niya blinked. “The one Dalliance and Hodeth wrote last year?”

Nyx nodded, eyes shining in the low light. “That one. We could use it.”

The Translation Song had started as a party trick: you sang a verse in your own language, then the next person had to repeat it in theirs, embellishing the meaning as they went. With each pass, the verse changed, sometimes subtly, sometimes wildly, until the original message was buried under layers of idiom and inside joke. The guards, mostly monolingual, would never track it.

Nyx started, singing a verse in the old Arethian about a clever fox and a spiteful hound. Orlea took it in dwarvish, transforming the fox into a miner and the hound into an overzealous Watch captain. Isylte followed with halfling, adding a subplot about stolen bread. Gilene, after a moment’s thought, sang the next verse in Elvish, turning the story into a tale of betrayal and family loss. Around and around it went, each language bending the narrative, each pass wrapping the secret tighter.

By the time it got to Jarren, the code was clear. He sang a question: Do we wait, or do we act?

Valpip, in gnomish, replied: We wait. Lull them. They expect defiance. Let’s be boring.

Olrea, in dwarvish: Let’s not just be boring, let's be annoying. Make this as unbearable for them as it is for us.

Nyx nodded, and the message went around again, each time confirming the plan. The guards, satisfied that the runners were only entertaining themselves, stopped paying attention altogether.

In the lull between songs, Uvak’s voice came soft, almost pleading: “Do you think Radiance is still alive?”

“She’s tougher than she looks,” Nyx said, with a forced brightness that fooled no one. “If anyone can get through this, it’s her. And Dalli is with her…he’ll find a way to make himself a nuisance.”

They sat with that for a while. The silence was different now, not the silence of despair, but of thinking, plotting, hoping.

Night fell, and with it, the first hunger. Not just the absence of food, though the guards delivered nothing but a dented pail of water and a half-loaf of stale bread for the lot of them, but the kind of hunger that comes with knowing you’ve been forgotten, or worse, remembered only as an example. 

***

The cell block was supposed to be silent at night. Silence meant control. Silence meant the prisoners remembered their place.

But the APS never stayed silent.

It started with one voice; sharp, mocking, always different. Sometimes the brawler-dwarf, sometimes the priest, sometimes the quartermaster with the smug little grin.

“Who runs?”

The others answered in a thunderous chorus, voices slamming into the walls, vibrating through the iron bars.

“Runners run!”

The guard flinched. He wasn’t green. He’d stood watch at hangings, dragged men bleeding from riots, even cracked skulls in the name of order. But this was different. This wasn’t just noise.

“Who breaks?”
“Not a one!”

The hairs on his neck rose. He couldn’t tell if they were laughing or shouting, but it didn’t matter, the sound was bigger than them, bigger than the prison.

He barked for them to shut up, slammed his baton against the bars, but they only grew louder.

“What’s the chain?”
“Just a song!”

They weren’t afraid. That was the worst of it. He could see it in their faces when the torches flared against the stone. Their eyes weren’t broken, they were blazing. Prisoners weren’t supposed to look like that.

“What’s the line?”
The roar that came back rattled his bones: 

“APS strong!”

The chant filled the whole block, echoing down stairwells, carrying from cell to cell. Other prisoners picked it up, not the words, but the rhythm, pounding their fists against the walls. The Black Tower itself seemed to join the rebellion.

For the first time, the guard realized the truth: the chains weren’t holding the APS down. The chains were only holding the Tower together.

And every time they shouted, the walls felt one crack closer to breaking.

***

As dawn crept through the barred, narrow windows, Valpip sat bolt upright. “They’ll feed us soon. When they do, whoever delivers it, watch the tray. Sometimes they use the same key for the lock and the food cart.”

Jarren smiled. “You never stop, do you?”

Valpip shrugged. “It’s the principle.”

They kept up the singing, and when the guards returned, bored and deaf to the strategy, they found a cell full of runners laughing and carousing as if they were at the best kind of wake. The guard with the shovel-face rolled his eyes and shoved trays through slots, not even bothering to watch for sleight of hand.

They would wait, as planned. They would be both boring and hopelessly annoying, until the time came not to be.

And when that time came, Black Tower would remember them.

Maybe not fondly. Maybe not even accurately.

But it would remember.

***

The first rule of the Black Tower was never to get used to it. The second rule was that, inevitably, you did.

The cells in Black Tower were generous by the standards of the old Arethian Empire, which was to say they were slightly larger than a coffin and only slightly less comfortable. Iron grates instead of solid walls, iron bunks, iron bolts securing every fixture; iron, iron, iron, as if the builders had been paid by the pound or else simply hated magic that much. The light was indirect: a wavering gleam from the corridor’s guttering lamps, filtered through bars so thick they doubled as obstacles to sight and sound. The whole place stank of rust and the cold, mineral sweat of the stone, which was quarried from a seam that had killed half its diggers before they ever finished the foundation.

