Sweat darkens him, bleeds the blue of him through with blackness so thoroughly that he wonders, in a moment of levity born of mad mental exhaustion, if his sins have at last decided to stain him properly. His jaw pops, tension locking his teeth together against any laughter, rigid vocal cords permitting no more than an off-rhythm wheeze to offset the rasp of breath. It is not the climb that makes steam rise from his skin as another dogged step scatters stones down the path before him, but the resistance in his every fiber. Baelfire has not known such willpower in himself, outstripping the weakness of his mind, a marvel of biology, an inspiring drive for survival that threads him through with shame as he bids himself surrender for the hundredth time since this began.
He has cajoled his body, begged his bones, pleaded with muscles that burn with terror and rage: We cannot resist. His body does not heed him even as it’s forced to submit to another. Some parts of him bred true, it seems, steadfast in the meat of himself. Useless as that may be.
His feet drive down one last time, jarring, into the splintering stony ground. Then he is rooted, still, bound by something that indifferently arranges his protesting cells into an arrangement of some grotesque utility.
Baelfire’s mind grows quiet, open, looking for purpose, as is its want. Something to interpret, some inspiration on which to act. It is with this shift that his tendons cease straining against the unnatural pull, and Baelfire waits as a marionette with potential quivering down his strings. He waits, not for mercy or release but for the hand that will use him, shape him, break him.
