The slamming of the study door echoed down the passageway like a turning of a key in a lock—shutting away a terrible experience, perhaps, but one at least outlined upon the laser-like, unreal intensity of the Lady of the Castle. Its aftereffect was a return to the faceless, grinding monotony of servile work, a world far different and not less suffocating. Kenji led Sora in silence down a series of more narrow and functional passageways than were previously walked by them, away from quarters that seemed to be reserved either for command or front defense. In this section of the castle, the stonework was more rough-hewn, the torches less and farther apart, many supplemented by smoldering oil lanterns that dimly cut the shadows and left walls with a fine veneer of oily soot. The air was thicker, full of more unpleasant but more usual odors: stagnant smoke, damp woodsmoke, the astringent bite of badly aired latrines somewhere in the vicinity, and the general smell of food cooked too long.
Finally, they reached what appeared to be the kitchens. No neat, clean rooms that Sora was accustomed to, however. A massive, vaulted cavern, the stone ceiling darkened by centuries of accumulated smoke. There were several massive hearths, built integral to the stone, roaring with searing fires, suspended iron cauldrons so large that Sora could have bathed in them. The closeness to the fires was blinding and smothering, but the rest of the cavernous room was cold and draughty. There was smoke in the air, searing the eyes and the throat, in spite of rough openings in the top of the ceiling that were obviously meant to be chimneys. The floor was oily, rough earth that was slick and hazardous in places.
The room seethed with a frantic, clattering life. Weathered, rough-faced women and men, in tattered tunics or dusty leather aprons, darted to and fro, shouting curt orders above the crackle of the fires and the burble of the cauldrons. They hacked at huge, indistinguishable hunks of dark meat on pounding, dented wooden chopping boards, stirred the thick stews with paddles that were like oars, and carried heavy buckets of water or burlap sacks of twisted-looking root vegetables. No one smiled. Faces were taut with effort and concentration, or just vacant with the discouragement of hard repetition. They were the hidden mechanism propelling the castle war machine.
Kenji's arrival created a temporary silence amidst the commotion. Some turned to give a glimpse, eyes finding the burly guard first and then travelling with not-so-hidden interest to the wiry, strangely-clad man by his side. No hostility was evident, no greeting. It was a look set apart for something new and suspect, something that might prove to be trouble or worse, attract unwanted attention at a higher level. Sora flinched under the group's glare, more exposed than ever.
Kenji ignored the gawks and approached a burly, bald man in a leather apron stained with dried blood and new grease, and overseeing the butchery of some enormous, dark animal on a nearby counter. The two of them exchanged some rough, incomprehensible words that Sora couldn't translate; the local speech was still strange sound to him. The bald man looked him over with a suspicious frown, and nodded brusquely and jerked a huge cleaver towards a huge stack of metal pots and pans—huge, greasy, and burn-blackened—standing beside a large stone trough full of dark, icy water.
"You heard him," Kenji snapped at Sora, his voice harsher than usual above the noise. "Those pots. Leftovers from last night's… service for the guard shifts. They need cleaning. Thoroughly. He'll show you how. I don't want the Lady hearing complaints about your work. Neither do I."
The bae, unnamed man—naming him would at this point in castle hierarchy be a luxury—grunted and lumphered over, with a snort. He sent a pile of rough sand, nearly gravel, skittering over towards Sora's feet and flung him a scrap of extremely rough sacking material. Then, with jerky motions and a series of grunting and single words that were more like orders, he illustrated the procedure: grab a pot, carry to the trough, pour sand in, and wash with the sacking and cold water until the thick layers of charred grease and carbonized food waste stripped away. He flicked a finger towards the mountainous mass, and towards Sora, and made a sweeping motion that appeared to involve several hours. The point was unmistakable: all that, by yourself.
And thus began Sora's first actual day at the Castle of Shadows, no longer a prisoner, but the lowest cog in its machine. The work was brutally physical, humiliating, and totally debilitating. His fingers, accustomed to the gentle pressure of a pencil or controller buttons, became reddened, raw, sore, and swollen by the incessant friction of sack and sand. Each pot was a ton, and the effort of heaving, scouring, and restacking them (after the shaven man had curtly nodded in acceptance) seared the muscles in arms, shoulders, and back with a strange pain. The cold, greasy water sprayed relentlessly against his face and clothes, drenching and numbing him despite the searing heat blowing off the nearby hearths. The stench of rotten grease, burned food, and foul water filled his nostrils and stomach and created silent waves of nausea that he had to suppress.
