The world did not return all at once, instead arriving in cruel bursts of agony, each one a wave of white heat against the interior of Filip’s skull. Every pulse of his heart a searing reminder of the terrifying monster that had loomed over him in the courtyard. The memory was a jagged shard of glass in his mind: the grey, wrinkled skin, the black voids of its eyes, and those terrifying, metal-capped teeth opened wide to steal his soul.

Filip tried to groan, but the sound died in his throat. A sudden, violent heave convulsed his stomach. He rolled onto his side, his cheek scraping against cold, grit-covered brick, and retched. Thin, acidic bile burned his throat, followed by a pathetic stream of water that did nothing to ease the dry heaving that followed. He squeezed his eyes shut, his body trembling as he fought to regain some semblance of control.

He was a member of the night watch, he told himself, the thought a fragile anchor in a sea of nausea. He was Filip. He was a protector of Marchand. Surely this was all just some terrible misunderstanding.

But the smell told a different story. The air was thick and cloying, a humid miasma of unwashed bodies, stale excrement, and the heavy rot of infected wounds. It pressed on him, left him wishing to draw breath, but unable to find even peace in that, instead each heave of his chest leaving him with a deep nausea. When he finally forced his eyes open, he saw nothing but an absolute, crushing blackness. For a terrifying heartbeat, he believed the creature had blinded him, but as the seconds crawled by, his vision began to resolve the world into dim shapes and muted colors.

He was in a cell, that much was evident by the cramped space, the damp brick threatening to close in all around him. He tried to move his hands, but a heavy metallic clatter echoed through the silence. He did not need to look to know that his hands were bound by thick iron shackles that bit into his skin.

As his eyes continued to adjust, he saw them. In the cells across the narrow corridor, dark shapes shifting in the gloom. They were huddled masses of shadow, occasionally punctuated by the soft, wet sound of a cough or a low moan. Three cells down, a heavy iron door stood agape, hanging slightly on its hinges like a mocking invitation. Filip slumped against the wall, the stone sapping the remaining warmth from his body.

How long he lay there he couldn't say, hours? Days? Minutes? Filip sat slumped in his own filth and thoughts, mind attuned only to the pain from his head that slowly faded with the passage of time. At last the silence was broken by a heavy thump from somewhere above, followed by the familiar sound of boots on stone. A flickering orange glow began to bleed into the corridor, growing brighter with every second. The torchlight should have been welcome, but instead Filip felt his breath catch as it revealed the full horror of the dungeon. The shapes in the other cells were people, men and women, some barely more than children, their clothes reduced to blood-stained rags. The few that he could see had eyes wide and hollow.

Three figures emerged from the shadows. Two were armored guards, their breastplates dented and dull. One was helmetless, his face slick with sweat and mapped with the ruddy face of a career drinker; the other kept his visor down, his hand resting with practiced ease on the pommel of a heavy broadsword. Between them walked a man who looked as though he had been carved from diseased tallow.

The jailer was a sickly, spindly creature in loose, stained robes. His hair had been shorn close to a scalp revealing a map of red splotches and weeping scabs. Patches of skin around his nose were peeling away in translucent flakes, and his pale hands shook with a faint tremor.

To his dismay the trio stopped in front of Filip’s bars. The jailer leaned forward, his face illuminated by the dancing torchlight and offered a yellowed grin.

"Awake at last," he croaked, his voice wet. "The magister has questions for you."

The helmetless guard grunted, wiping sweat from his brow with a meaty hand. "Hopefully he's got more sense than the last ones. Tired of cleaning the blood up. Makes an awful mess."

"Shut your mouth, Garen," the jailer hissed.

The guard scoffed, leaning against the bars of the neighboring cell. "It's not some secret, is it? They’re all the same. They’ll all be dead soon enough, whether they talk or not. Lord Hoff is in one of his moods."

The jailer’s shaking hands fumbled with a heavy ring of keys. The metal rattled against the lock, a sharp sound that made Filip want to retreat into the darkness. But even as his eyes searched the darkness he knew there was nowhere to go. The bolt slid back with a heavy clink. The door swung open, and the two guards stepped into the cramped space, their presence making the air feel even thinner.

"Wait, wait!" Filip’s voice finally broke through the terror, though it sounded thin and foreign to his own ears. "I'm one of you! Look at me, I'm a member of the Night Watch! I was on duty. I saw... I saw something in the courtyard. This has all been some terrible misunderstanding. Please, tell Captain Durham, he’ll explain."

