The Weight Of Silence

The rain had stopped, but the ground still bled with water. Pools of mud mirrored the thin, pale light of dawn. Luke’s boots sank with every step, the squelch of earth louder than his breath. The soldier motioned him through a trail of broken branches and ash. He’d been led up a flight of stairs, knowing it could only end in one place.

And it did.

A room. Wooden walls that look varnished. Black curtains striped with crimson silk. The smell of scorched fur, wet iron and ink filled the air. A worn-out desk positioned in the middle, strewn with parchment. At the window stood a man in armour. Patterns were etched across every plate, curling like serpents, catching even the weak light in sharp glints. His hair was damp, pressed to his forehead, brown shading into black at the tips.

Luke was still in shackles waiting, preparing for what would be a trap, a betrayal or a conversation that would inevitably lead to his death.

He stayed standing across from the Commander’s table. The soldier dragged a chair across the floor, grabbed Luke by the shoulders and forced him to sit. The soldier saluted the commander and stepped out of the room.

Luke remained silent. Every whistle of the wind whipped at the candles mounted on the dark crevices of the walls.

“You know, Luke…” the Commander said, not even looking at Luke, just studying the horizon with a bored glance. His voice was steady, controlled, like the roll of distant thunder.
“There’s something about silence I’ve always hated.”

Luke felt the weight of the name he’d heard whispered. Commander Veyne. He expected a monster, not a man. “You don’t seem like the type that leaves much room for it.”

Veyne finally turned, eyes dark as damp soil, watching Luke as though measuring the depth of a hole. He smiled faintly, the scar emphasizing his smirk.

“Ah. You noticed,” he said. “Good. You have an ear for things. I respect that.”

Luke’s hand brushed the chain at his side, prepared to counter if he was attacked. But the Commander didn’t reach for his weapon.

Instead, he pulled something from his belt pouch — a small leather patch, folded around herbs, rolled tight in paper. He lit it with a flick of flint, inhaled once, then let the smoke drift in the space between them.

“Silence… is selfish,” he said.

Luke frowned. Selfish?

Then he spoke again, casual, like a man offering advice.

“Every man screaming, begging, confessing — they’re sharing. Offering something. A gift. But silence? Silence hoards. Keeps everything locked up.”

He stepped closer. “And I’ve never trusted a man who hoards,” he whispered.

Luke forced his voice steady. “...Or maybe silence just means there’s nothing worth sharing.”

Veyne chuckles, then continues. “That’s the kind of pretty thought only a boy tells himself before the world shows him teeth.”

He crouches; eyes level with Luke’s. His gaze is calm, too calm. Like a predator who isn’t hungry but enjoys the cornering.

“Tell me, do you know what pain really is?” he asked.

“I’ve had enough of it to know.”

“No, no, no. You’ve felt it. That’s not the same.” He paused. The hiss of damp concrete cooling beneath the ashes he flicked.

“Pain… isn’t personal. That’s the lie. People believe their pain belongs to them. That their screams, their tears, their broken bones — it’s all theirs,” he continued.

He shook his head, slowly. “But pain is communal. Every scream I pull from a man is another note in the great harmony of letting go.”

Luke shot him an icy stare. “That’s not harmony. That’s you playing god with other people’s misery.”

He leaned in and his grin widened. “And what do you think gods are, Luke?

For a moment, silence. Luke holds his stare and remains silent, but the dread builds. Veyne rises, hands clasped behind his back and pacing slowly in front of the desk. His voice now steadies.

“Men talk about freedom, unity, peace — all that rot. But I’ve learned something else. The only real order is forged from selfishness. Everyone clawing for their share.”

He spoke like a man convinced he was already written into history, “That’s why I formed the Black Maw. Not to free men. Not to bind them…”

“But to use their hunger. Harness it. Direct it.”

“And you think that makes you a leader?” Luke replied.

“It makes me honest. And honestly, that’s rarer than gold in this pit of a world”, Veyne said, leaning closer.