Working mechanically, bent double, keeping busy with the work in order not to think too much of this and that and get too deep in horror or despair, he watched with the intense desperation of a trapped animal. He saw the harsh dynamics of the place: hierarchy was as unforgiving and hard as castle stone. Those in control—the bald man, a couple of others with equally hard faces—shouted orders, pushed, and occasionally administered blows with ladle handles or back of their hands. Those doing the labor worked without a sound, eyes cast down upon their work, moving with a practice-born and fear-backed efficiency. He saw a young woman, not much older than him, stumbling under the burden of a sack of roots, spilling some of its contents. The bald man ran over, pouring a torrent of guttural profanity, and slapped her hard at the back, knocking her to her knees. The woman bit down a sob, gathered in the scattered roots hastily, and hustled away, not even casting a glance to anyone. No one moved to stop her. No one gave the slightest flicker of compassion. Indifference was everyone's shield.
Uniformed guards, Vayne's Crows, walked at random intervals in and out of the kitchens, taking rations, water, or merely exercising their latent authority. They were momentarily effective against the chaos always, substituting it with sullen tension. They walked with a predator's arrogant pace, commanding instant service and showing open contempt for the kitchen help. Sora learned quickly to make himself as small and invisible as possible when one of them passed by. One of them tripped over him once when he was scrubbing a huge pot on the floor. The guard cursed, kicked out carelessly at Sora's side—not cruelly, merely the same contempt reserved for a fixed object—and walked on without a second look.
He witnessed massive quantities of food prepared. It was fuel, food to nourish bodies that fought or labored. Thick, dark stews simmering all day in the caldron, with hard meat and starchy tubers. Loaves of mountainous, dark-brown, dense bread cut thick. Fattier morsels of meat roasted over coals in a hearth every now and then, filling the air with a heavy, feral smell. He witnessed pale turnips, wracked roots, and earth-crusted tubers pulled in. Anything green. Anything new. Anything even remotely similar to anything he recalled of life in the old world. It was a monochrome, functional spread to nourish bodies, not to delight taste. He vaguely wondered where this originated in this allegedly barren world that Vayne had depicted. Raids? Tributes exacted by force? Prison camps? A little of all three, he speculated with a shiver.
Kenji, his overseer-gaoler, visited a few times in what Sora estimated was a day. In all the traffic and with no natural sunlight to speak of, time became impossible to calculate. The massive guard would simply stand back, watching Sora grunt a minute with blank face, before disappearing to the various areas of the castle to make rounds. But one time, when Sora was plainly exerting himself to lift an extremely heavy cauldron, stopping to catch breath and rub sore arms, Kenji stepped over.
"The Lady only demands usefulness, not baggage," Kenji breathed softly but with an incredibly level intensity, the heat of breath and the fragrance of some kind of cheap ale brushing against the ear of Sora. "She sees something in you that she feels is. potential. Do not fail her now. If you cannot even manage this, your 'worth' as a rarity will be exhausted before you even notice. Get the job done and faster."
Fear ever-present, focused at the slightest suggestion. Fear of becoming obsolete. Fear of being discarded. Fear of learning the fate of "rarities" that were no longer of interest to the Lady of the Castle of Shadows. Fear gave Sora a new injection of frantic power born of fear. He attacked the pot again with renewed ferocity, ignoring the squeal in his muscles and the trickle of blood that emerged from a burst blister at the base of his palm.
Then, after what felt like eternity with pots and pans, the bald man roughly pulled him away from the trough and pointed to a crude broom made of a bunch of withies tied to a stick. He demonstrated by sweeping motions that Sora was to clean a large patch of the oily, hard-packed earth floor spotted with food waste, bones, dirty straw, and general, indeterminate filth. It was another endless, unpleasant job. Dust and dirt lifted in clouds, and breathing was difficult, and the smell was worse in patches.
