Chapter 85: Almighty Oseka
Chapter 85: Almighty Oseka
The morning came slowly, the sky shifting from black to grey to a pale, watery gold. A thin mist hung over the camp, curling around the carts and tents like the ghost of the night. The air was cold, the kind of cold that seeped through cloaks and settled into the bones, and the fire from the previous night had long since died, leaving only a pile of ash and charred wood.
Oseka woke with a yawn so wide his jaw cracked. He sat up in the supply cart, his hair sticking up in every direction, a piece of straw clinging to his tunic.
He blinked against the pale light, his mind still foggy with sleep. The camp was quiet, the men still wrapped in their cloaks, the guards at the perimeter already changing shifts.
The market in the distance was stirring again—vendors calling to each other, the creak of cart wheels, the distant clatter of pots and pans.
He stretched his arms above his head, then let them fall. His eyes drifted across the camp without purpose, still half-asleep.
Then he saw it.
The bowl.
It was still there, sitting in the dirt beside the tree where the new slave was chained. But it was no longer full. The stew was gone. The bread was gone. Even the spoon had been licked clean.
The slave sat in the same position as the night before, his back against the bark, his grey eyes fixed on the distance, his face unreadable. But the bowl was empty.
Oseka’s eyes went wide. He scrambled across the cart, his movement clumsy with excitement, and shook Alex awake.
"Hey. Albius. Albius. Look."
Alex groaned, pulling his cloak over his head. "What...? What...?"
"Look." Oseka pointed. "The bowl of stew. He ate it. The stubborn bastard ate it!"
Alex pushed himself up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His hair was a mess, his face still pale from the weeks of recovery, but his eyes sharpened as he followed Oseka’s pointing finger. The empty bowl. The silent slave. The small, quiet victory of someone who had refused food the night before and finally given in.
"He sure did," Alex murmured, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Oseka beamed. "I knew it. You can’t resist my cooking for long. Not even the stubborn ones." He puffed out his chest, clearly pleased with himself. "That’s a win for Oseka. A bloody win."
Alex let out a short, tired laugh. "Enjoy it while it lasts."
Before Oseka could retort, the flap of Ignatius’s tent swung open, and a guard stepped out. His armor gleamed dully in the pale light, and his face was set in the hard, efficient expression of a man who had orders to deliver.
"Everyone up," he called, his voice cutting through the quiet camp. "We move out in thirty minutes. Get your things ready."
Oseka’s smile faded. He looked back at the slave, then at Alex. "Guess we’re back on the road."
"Guess so," Alex said.
The camp stirred to life around them—men rolling up their cloaks, dousing the remains of the fire, checking the harnesses on the horses.
The guards began their final perimeter sweep, and the slave was unchained from the tree, his wrists bound again with rough rope.
He didn’t resist, nor did he speak. He just rose to his feet and followed where he was led, his grey eyes still hollow and distant.
Oseka watched him for a moment, then shook his head. "Strange one."
"Yeah," Alex said. "Strange indeed."
Then they both climbed down from the cart, ready to begin the next leg of the journey.
---
The road stretched ahead like a pale ribbon, dusty and uneven, winding through low hills that rolled toward the horizon. The morning sun was still climbing, its light catching the dew that clung to the grass and the leaves, turning the world briefly golden before the heat of the day set in.
The caravan moved in a loose column—Ignatius’s carriage at the front, the supply carts creaking behind, the guards riding in a loose perimeter, their eyes scanning the countryside with easy vigilance.
At the back of the supply cart, bound by the wrists to the wooden frame, walked the slave.
He moved with the same quiet stubbornness he had shown since the market.
His head was held high, his jaw set, his grey eyes fixed on some point ahead. The bruises on his face had begun to fade at the edges, turning a sickly yellow-green where the purple had once been. The rough rope chafed at his wrists, but he didn’t complain. He didn’t speak. He just walked, one foot after the other, as if the road itself were a kind of penance.
Oseka couldn’t stop glancing at him.
It wasn’t deliberate, at first. Just a flicker of the eyes, a brief turn of the head. But as the hours passed, the glances grew longer, and more frequent. He studied the slave with the same intensity he brought to his cooking—like he was trying to figure out the exact combination of ingredients that made this particular person tick.
Alex noticed. He nudged Oseka with an elbow. "Stop. You’re being rude."
Oseka didn’t look away. "Doesn’t he look... different?"
"What the fuck are you talking about." Alex’s voice was flat, his brows furrowing.
"I don’t know." Oseka frowned, tilting his head. "Like... I don’t even know. Just different."
Alex let out a long, slow breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. "There’s something seriously wrong with you." He shook his head.
The cart hit a rut, and the slave stumbled slightly, catching himself before he fell. The ropes pulled tight against his wrists, and for a moment, the only sound was the creak of the wheels and the distant call of a bird. .
And then, without warning, the slave spoke.
"Thanks for the meal... Oseka."
The voice was rough, scraped raw from disuse. It was deeper than Alex had expected, but there was something else there too—a strange, guarded softness that didn’t quite match the hard edges of the face. The words hung in the air, heavy and unexpected.
Alex and Oseka exchanged glances. Oseka’s eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open. Alex looked just as stunned.
"Y-you’re welcome," Oseka stuttered, his usual confidence momentarily gone. Then, as if a switch had flipped, his chest puffed out and his grin returned. "I knew you wouldn’t resist MY cooking. Nobody can."
The slave didn’t respond. His grey eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead, his expression unreadable, his silence settling back over him like a cloak.
Oseka didn’t seem to care. He was already turning to Alex, his face bright with triumph. "You hear that? He thanked me. The almighty Oseka strikes again."
Alex rolled his eyes. "He said three words. Don’t let it go to your head."
"Too late. It’s already there. It’s living there now."
"Fantastic."
"I’m serious, Albius. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I can feel it."
"Sure you can."
They bickered on, their voices rising and falling in the familiar rhythm of old friends. The road stretched ahead, golden in the morning light. The cart creaked. The slave walked in silence, his grey eyes fixed on the horizon.
But something had shifted in that small moment. A door had cracked open, just a little. And though neither Alex nor Oseka could name it yet, the journey home had just become something more than a return. It was becoming a gathering. A slow, strange, reluctant gathering of broken people, all walking toward the same city, none of them knowing what waited for them there.