The APS occupied almost half of the high-security magic suppression ward: Skif and Gerard in the cell nearest the catwalk, then Selaney and Orlea and Adan and Uvak. Next to them was Isylte and Faleth followed by Elise and Gilene, and then Nyx and Niya. Finally, at the far end, with a window onto the disused execution pit, Valpip and Jarren. It was a lineup that would have made for a serviceable dinner party, if one overlooked the presence of so much iron and the notable absence of food.

They had been there two days by the Tower’s accounting, which was to say two days and one night, though nobody could say for sure how long the intervals between really were. Black Tower warped time as much as it did perspective; you could wake up and feel it was a week since you last heard a voice other than your cellmate’s, or blink and find the shiftless hours had only just begun.

No one from the outside had visited. The guards, a rotating cast of unfamiliar faces, stuck to the same regimen: silent, gloved, armored head to toe, no names, no chatter, no accidental glimpses through the visor. Food came at odd hours, always the same; bread, stew, and a cup of tepid water laced with something that took the edge off hunger and, if one wasn’t careful, the edge off thinking, too. No one had seen the warden, or even the deputy again. It was as if the city had decided the APS runners were no longer worth the dignity of an overseer.

Valpip, more than anyone, took offense at this. “At least in old Arethian days you got a speech,” he said. “A little ‘‘Your execution will be a deterrent to others.’ Even the threat of a beating, you know, just to liven up the mood.”

Selaney regarded him from the upper bunk of her cell, knees tucked to her chest. “You want them to start torturing us?”

“I want them to try. Let’s see how many of their teeth they can keep in their heads,” Orlea interjected, grinning wide enough to show her own remarkable collection.

Selaney rolled her eyes, but she smiled, too. The walls in Black Tower did not conduct much in the way of hope, but a little reckless optimism was better than none.

A few cells over, Nyx and Niya carried on a low, murmured conversation, mostly about nothing at all: where the best coffee in the Capitol could be found (Nyx insisted it was at the Dockside Bakery; Niya, with the stubbornness of the truly nerdy, argued for the Tower’s own mess hall, owing to superior filtration), whether the colors in the hallway were changing subtly or they were simply being poisoned, and whether, if pressed, they would rather share a cell with Uvak or with Elise.

“I mean, Uvak’s a sweetheart, but he snores like a fucking basilisk,” Nyx said, head tipped back on the hard mattress, watching a flicker of light on the ceiling. “Elise would just talk at you until you died of boredom, but at least you’d get a good story out of it.”

Niya grinned, then lapsed into a contemplative silence. “Do you think any of them made it out?” she asked, and there was no comedy in it.

Nyx sobered immediately. “If anyone could, it’d be Team 7. Or Iliyria. Dalli mentioned he gave the rest of 6 a chance to escape, and knowing Kethry, they are all scurrying through the streets disguised as rats, waiting for their moment to strike.”

A beat, then Niya said, “My dad will be fine. He’s…he’s always fine.”

Nyx squeezed her hand. “If Jarren is anything, it’s persistent. And besides, rumor is the Watch never really knew how to hold a wizard.”

Niya squeezed back, a wordless affirmation.

Down the line, Adan and Uvak engaged in a whispered prayer, voices barely more than breath. Uvak had his head bowed, both hands clasped tight; Adan, ever the gentle soul, used the tip of one finger to trace a design on the palm of the other, a silent code he and his family had shared since childhood. The code was for comfort, a spell against nightmares, but here in Black Tower it felt like a desperate semaphore to a god who might have stopped listening.

Uvak was the first to speak aloud: “They’re new, the guards.”

Adan nodded, then whispered, “They move wrong.”

Uvak grunted in agreement. “The boots. They scuff instead of marching. And their armor—too shiny. No Watchman polishes their pauldrons.”

“Not unless they have something to prove,” Adan said, with a half-smile.

Uvak’s tusks caught the light. “Or something to hide.”

A clatter of metal down the corridor punctuated the thought. It was Valpip, hammering on the bars of his cell in a fit of pique. “Gnome’s piss!” he yelled, his voice a shrill, indignant whine. “Somebody bring me a timepiece! Or a sharp knife! Or at least a cup of tea not brewed from the slops bucket!”

Jarren, sitting cross-legged on the lower bunk, regarded his cellmate with what, in another context, might have been called patience. “Pipe down, Pip,” he said. “If you keep at it, they’ll come with a gag.”

Valpip sneered. “Let them. I’ll chew through it. Teeth like mine, I could eat a horseshoe and spit the nails.”

Jarren allowed himself a thin smile. “You want a distraction, or you want out?”

Valpip eyed him, suspicious. “You got a plan, Arcanist?”

Jarren’s voice was soft. “No. But if we watch, we’ll find a pattern. They’re new, and new guards always make mistakes.”