Through one of the back doors of the kitchen, to a small, darker inner courtyard, he found a second, temporary respite from heat and noise. He went outside briefly, bracing himself against the broom, taking lungfuls of the cold, damp air, although its air reeked of filth and mildew. The courtyard was spanned by tall, naked stone walls that seemed to lean inward, to let almost all of the light seep in to pierce the murky sky. Wet piles of wood and wood to be burned in the stove, empty kegs, and, in one corner, a pile of animal bones actually disgusting and filth-stained, filled the room. And there, sitting atop a tall section of the wall, still and like a gargoyle that had come alive—a crow. Large, much larger than the crows with whom Tokyo was full, with glossy black plumage and uncanny intelligent, cold, dark eyes that locked directly with him. For a wild instant, a ridiculous tingle ran over him, with the bird not an animal but a spy, an emissary of the darkness that here reigned. The crow bent its head, gave a deep, rasping caw that fell meaningfully in the silence of the courtyard, and then, with a tremendous thrash of its wings, shot away past the grey air and above the castle rooftops.
Sora shook in fear and backed away hastily to the relative (and ridiculous) security of the kitchen. The vision of the crow lingered with him, vivid and oppressive, overlaying the painting and the words of Vayne. We are the Crows.
The rest of the "day" passed in much the same blur of physically strenuous drudgery and numb, creeping fear. He helped to lift backbreaking burlap sacks of grain or roots that made him wince, cleaned grease-and-blood-soaked tables with dirty cloths, and washed more never-ending, oily utensils. No one spoke to him outside of barking, usually-incomprehensible commands, followed by gestures or blows of irritation. He came to sense purpose by looks, to anticipate demands before they were made, to hurry and get out of the way, to blend into the background as much as he could. He was, within a few hours' time, a plausible ghost.
At last, later than when the amount of grey light filtering in via the slats in the roof had all but disappeared, and been replaced by orange, smoky radiance conveyed by yet more oil lanterns, there stood Kenji in the kitchen entrance. With him this time was certain, absolute relief; this was the relief of the physical pain, at least temporarily.
Enough today, Kenji muttered, a whisper compared to the yelling and the snarling that had erupted in the kitchen. Let's get out of here. I'll take you back.
Sora followed mutely behind, every step an agony. He was weary and could muster little more than a general soreness in every portion of his body and an eternal emptiness in belly and heart. They walked back down darkened passages a second time, more rapidly now that castle duties slowed with the "night." His footsteps made little sound, overwhelmed by Kenji's deep, measured tread. He was returned to his cell. The dim, cold, small room never looked so. almost appealing. At least there was a place where he could break apart without notice. Kenji stood in the frame of the doorway, staring in at Sora. His face was still its usual stoic self, but perhaps, just perhaps, there was a flicker of something that looked almost like resignation in those dark eyes. "Do you have a better understanding of your role here, boy?" he asked, his voice as impassive as his face. Again, he offered no indication that he expected a reply. "Do your job. Draw no unwanted attention to yourself. Cause no trouble. Exist. One day at a time. That is all that you will be able to do here. For now, at least." Without saying a word, he shut the door, and Sora felt the all-too-horribly familiar sound of the bolt sliding into place on the opposite side. He simply stood there in the almost total darkness, shaking with cold and tiredness and plain desperation. He sniffed the damp stone. He collapsed rather than sit upon the stack of straw, not even removing the filthy, oily, wet clothes. He had taken his first true steps within the cage that was the Castle of Shadows. He had known the daily beat of life as a castle prisoner: soul-shattering drudgery, endless fear, utter senselessness, and loneliness. He existed, yes. Vayne Kurotsuki's "protector" shielded him from the most egregious cruelty outside the castle walls, but coated with the cold of stone, and the thinly disguised threat of pointlessness, and labor that wore him down, body and soul. As the coldness of the cell seeped into his aching bones, Sora closed his eyes. No Tokyo visions occurred that night, not even rational nightmares. Only the aching darkness of the Castle of Shadows and the persistent feeling that the eyes of the crows, both living and painted, were upon him in every darkness.