Shattered Sanity

Over the next one month, Riven learned a lot of valuable life lessons from Boss Pei and his gang, as the criminals who had initially mocked him for seeking the old man’s elderly wisdom slowly grew surprisingly fond of having him around.

Once they realized how genuinely interested Riven was in learning whatever they could teach him, nearly everyone began contributing something of their own, although most of those lessons involved skills that no respectable noble would ever admit to possessing.

Needle taught him sleight of hand and pickpocketing, beginning with simple exercises involving coins disappearing between his fingers before eventually showing him how to remove purses, keys and other small objects from another person’s clothing without alerting them.

Another prisoner taught him how locks worked, explaining how to identify different mechanisms by feeling the resistance inside the keyhole, while former burglars explained to him how experienced thieves searched unfamiliar rooms, where wealthy people commonly concealed valuables, and which hiding places were so obvious that only amateurs bothered checking them.

Even Boss Pei occasionally contributed something useful, teaching Riven how robberies were planned, how targets were selected, how escape routes were prepared beforehand and why the greatest difference between a successful criminal and one sitting inside the Castle Gallows usually came down to preparation.

"Always know how you’re getting out before you decide how you’re getting in," Pei repeatedly reminded him, as according to the old crime lord, far too many thieves became so obsessed with reaching their prize that they only began thinking about escape after everything had already gone wrong.

Outside those lessons, Riven was gradually included in nearly every activity the gang used to make prison life slightly more bearable.

They taught him their favourite card games, introduced him to beetle fighting, showed him the various gambling games played throughout the Castle Gallows and even allowed him to participate in their knife-throwing competitions whenever the guards conveniently decided to look elsewhere.

For Riven, almost everything was new.

Having spent much of his childhood struggling merely to survive before eventually being subjected to Lucius’s conditioning and the Imperial Anatomist’s experiments, he had experienced very little that could be considered ordinary entertainment, which made even the ridiculous arguments surrounding two fighting beetles strangely enjoyable.

More surprising to everyone around him, however, was how quickly he learned.

Between his photographic memory, unusually sharp mind and the remarkable coordination provided by his reconstructed body, Riven could watch someone demonstrate a movement only a couple times before replicating it with an accuracy that often took ordinary people weeks of practice to achieve.

Within days, Needle had stopped laughing whenever Riven attempted sleight of hand.

Within two weeks, several prisoners refused to play cards against him unless there was no money involved.

And by the end of the month, nearly everyone within Boss Pei’s gang had independently reached the same conclusion.

The kid was some sort of freakish prodigy.

However, the most valuable things Riven learned during that month had very little to do with skills or entertainment.

He learned the slang prisoners used amongst themselves, listened to stories about territories he had never visited and gradually discovered the circumstances that had brought many of the men surrounding him into the Castle Gallows.

Some had murdered people.

Others had robbed merchants, smuggled prohibited goods, forged Imperial documents or spent years operating criminal organizations before eventually making the mistake that brought everything crashing down around them.

Riven listened to all of them.

He listened when they spoke proudly about their greatest successes, and he listened even more carefully whenever conversations turned towards their greatest regrets, because after hearing enough men describe the choices that had eventually shaped their lives, Riven gradually noticed something that fascinated him.

Very few of them regretted taking risks.

Even men sentenced to spend the remainder of their lives behind these walls still spoke about escaping someday, despite knowing perfectly well that being caught during such an attempt would likely result in their execution.

Many did not even regret the crimes that had brought them here.

Instead, they regretted making mistakes while committing them such as trusting the wrong partner, failing to prepare properly, hesitating at an important moment or ignoring opportunities they had been too frightened to pursue when they were younger.

Some regretted never confessing their feelings to a woman they loved.

Others regretted refusing business opportunities because the risks had frightened them, while a few simply wished they had travelled farther, spent their money more freely or enjoyed themselves before imprisonment took those choices away forever.

As listening to enough of those stories gradually changed the way Riven thought about risk itself.

A failed decision could certainly destroy someone’s life, and the men surrounding him were living proof of that reality, yet fear could also leave behind regrets that lasted just as long.

By the time the final day of his imprisonment eventually arrived, Riven had spent an entire month surrounded by thieves, murderers, smugglers, gangsters and men whom noble society would have considered the absolute worst the Empire had to offer.

And somehow, he had learned from every single one of them, as the Riven who was preparing to walk out of the Castle Gallows was no longer quite the same boy who had entered it one month earlier.

’Tomorrow morning, I will be sent off to the Academy, and from there, my real challenge begins.’

Riven thought, as he involuntarily reached behind his shoulder and gently touched the four stab wounds across his back, which had mostly healed by now, although they still stung slightly whenever he pressed against them.

The wounds served as a permanent reminder of the mistake that had nearly ended his life before it had truly begun, and of the lesson he had promised himself never to forget.

’I must never show weakness at the Academy. I must become someone everyone fears and respects, and anyone who chooses to become my enemy must regret ever making that decision.’

Riven vowed, as with those thoughts firmly embedded within his mind, he finally closed his eyes and drifted to sleep for the last time inside the Castle Gallows.