Chapter 20: Pain as Power

By the third night, they were sitting around the fire together—Ash, Mira with her knife always in reach, and Haru still jumpy with every branch snap.

Ash stared into the flames, hand clenched.

He was bottom-tier on paper. A slave, marked and discarded. But now? Every cut, every bruise, every scar was his weapon.

“They think pain means weakness,” he said quietly. “But they don’t know it’s fuel.”

Mira frowned. “That’s… kinda scary.”

Ash grinned, teeth flashing in the firelight.

“Good. Let it be scary.”