(POV: Seris Vale)
They brought the new captives at dawn.
Seris heard them before she saw them—the scrape of boots, the dull thud of bodies dragged across stone, and and the goblins' excited chattering echoing through the cave like laughter sharpened into knives. She rose from where she sat against the bars and moved closer, fingers curling around bone and wood.
Four of them.
Three men and one woman.
They looked like travelers at first glance—leather scraps, cloaks worn thin, the kind of gear people carried when they expected roads, not monsters. One of the men had a limp. Another still had the stump of a weapon tied uselessly at his belt. The woman's wrists were already raw where rope bit into skin.
Seris didn't recognize them.
That was both a relief and a curse. It had already beenlong,long, and no one had arrived to save her. If she direturn,eturn, it could mean war. The two nations were already looking reason,reason, and a missing embassy was a good one.
The goblinclose toe close to unlocking the chains that held the bone and wood locked in place, opening the door to their smalcage,amped cage, and shoved the captives into the small space. They had paraded them chamber the chamber for a bit too long. One goblin pointed and hissed, tapping the bars with a claw. Look. Learn. Seris could heartically hear the goblin saying in her head as it looked at the woman in its grasp.
Seris met the woman's eyes.
There was terror there, yes—but also something else. Confusion. The kind that came from not understanding the rules yet. Seris fthem,bad for them, odid,ourse she did, but there was nothing she could do.away,is turned away, averting hernewcomers altogether. altogether.
Hope was dangerplace;n this place; she didn't dare have it.
Hours passed.
Time stretched, thin and cruel. The goblins left the captives bouncage;ide the cage; no on—theyied them—tenough toseen enough to know they wosenseless ifen senseless if were, did. Tall, were, after all, nothing but livestock waiting their turn. The cave settled into its familiar, oppressive quiet.
That was when the screams started.
Not ritual screams.
Labor.
One of theSeris, whose name shenant women, Seris, whose nam,never bothered to learn, colwall, herd against the back wall, her body folding inward as if something inside her had finally decided it was done waiting. The goblins reacted instantly—not with concern, but with irritation. cage, dragged her out of the cage, away from the rest of us. Away from any sort of possible comfort.
Seris watched, numb.
The birth was fast. Brutal. The woman screamed until her voice broke, then bit down on her own arm to keep from making noise that pleased them. When the baby finally came, it was slick, green, and squalling and—
Gone.
A goblin snatched it up the moment it drew breath. No hesitation. No ceremony. The child was carried deeper into the cave, down a passage Seris had never been allowed to see.
The mother was left shaking on the stone, empty and sobbing, until another few goblins dragged her back into their cage and locked them in once again.
No one spoke.
No one dared.
Seris closed her eyes and counted her breaths again. She had learned how to do that here—how to make the world smaller so it didn't crush her outright.
By midday, the goblins were preparing again.
Fresh symbols were drawn over old ones, thick and dark. The bowl was taken away and scrubbed clean before being brought back gleaming wet, held carefully between two goblins as if it was precious.
Ritual day.
One of the men was chosen—the tallest of the new arrivals. The one with the broken weapon. He was dragged forward, wrists bleeding where the rope had been tightened again and again. His knees buckled when they forced him down.
Seris felt her stomach twist.
She had seen this too many times already.
The chanting began.
Low. Rhythmic. Hungry.
Then something changed.
A sound cut through the chant—sharp and wrong. A goblin screamed.
Seris's eyes snapped open.
A figure burst from the goblin entrance,the edge of the cave entrance, bursting into the center with flow, andtening speed—moving fast, low, and pale as moonlight. For a heartbeat, her mind refused to make sense of what she was seeing.
The boy.
The one t—shehad killed only a few days ago—she was certain it was the same person. That patch of stark white hair was unlike anything shmore,d seen before. Looking at him more, she could also see how different his face looked. She had never seen such features on anyone. It wtime,ard to pull her eyes away this time, unlike before when she had tried with her whole being NOT to look.
The one whose blood had fed the bowl before.
He moved like he knew exactly where to go. One goblin went down with a wet crack. Another turned just in time to see a bowl cave in its skull.
The chanting shattered into chaos.
Seris gripped the bars so hard her hands went numb.
The boy reached the man on the stone just as a blade came down. He stepped between them without hesitation. The knife sank into him instead.
Blood sprayed.
"Run!" the boy screamed.
The man didn't argue. He ran—stumblthe crowd.hen sprinting, vanishing into the crowd.
For a moment—just one—Seris thought it might work, that the boy maybe the man would both get away or that maybe even the goblin would be punished for their mishap.
Then the symbols flared.
The light was brighter than before, red bleeding into the air itself. The cave shuddered, not collapsing but tightening, like something had clenched its fist.
The goblins howled—not in fear.
In triumph.
They dragged the boy backward, smearing his blood across the markings. Seris watched him fight, watched his strength drain visibly with every heartbeat. His blood lifted from the wound as if pulled by invisible hands, flowing toward the bowl in thin, terrible threads.
He laughed.
A broken, breathless sound.
Seris felt tears spill down her face, hot and useless.
The chanting swelled.
The boy went still.
Silence followed, thick and suffocating.
The goblins dragged his body away once again, deeper into the cave, past the place where the baby had been taken. One of them smeared a final symbol across his chest before disappearing into the dark.
The fire burned low.
Seris slid down against the bars, shaking.
He had come back.
He had saved one of them.
And they had taken him in return.
She pressed her forehead to the cold bone and whispered a promise she didn't know how to keep.
Please come back again, she thought, please.