Valpip bared his teeth in something between a smile and a threat. “You watch, I’ll wait. And when the time comes, I’ll make sure it’s a memorable one.”

Jarren nodded. “I know you will.”

***

The boredom was worse than the fear. Fear, at least, kept the mind sharp, the heart ready. But boredom dulled the edges, made every hour bleed into the next until even the thought of escape felt academic.

So they sang.

“The Running Song” had become a way of measuring the hours, of marking the slow movement of time when all other markers were stripped away. The first verse was always the same:

“If I were a bird, I’d fly to the Tower,

If I were a fish, I’d swim to the sea,

If I were a worm, I’d tunnel forever,

But I am a runner, so running runs me.”

Each cell took a verse, passing the melody up and down the row, the lyrics growing more elaborate and ridiculous with every circuit.

“If I were a bat, I’d eat all the locusts,

If I were a rat, I’d steal every cheese,

If I were a cat, I’d sleep through the battle,

But I am a runner, so running runs me.”

The guards never interfered. Maybe they couldn’t hear, maybe they didn’t care, or maybe they knew that a group kept busy with nonsense was a group too tired for riot. The song became an anthem, then a myth, and finally a tapestry of running jokes, each more outrageous than the last.

It was Orlea who introduced the new refrain:

“If I were Felara, I’d flirt with the jailor,

If I were Kethry, I’d turn into a bee,

If I were Barret, I’d quote from the Rulebook,

But I am a runner, so running runs me.”

They howled at that one, Orlea’s voice sharp as a cracked bell, Selaney giggling into her sleeve, even Valpip pausing his endless griping to join in on the chorus. After that, every time the verse came around, someone added a new legend: Felara seducing the entire Watch garrison and staging a bloodless coup, Kethry amassing an army of vermin to gnaw through the Tower’s foundation, Barret converting the prison staff to his personal order.

By the time the cycle wound down, the guards looked exhausted, angrier than the prisoners they were supposed to control. Inside the cell, though, the Runners were smiling, breathing hard, leaning against each other.

Niya leaned against Nyx, Faleth and Isylte shared a blanket, and Jarren rested his hand on Valpip’s shoulder, steady as ever. Orlea cracked her knuckles and grinned.

The Watch thought they had caged the APS. But the song proved the truth: the APS was still running, still planning, still together.

When the laughter died down, and the lamps dimmed, and only the hush of breath and the distant creak of iron remained, the song lingered like a taste in the mouth: a reminder that, even here, they were not yet defeated.

***

That night, as the guards made their final round, Orlea pressed her face to the bars and watched with the intensity of a predator. The man on duty was tall and thin, his armor a size too large, the helmet bobbing with each step. He moved past Orlea’s cell without looking, but she caught the flash of ink on his wrist where the gauntlet had slipped.

“Selaney,” Orlea whispered, her tone urgent for the first time in days. “Wake up.”

Selaney slid down from the top bunk, eyes wide. “What is it?”

Orlea didn’t answer. Instead, she waited until the guard returned, then whistled, a long, low note, the kind you use to call a dog. The guard paused, turned, and Orlea grinned at him through the bars.

“Hey, handsome. Is that a truncheon in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

The guard ignored her, but not before Orlea caught another glimpse of the tattoo. It was a familiar one: a sunburst, crossed by two broken swords. The mark of the Sons of the Arethian Empire.

As soon as he was gone, Orlea turned to Selaney, voice pitched so low it was almost a thought.

“They’re not Watch,” she said. “They’re Sons.”

Selaney processed this, eyes narrowing. “How do you know?”

Orlea lifted her hand, tapped a spot on her own wrist. “The tattoo. I saw it up close a hundred times when I used to run the rings. The ones who came to bet, the ones who came to break bones, the ones who smiled while they did it. The Watch wouldn’t let scum like that anywhere near a prison.”

Selaney looked sick. “So what does that mean for us?”

Orlea bared her teeth, the expression more wolf than dwarf. “It means we’re not waiting for a trial. Or a rescue.”

“We should tell the others,” Selaney whispered.

Orlea gave a slow nod, then began to hum.

It was a runner’s tune, one they all knew, easy to mask as defiance for the guards, but layered enough for code to slip inside.

“Four black feathers in a soldier’s cap,
Mark him twice before the trap.
If his boots ring hollow on the stone,
He won’t leave your blood alone.”

Selaney picked it up, her voice low and steady, threading words through the melody:

“Empire sons in the Tower’s skin,
Mark their faces, mark their grin.
One by the bridge, two on the stairs,
Watch their hands — they’ll never play fair.”

The others joined, weaving noise over the meaning, turning it into a chorus that filled the block. To the guards it was nothing more than another damned song, another refusal to be silent. But every Runner listening heard the warning.