Luke swallowed testing him with a question. His voice steadier now, pushing back.

“So all this – the tortures, the book, the Maw – it’s just you feeding your hunger?”

Veyne smiles again. “Clever. But not clever enough.”

“You see, I’ve been promised something. When I deliver what the Vicar seeks — the truth that those fanatics keep buried — I’ll be granted an island. My island. My kingdom.”

He exhales the smoke. Savouring the image.

“No neighbours. No noise. Just mine.”

Luke’s face hardens. But he recognizes something familiar, his voice being echoed by a man who had already lost his humanity. He swallows but can’t help himself.

“That sounds less like freedom… and more like running away,” Luke replies.

Veyne’s eyes narrowed and muttered, “Careful…”

“You talk about harmony, about pain not belonging to anyone. But your island? That’s just selfishness dressed as paradise,” Luke continues. “And who’s the Vicar–?”

“And what are YOU, BOY!? A martyr? A saviour? Don’t make me laugh. His tone sharp, studying Luke. “You want to live. Same as me. You’d sell the world if it kept you breathing another day!” He barked.

Luke’s almost responds — but stops. His silence, louder than his beating heart. Veyne’s leather boots scraped across the concrete and he leaned against his desk.

“The Vicar,” Veyne said finally, “sees what we refuse to see. He gave me a place when I had none. Purpose.”

Luke’s chest tightened “And you kill for him.”

“Shan'ekh, Grash' tal” the Commander spat forgetting that he was speaking to Luke, out of pure anger. “Uriel was a necessary cut. Michael… he’ll understand pain better after I’m finished with him.”

Luke felt the urge to hurl another retort, but he tried desperately to decipher the word he heard. He stopped and straightened his back quickly, with the intent to look more confident. However, his silence betrayed something worse, and the commander noticed.

Veyne took a step closer. His presence was overwhelming. Luke felt a flicker of panic and stiffened. “Ah… you understood me, didn’t you?”

Luke tries to cover, “…I couldn’t care less what you had to say.”

“No, boy,” he chuckled. “My instinct has never failed me. Not once,” the calm in his voice, now deadly. The tension thicker than the damp air.

He flicked the burned-out stub of the herb roll into the mud. The hiss it made was like a whisper ending mid-sentence.

“So let me offer you a choice,” he said, again in front of Luke staring at him. “Save yourself – and serve me. Become my informant. Feed me whispers, details, scraps that lead me to what I want.”

“Or,” he leans close to his hear, almost hissing. “You take the hard road. You carve screams from your cellmates. Make them bleed, make them break, drag every secret out of them — and when you’re done, I’ll kill you last. Slowly.”

Luke responded, feigning courage. “And what if I don’t?”

“Then, you’ve learned nothing, and I’ll let the silence teach you.” He exhales, disappointed but calm. The Commander turned his back on Luke, called his soldier in.

“Zreth, Morrath!” the soldier commanded. Luke was dragged back the way he came, back down the stairwell, through the trail and thrown into the cell and shutting the door.

Seraphina clung to the steel bars, “You’re alive??” Her voice shifting between confusion, and relief. The Commander casually, without even looking, points at Seraphina to the soldier accompanying him, who grips her wrists in his hands, like a hawk carrying prey.

Sera panics. “Luke, what’s happening…?” she cried. “What did you tell him?”

“Wait. Don’t. She hasn’t done anything!” Luke yelled.

The commander crouched at Luke in the cell and muttered his last words, quietly. “Remember, boy – silence is selfish. And selfishness… gets eaten.”

Veyne stepped out with Sera screaming at the clutches of the soldier. And Luke was eventually left in silence, which made him realize that monsters weren’t always born. Some were built, moulded by self-interest over honour.

Commander Veyne was proof.

And he was resolved to rise above that outcome.

##   ###   ##

*"Shan'ekh, grash'tal" - "Silence, you filth/you rat"

*"Zreth, Morrath!" - "Move, Prisoner/Slave"