The wilderness did not release them easily. The convoy limped forward, wheels dragging through mud thick with blood, the lamps faint and trembling. But somehow—they passed through.
When dawn rose, they reached a hidden door carved into stone, the so-called illegal entrance to the Upper City. Its gates opened not with ceremony but with shadows, and once the convoy crossed, the wilderness vanished behind them as if it had never existed.
And with it, so too did the memory.
Nicolo blinked, confused. His mind was fog. The screams, the monsters, the blood—it was there, but slipping like sand through his fingers. He looked around, desperate to see who remained.
The men in uniform stood firm, their faces blank. "Only five children." one reported. "These are the ones we collected from the orphanage."
Nicolo's breath caught. Five? He remembered dozens—hundreds. But as his eyes swept the survivors, all he could see were 12, the boy, the two girls, and himself.
The rest… gone. Not just in body, but in memory. Erased.
Why? By whose hand? Even Will's whispers offered no answer.
The door closed behind them, sealing the wilderness away. And Nicolo's fate twisted once again.
The children were delivered to waiting clients. The soldiers departed with cold efficiency. The Ascenders disappeared into the crowd.
And Nicolo—thin, pale, with emerald-eyed 12 staring after him—was led elsewhere. To the palace of Countess Alessia Rossi, a beautiful noblewoman whose smile promised warmth but whose eyes gleamed with possession.
By nightfall, he was no longer an orphan boy. He was the Countess's prize.
And in her home awaited Luisa Rossi, her seven-year-old daughter, who looked at Nicolo not with greed but with childlike wonder.
"Are you my new papa?" she asked softly, clutching his hand.
Nicolo froze. The word struck harder than any monster's claw. He wasn't much older than her—yet fate had made him her stepfather.
And so began his life in the Rossi household—trapped between the desires of a Countess and the innocent affection of a child.