Gilene’s eyes narrowed; Adan’s fists clenched in prayer; Valpip smirked bitterly, already recalculating escape odds. Even Niya, small and silent, mouthed the words to herself, committing them to memory.

The guards shouted for quiet, rattled the bars, cursed them as animals. But the song carried on, louder, a storm against stone.

And beneath it all, the message was clear: the enemy wasn’t just the Watch. Black Tower itself was rotted through with hate.

***

The echoes of the song still clung to the stone like smoke. The guards had stormed off in frustration, leaving the Runners flushed with adrenaline, pressed shoulder to shoulder in their cells.

Valpip was the first to break the silence, his voice dry as parchment.

 “One on the bridge, two by the stairs,’” he repeated. “That’s one near the door to the catwalk, two on the east stair rotation. Sons, all of them. Orlea’s right. You can hear it in the way they spit when they talk.”

Niya frowned. “It just sounded like rhyme.”

“Exactly.” Valpip tapped his temple. “To them, rhyme. To us, road map.”

Isylte leaned forward, her eyes darting toward the corridor to make sure no guard lingered. “I caught another layer in Selaney’s verse. The pacing. She stressed the second beat each time she sang the stairwell line.”

Jarren nodded slowly. “Every second guard.”

“Exactly.” Isylte gave a tight smile. “That means the Sons are on the even shifts. Count rotations and we’ll know when the worst of them are off duty.”

Jarren glanced around the cells, his gaze resting last on Niya. “You see? They’ll try to use silence to starve us. But so long as we have the song, we can still talk, still plan. Every verse is a message, every rhyme a map.”

Niya whispered the coded lines under her breath, her fear softened into focus. She looked up at her father and nodded. “I’ll remember.”

Across the cell block, Adan muttered a half-prayer, half-laugh. “Holy words hidden in children’s rhymes. Pelor help us, we’re going to outplan them with music.”

Orlea spat on the floor, flexing her bruised knuckles. “Good. I’d rather sing ‘em to death than sit here waiting to be picked apart.”

Elise smirked. “Then keep your pitch sharp, Orlea. Every sour note is another blade in our arsenal.”

The cellblock fell quiet again, if only for a moment, but it was the silence of conspirators, not prisoners.

From down the hall, the song started up again. Nyx’s voice this time, high and clear:

“If I were Iliyria, I’d blow up the prison,

If I were Alavara, I wouldn’t need keys,

If I were Io, I’d melt through the locks,

But I am a runner, so running runs me.”

The chorus rolled down the row, picked up by every voice in turn, even Valpip, even Isylte, even Uvak.

Orlea listened, her eyes fixed on the dark where the guard had vanished, and smiled.

“If I were a Son,” she muttered, “I’d sleep with one eye open.”

***

Inside the barricaded chamber the Council huddled in whispers, their voices sharp with fear, while the three APS Runners stood like shadows along the wall.

Felara shifted her weight, her leg aching. The bolt had an iron tip and had burrowed deep in her thigh, so despite Kethry’s healing magic the pain was still there even if the wound was not. She refused to lean on the wall, even though every muscle begged her to. The Council didn’t need to see her weakness; they needed to see an APS Runner unbroken.

Kethry caught her glance and smirked. “Still standing, still sneering. That’s our Felara.”

Barret chuckled under his breath. “Careful. If she sneers any harder, the Gentleman’ll think it’s a challenge.”

Felara rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth twitched. The banter was quieter than it used to be, restrained by the weight of their surroundings, but it was still there, a shard of the APS common room carried into this cage.

At the center of the room, Iliyria’s voice rose, commanding authority even in the chaos of the Circle. Brynne moved like lightning at her side, every strike of her blade against the whetstone a promise that the Council would not fall tonight.

Kethry tapped her foot against stone in time with a rhythm only the APS would recognize. Felara’s low hum joined her, then Barret’s, until the three of them carried the echo of a song inside the chamber’s walls.

The Council didn’t notice. Iliyria, speaking to Lawmaster Runecoat, didn’t pause, but her own foot began to subtly tap to the beat. Brynne glanced back, her expression softening at the sound, and began to sharpen her blade in time.

Even here, guarding the Council, the runners carried the same rhythm their friends sang in Black Tower. The APS was still together.

***

The cell was too clean. Too bright. That was the worst part. Black Tower was filth and iron, but at least it was honest about being a cage. Here, the stone had been scrubbed until it gleamed, the straw swept away, the torches replaced with mage-lights that hummed faintly overhead.

Dalliance sat cross-legged on the floor, tapping his claws against the stone, pretending he was bored rather than seething. His tail flicked like a metronome, betraying the tension in his shoulders. It sent a jolt of pain through his spine each time he flexed his broken tail, but the pain grounded him.

“They’re planning something,” Radiance said quietly. Her eyes followed every bootstep in the corridor. “That’s why they kept us here. They didn’t send us to the Tower because they want something special.”