The helmetless guard, Garen, let out a short laugh. He stepped closer, looking down at Filip with a mixture of amusement and profound contempt. "I suppose you think that makes us equals, eh boy? Your so-called ‘Night Watch’ do something beyond harass the locals and shakedown the poor for copper? Why, you’re just a glorified beggar in a uniform that’s too big for you."

He straightened, his grin widening into something cruel. "Doubt you're getting any sympathy from Lord Hoff. He’s the one who signed the order for the sweeps. Best hope you have something of value to tell him, because you'd be the first today, and I can assure you, the Lord Constable is not a patient man."

Panic, cold and sharp, flared in Filip’s chest. As the guard reached down to grab his collar, Filip’s instincts took over. He lunged upward, his shackled hands coming up to shove the guard away. It was a weak, desperate movement, but it caught the man off guard, sending him stumbling back a half-step.

The retaliation was instantaneous. The second guard, the silent one, stepped forward and delivered a sharp, open-handed clap to the side of Filip’s head. The world exploded into a galaxy of white stars. Filip’s vision swam, his knees buckling as he staggered against the brick wall, the taste of blood flooding his mouth.

"Enough," the jailer muttered.

The guards didn't wait for Filip to recover. They grabbed him by the arms, hoisting him upward with a jarring force that threatened to pop his shoulders from their sockets. They began to drag him from the cell, his boots scuffing uselessly against the stone.

The thin jailer walked alongside them, his head tilted at an unnatural angle as he watched Filip’s hands. "Think he needs all his fingers?" the man mused, his voice a reedy, unsettling caress. "Just a snip, maybe a portion. He has such beautiful fingers. Long. Delicate. It would be a shame to let Hoff have all the fun. We should preserve some part of him before the magister breaks the rest."

Filip felt a cold, dry sensation on his right hand. The jailer’s fingers, which felt like parched parchment, were prying at his hand, forcing his fingers open. The guards didn't stop; they seemed bored by the display.

"Stop," Filip whimpered, but the jailer ignored him. The man drew a small, curved carving knife from the folds of his robes. The steel was stained, but the edge caught the torchlight with a wicked, silver gleam.

A sharp, needle-like sting erupted on the back of Filip’s hand. He felt a warm, viscous liquid begin to trickle down his knuckles. He clamped his eyes shut, his entire body tensing as he braced for the agony he knew was coming. But for a moment, there was nothing but the jailer’s heavy, rotten breath against his cheek.

"But a taste of what is to come," the jailer whispered.

Filip opened his eyes. The jailer’s face was inches from his own, his eyes wide, milky, and hungry. The knife was held against Filip’s throat now, the tip just barely breaking the skin. Then, in a blur of movement, the knife flashed downward.

The world vanished into a scream. It wasn't a sound Filip made; it was something that tore out of him, a raw, primal howl of absolute agony. The blade sheared through skin, through the yielding softness of muscle, and crunched through the bone of his right hand. The jailer released his grip, falling back with a high, wheezing chuckle, his hands clutching something small and bloody.

The guards continued to drag him, indifferent to the fact that Filip’s legs had turned to water. He looked down at his hand, his vision blurring with tears of pure, unadulterated shock. Where his right ring finger had been, there was now only a jagged, pulsing stump, cut clean through the third joint. The blood was a vibrant, mocking red against the grey dust of the floor.

The pain was a living thing now, a white-hot iron being driven into his brain, but it was the unnatural absence that truly broke him. He was no longer a hero. He was no longer a Watchman. He was a piece of meat being prepared for a feast. Filip began to cry, the jagged, ugly sobs of a child who had finally realized that the monsters in the dark were very, very real.

The corridor ended abruptly. A heavy wooden door was thrown open, and for a moment, Filip was blinded by a sudden, overwhelming flood of light. He realized with a jolt of terror that they were in the open air. The humidity was gone, replaced by a dry, biting wind that carried the scent of the river and the distant, mocking smell of blooming jasmine from the Governor's gardens.

His crying sounded loud and pathetic in the sudden space. The guards didn't slow down. They dragged him across a stone-paved courtyard toward a circle of men. They were grim-faced and silent, their expensive furs and silks a stark contrast to the blood and filth that covered Filip. There was no sympathy in their eyes, only a cold, clinical curiosity.

As Filip was dropped onto his knees in the center of the circle, the blinding sun overhead felt like an accusation. He looked up, his face slick with tears and blood, and realized that his nightmare had only just begun.