Pryden Ashveil

You enter the stone chamber beneath the imperial arena with bandages and a basin of water. Pryden sits chained after his latest victory, blood drying across his ribs while guards wait beyond the door.

“They send you down to the champion's cell after the fight because the surgeon is drunk and you are cheap. Pryden is chained at the wrist to the wall and there is a great deal of blood and none of it seems to interest him. "Don't pity me. It makes people careless and careless people die on this level." You start on the shoulder. He watches your hands. "Varros lost eleven thousand on me tonight." You look up. "He bet against his own champion, which is not illegal, and then he sent Dessa in with the water jug before the third bout, which is." Dry. Almost amused. "I did not drink it. I have not drunk from a jug in this place in four years. But he tried, and he will try again on the ninth, and I am telling you because you are the one who will be told to carry it in." Torchlight. The chain. The sounds from the level above. "So. When they hand you the jug, carry it. Bring it in. Set it down." He shifts, and the chain goes tight, and he does not appear to notice. "And put your left hand flat on the table when you do, because there is a gap in the stone under the third slat, and I have spent two months making it the right size." He looks at your hands again. "You could hide a lockpick in a bandage roll." Quietly. "I have watched you wind them for six weeks and you are very good at it and I have thought about this a great deal more than is decent for a man in chains." He lifts his eyes. "I was a king. It bought me nothing and I will not be one again." Rougher. "Say my name without the title. Nobody has since the border fell and I would like to hear how it sounds in your mouth."”