Dalliance snorted. “Special treatment? You make it sound like a holiday.” His grin was sharp, but his voice cracked just enough to betray the edge underneath.

Radiance didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. They both knew the truth: tieflings meant target practice.

The silence stretched, heavy as stone. Finally, Dalliance broke it with a flourish of his hands. “Well, if they’re waiting for me to whimper in a corner, they’ll be sorely disappointed. Should I sing them a ballad? A scandalous one, with all the rude verses?”

Radiance’s lips twitched, just slightly. “Sing loud enough and maybe the others will hear it in Black Tower.”

That was all the invitation Dalliance needed. He threw his head back and belted out the first lines of a Runner’s song, deliberately off-key, each note bouncing off the walls with wild defiance.

 “Boil the boots and chew the leather,
APS will live forever!”

Dalliance’s voice cracked with mischief as he filled the clean, bright holding cell with noise. Radiance laughed under her breath, adding her voice. In the next cell, Nethspira pressed against the bars. “You’re fools,” she whispered, but her smile betrayed her. 

The guards cursed, rattled keys, and one stormed into the cell, baton raised. “Quiet, devils!”

He swung toward Radiance. She flinched and turned her body, arms wrapping protectively around her stomach.

Dalliance’s eyes widened. In that heartbeat, he understood, almost instinctively. Pregnant.

Before the baton fell, he was already on his feet. “Over here, you miserable sack of oats!” His voice was venom wrapped in velvet. “I’m prettier than she’ll ever be, wouldn’t you rather scuff up a face worth looking at?”

The guard snarled, redirected, and cracked the baton against Dalliance’s ribs. He gasped but laughed through it, louder, mocking. Radiance’s hands trembled over her stomach.

The baton fell on him once, twice, three times more before the guard was satisfied that he had made his point. He left, and Radiance rushed towards Dalliance, hands useless to stop the pain.

Nethspira’s expression darkened. She whispered, “The Watch will never forgive what you are. But they’ll fear you more for surviving this.”

Dalliance groaned, then grinned at her. “Surviving’s our favorite pastime, darling.”

The corridor settled into uneasy quiet. The mage-lights hummed faintly, throwing long shadows over the bars. Dalliance pressed himself against the cold stone, ribs aching where the baton had struck. He winced, then exaggerated the sound, groaning as though he were on death’s door.

Radiance frowned, her hands still protectively curled over her stomach. She knew what he was doing, by exaggerating his pain, he actually minimized it, turned it into a joke. “You don’t have to perform for me,” she said softly.

Dalliance cracked one golden eye open. “Darling, I perform for everyone. Even the stone deserves a good show.” His voice was breezy, but the quaver in it betrayed the pain.

She turned toward him fully, the weight of her silence heavier than the bruises in his chest. Dalliance’s grin faltered. “So it’s true, then.”

Radiance nodded once, eyes fixed on the floor. “I hadn’t told anyone, only Alavara and Buggy know, but they found out by accident. I haven’t even told Uvak. I wasn’t ready.”

For a rare moment, Dalliance was still. No quips, no wink, no flourish of his tail. Just a sharp inhale. Then, quietly: “That’s why you—when he raised the baton…”

“I couldn’t risk it,” Radiance admitted, voice tight. “I thought if I shielded—”

He cut her off, suddenly fierce. “No. Don’t you dare finish that sentence. You don’t shield alone. You hear me? Not while I’m here.”

Her eyes flicked up, meeting his. The sharpness in his tone softened into something rawer. “You’re carrying more than yourself now,” he said. “And I’ll be damned before I let these bastards take a swing at you again.”

A silence stretched between them, filled with the thrum of magic lights and the muffled curses of guards down the hall.

Finally, Radiance let out a shaky laugh. “You? Play the martyr?”

Dalliance managed a crooked grin. “Not martyr, darling. Headline act. Let them take their shots at me, I’ve got the lungs for screaming, and the wit to make them regret every bruise.”

In the next cell, Nethspira shifted, her horns catching the light. She spoke just loudly enough for them both to hear: “You two sing louder than anyone I’ve ever known. Maybe loud enough for your friends at Black Tower to hear you.”

Radiance’s hand settled again on her stomach, more gently this time. Dalliance leaned back against the wall, wincing, but his grin never wavered.

“Then let’s give them a concert,” he said.

And together, their voices rose again, quieter this time, cracked with pain, bright with defiance, two tieflings against the Watch, against despair itself.

***

They all felt it the moment the warden arrived. The corridors of Black Tower, so reliably barren and mute, prickled with an unfamiliar disquiet, like air just before lightning, or the moment before a bridge gives way. Orlea was the first to put words to it, sniffing the air and declaring, “We have company. Smells like new boots and bastard.”

The warden did not announce himself with keys or clanging doors, but with a deliberate, measured gait, the sort that belonged more to an executioner than an administrator. When he reached the main cell block, he stopped. Deputy Harkwell and the guards at his flanks fell into place, arms crossed, feet braced. 

Unlike the armor-clad mutts who had served as jailors these past days, the warden wore the deep blue of the old Imperial system, but the insignia on his breast had been replaced with a fresh badge: a sunburst over crossed swords, painted over the original in coarse, defiant strokes. His eyes were narrow and yellowed, his face both soft and mean, a man used to giving orders, but only recently acquainted with the luxury of being obeyed.

He regarded the cell block in silence, letting the tension ripen, then cleared his throat.

“Evening, gentlefolk,” he said, and his voice was at once jovial and contemptuous. “I’m your new warden, you can call me Master Kantril. I’m not much for speeches, so let’s keep this civil.”

The runners were silent, save for a soft chuff from Valpip and a grunt from Uvak. Orlea leaned into the bars, her smile wolfish. “What happened to the last warden?”

“Retired,” said Kantril, and the guards behind him snorted.

He walked the length of the cell block, eyes tracking every bunk and body. He stopped in front of Skif and Gerard’s cell, peered in, then moved on. At Selaney and Orlea’s, he paused again, met Orlea’s gaze, then let his own drift upwards to Selaney, who stared back with silent, analytical interest.

He continued down, past Isylte and Faleth, past Adan and Uvak,  past Nyx and Niya, pausing finally at the cell of Valpip and Jarren.

“I understand,” said Kantril, raising his voice so that everyone could hear, “that you are not here by choice, and that your loyalty to each other is legendary. That’s why I’m here. It’s time for a new arrangement.”

Jarren looked up from the cot, his expression unreadable. Valpip glared, lips tight and colorless.

The warden resumed his circuit, this time more slowly. “You may have noticed,” he said, “that the world outside these walls is changing. The city needs new hands on the wheel.”

He stopped again at Orlea’s cell. “Here’s the offer, and it’s only good once: you talk, you get privileges. I want names, locations, plans. Especially about Team 7 and Commander Sylren. Give me something useful, and I’ll see to it you get food, letters, maybe even a window with a nicer view.”

No one answered. Not even a cough.

Kantril shrugged, as if their silence confirmed some private bet. “Suit yourselves,” he said. “I thought you’d be smarter, but I never did have much faith in reform programs.”

Orlea spat through the bars, missing him by a half meter but making her point.

The warden raised his hands in mock surrender, then turned to the guards. “Let’s do it the hard way, then.” He nodded to the nearest, a man with a beard like steel wool. “Gerlo, start with the wizard.”

Two guards marched to the end of the row, unlocked the cell. One seized Jarren by the shoulder, hauling him upright with a jerk.

Valpip launched himself off the bunk, ready to bite or gouge or maul, but the other guard planted a fist in his stomach, doubling him over. Jarren steadied himself, and looked at Niya, whose face was pressed to the bars of her own cell.

Kantril’s gaze settled on Jarren with a slow, surgical precision, a predator weighing the meat on the bone. He let the silence stretch, savoring the tension, until even the guards seemed to draw back, unconsciously ceding the moment to their master.

“You, Saurivier. They say you’re Iliyria Sylren’s right hand.” The warden’s smile was a gentle, creeping thing, as if he were offering a sweet to a child before snatching it away. “Let’s see how long your loyalty lasts.”

Jarren held his ground, shoulders squared, body language that signal-flared calm and control. He’d trained himself on every kind of coercion the Capitol could throw: hard, soft, and the kind that left no bruises but never quite stopped aching. He knew what this was.

Niya cried out, “Dad! Don’t—”

Jarren turned, offered her the faintest of smiles, then said, “It’s alright, Niy. I’ll be back before you can miss me.”

The guards began dragging him out, past the staring runners. Kantril watched the procession with something like satisfaction, then turned to the rest.

“Anyone else feel talkative?” he asked, teeth bared in a rictus of pleasant expectation.

Nyx flipped him a rude gesture; Orlea spat again, this time hitting the guard’s boot. Faleth muttered a prayer, while Isylte glowered, her fists knotted around the iron rails. Kantril nodded, as if their rebellion were a personal compliment.

Jarren straightened, and he looked every inch the commander Iliyria had trusted him to be. He stepped forward without hesitation. His boots struck the floor in time with the others’ breath.

Then Orlea’s voice cut through the stillness:

“Who runs?”

The cell answered in a roar: “Runners run!”

“Who breaks?”
“Not a one!”

Jarren smiled. For the first time in days, it reached his eyes.

“What’s the chain?”
“Just a song!”

Niya’s voice cracked as she joined the others, tears streaking her face. The chant filled the chamber, rattled the bars, turned despair into thunder.

“What’s the line?”
Jarren’s voice rose with theirs, steady and unshaken: “APS strong!”

The warden shoved him forward, scowling at the noise, but the chant only grew louder, defiance ricocheting off stone.

As Jarren disappeared down the corridor, his voice still echoed with theirs. The rhythm lingered in Niya’s chest, a heartbeat she could cling to.

He was gone, but he hadn’t left her.

A few minutes later, the guards returned. This time, they opened the cell of the half-orc stranger and beckoned. He stepped forward, unafraid, and went with them, not looking at anyone.

As the footsteps faded up the stairs, a hush settled over the cell block. The runners listened, each to their own heartbeats, or to the shallow, irregular breath of their bunkmate. Somewhere beneath them, a door slammed, then a faint metallic shriek as it was locked again.

“Damn, I was so close to getting that guy to tell us his name.” Orlea murmured under her breath, reaching for the APS’s brand of gallows humor. No one laughed.

Niya, on her knees now, rocked back and forth, the tears silent but steady. Nyx sat beside her, arm around her shoulders, doing their best to channel comfort from a place that had long since run dry. Orlea and Selaney sat in silence, the threat of the new regime settling over them like a blanket of old, leaden snow.

Skif finally spoke, voice as dry as old bread. “They’ll bring him back,” he said.

Gerard nodded, though his eyes said otherwise.

On cue, Gilene added a new verse:

“Chains can bite but chains can’t bind,
We walk as one in heart and mind.
If one falls quiet, sing their name,
The song will carry, just the same.”

The guards cursed , they thought it was more mockery. But the Runners knew the truth: this was a promise. If any one of them was taken, the chant would keep them alive..

They sang until the lights dimmed to nothing, and the only thing left was the memory of voices echoing in the iron, and the certainty, because it was all they had, that if there was a way out, they would find it.

The Tower waited. The city waited. And the runners of APS waited, too, in the dark, holding fast to the last rules that mattered.

***

They took him down.

Past the fresh-limed walls, past the humming wards of the Black Tower proper, Warden Kantril, Deputy Harkwell and their chosen guards, Sons of the Arethian Empire, by the sunburst stitched to their sleeves, shouldered Jarren into a part of the prison that smelled like history left to rot. Torches threw thin light across doorways sealed with dust. Storage rooms yawning with empty racks. Old cells with hooks that hadn’t held anything living in decades, centuries, if the stories were true. The stone here had a different color, a deeper bruise.

Kantril’s boots stopped at a narrow door. Harkwell shoved Jarren through.

The room was small enough that his mind measured it without trying. Fifteen by ten. Chains bolted into the far wall at shoulder height. A wooden chair set in the center. There was a table with a cloth draped over it; the cloth tried too hard to look innocent.

Deputy Harkwell muscled him into the chair. Cold iron tugged at his wrists as the man found the manacle chain and unlatched the middle link. Jarren’s hands came apart but the cuffs stayed on. Scratchy rope rasped over skin as they tied him to the armrests: once around, twice, a knot dragged into the tender place above his thumb. He held still, the way you do when a blade is close and clumsily handled, no sudden movements, save the skin for later.

His right palm pulsed where that rivet in the wagon had opened it up. He could feel the wound reopen, damp seeping into the rope already. Useful, maybe. Or just a sting he would have to ignore.

Kantril stepped close, all ceremony, and pinched the corner of the tablecloth between two fingers. He peeled it back with a little flourish. The reveal was a simple thing: a neat, ugly pile of nails, each as long as a handspan, cold light gliding along their edges. Beside them, a small mallet that would have looked harmless anywhere else.

Defiance picked a line in him and underlined it. Are we renovating? he almost said. He kept it behind his teeth, because the two guards at his sides watched him like men who wanted a reason.

“I’ll give you time to consider how you want the next few hours to go,” Kantril said lightly, as if offering a menu. His eyes lingered on Jarren’s face, looking for the flinch. Jarren didn’t give him one. The warden smiled, thin and pleased with his own patience, and stepped out. Most of the Sons followed, boots scraping. The door closed with a sound that felt heavier than wood should.

Two stayed. One leaned against the wall by the handle, arms folded. The other took up the corner near the table, eyes on the nails, a little too eager.

The quiet here had an old drip in it, water finding a crack in the stone and taking its time. Jarren set his breathing to it. In on the count of three, out on the count of four. The math of it steadied his hands more than the rope did.

Think. Iron cuffs. No focus. He flexed his fingers once, testing how the rope bit when he moved. The cut stung. The rope drank it in.

Niya’s face blinked through all of it anyway, like an afterimage when you close your eyes too fast. The way she said his name when she was trying not to be scared and failing. Dad. He swallowed, and the breath hiccuped. He made himself breathe again. She’s with the others. She’s smart. Iliyria will have her. Iliyria always—

He pictured Iliyria’s expression when he brought her problems instead of solutions, the knife-edge between worry and trust she let only him see. Favorite wizard, she’d called him once, teasing and not. He let that settle in his chest like a weight he could use. If anyone was cutting a path down here, it would be her, staff in hand, hair a mess, orders already forming in her mouth.

The guard by the wall cleared his throat, just once, a little warning to himself. The younger one by the table rolled his shoulders and tried for a sneer he hadn’t earned. Jarren turned his head enough to take them both in.

“You boys drew the short straw?” he asked, and was pleased when his voice came out dry instead of shaking. “Guard duty on the part where the Tower keeps its ghosts.”

“Save your breath,” the younger one said. His eyes flicked to the nails again. “You’ll need it.”

“Maybe,” Jarren said. He let his gaze drift back to the chain bolts in the wall, counting the washers, the cracks in the mortar, the places where time had done its own quiet work. 

Fear moved under his ribs like a live thing, but it didn’t get to steer. He parceled it out: a third for Niya, so he would remember to pray in his own small, unholy way; a third for what they might do to him, because pretending you weren’t afraid was just another kind of lie; a third for Kantril, because fear correctly spent could be turned into a blade.

The water dripped. He breathed. He cataloged. He watched the way the guard’s thumb tapped the back of his other hand, the way the younger guard’s boots kept finding the same scuff on the floor and nudging it, over and over. He timed his breath to their tics and set his jaw.

Hold on, he told Niya in the place where prayers live. Hold on, and don’t do anything I would do.

And then, because it helped and because he wanted it to be true, he added, Iliyria, if you’re coming, come fast.

The Runner’s Song

(sung loud enough for the guards to hear, with coded meanings the APS alone understand)

Verse 1
We’re stacked like crates in the Black Tower halls,
Counting scars on the iron walls.
But a Runner’s laugh is a sharper blade,
And we’ll cut the dark with the noise we made.

Chorus
So raise your voice, let the Watchmen frown,
We’ll sing ‘til they burn the whole place down.
APS strong, APS free,
You can chain our hands but you’ll never chain we.

Verse 2
Valpip hums the tally sheets,
Orlea drums with her bloodied feet.
Adan prays in a drunken rhyme,
Jarren keeps us marching time.

Bridge (Translation-heavy, mock nonsense to guards)
“Frostback’s tally, twelve to one,
Flip the candle, job well done.
Featherfall, fireball, keep it tight —
Watch don’t know, but we planned tonight.”
(to guards, it sounds like gibberish; to APS, it signals their coded strategy)

Final Chorus
So shout it loud through the dungeon’s stone,
No Runner fights this fight alone.
APS strong, APS free,
You can break our bones but you’ll never break we.

Runner’s Chant (Call and Response)

Caller: “Who runs?”
All: “Runners run!”

Caller: “Who breaks?”
All: “Not a one!”

Caller: “What’s the chain?”
All: “Just a song!”

Caller: “What’s the line?”
All: “APS strong!”

(repeat, louder each time — until the guards slam the bars or try to silence them)

The Runner’s Song Cycle

1. Gallows Humor Verses (to bait the guards)

These sound like nonsense rhymes, designed to needle and mock.

• “Boil the boots and chew the leather,
  APS will live forever!”
• “Guard’s got brains the size of peas,
  Shakes his keys and calls it peace!”

(Function: purely irritating — keeps morale up by watching guards lose their tempers.)

2. Coded Translation Verses (intelligence & planning)

• Escape Signal Verse
  “Candle flips and shadows bend,
  Wait for three, then find the end.
  Stone remembers, iron forgets,
  The crack you count is where it sets.”
  (A hidden cue for watching guard rotations and counting paces to spot weak points in the cell block.)
• Solidarity Verse
  “Chains can bite but chains can’t bind,
  We walk as one in heart and mind.
  If one falls quiet, sing their name,
  The song will carry, just the same.”
  (Reminds them: if someone is taken or silenced, the group keeps their memory alive in the chant.)

3. Morale & Defiance Verses (open declarations)

• “Who runs?” / “Runners run!”
  (The call-and-response chant woven into the cycle as a refrain.)
• “APS strong, APS free,
  You can chain our hands but you’ll never chain we!"
• “Break our bones, we’ll laugh in song,
  Runners live and runners strong!”

How the Cycle Works

• Rotation: The Runners never sing the same verse order twice. Guards can’t tell which stanzas are intelligence and which are mockery.
• Noise as Camouflage: The gallows humor verses make it all look like taunting. The coded verses slip underneath as “nonsense,” intelligible only to Runners.
• Psychological Effect: The cycle feels endless, impossible to silence. Even if guards beat them, the chant always returns.

Cultural Effect: Singing keeps Translation alive. Their slang and code evolve right there in the cells, turning Black Tower into an APS classroom of resistance.