The wagon jolted to a stop, chains clanking like broken teeth. Reerie's wrists throbbed where the rope had chafed them raw, but she remained silent. Making noise attracted attention. Attention led to pain.
The door screeched open. Hands seized her — rough and uncaring — and tossed her inside. She hit the wooden floor hard enough to taste blood, her tongue caught between her teeth. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs.
"Another rat for the pile," a soldier chuckled, slamming the door shut. The lock clicked with the finality of a coffin lid.
Darkness engulfed her completely.
The cage reeked of rust, sweat, and something sour she couldn't identify. Bodies shifted in the shadows — other prisoners, as silent as ghosts. The metal bars were still warm from the sun, the heat radiating through the cramped space.
Reerie curled up, knees to her chest, eyes tightly shut. Her throat ached. She was so thirsty. The sun had blazed down on them during the march, and no one had given them water. Her lips were cracked, tasting of salt and dirt.
She longed to go home.
But home was ashes, smoke, and bodies in the mud.
"Easy now." A voice pierced the darkness — low and gentle. "You're okay. Just breathe."
Reerie didn't answer. Couldn't. Her chest felt too tight, her thoughts too loud, everything overwhelming —
"Reerie. Look at me." The voice tried again, softer this time. "We're still alive."
Reerie's eyes slowly opened.
She looked up carefully, squinting through the dim light filtering through the bars. A girl sat against the far wall, wrists bound in rope like Reerie's. Dirt smeared her face, and her chestnut hair hung in messy strands. But her eyes —
Those eyes.
"...Kili?"
The girl's stoic expression faltered, if only for a moment. Something that could have been relief. Could have been sorrow.
"Yeah," Kilifay whispered. "It's me."
The first day passed in heat and hunger. The soldiers tossed scraps through the bars at dawn — stale bread, something that might once have been meat — and Kilifay gave her share to Reerie piece by piece without being asked. She spent the hours watching the guards instead of eating. Her eyes tracked their movements, her lips moving in near-silent counts. The one with the flask — how often he drank, how his walk changed as the hours went on, how many steps from the fire to the wagon and how many seconds between them. Her hands shook where they rested on her knees, but she kept watching.
The second day was worse. The heat pressed down harder. One of the other prisoners — an old man with a grey beard — had stopped moving entirely. No one checked. Kilifay barely noticed. She was counting again, her jaw tightening and releasing in a rhythm Reerie had come to recognize as the rhythm of someone who was frightened and had decided that counting was the only thing standing between the fear and everything falling apart.
That afternoon, a guard stopped too close to the wagon and looked in through the bars. Kilifay went completely still — not breathing, not blinking — and held the stillness until he walked away. The breath she let out afterward came out shaking.
Her hands were shaking more now.
The second night, the guards were drunk enough.
Not fully out — just loud and slow, their laughter bouncing off the trees while the fire burned low and the moon stayed hidden behind thick cloud. Inside the cage, Kilifay was already moving.
She had found something during the day — a bent, half-rusted nail stuck between the floorboards. She worked it against the rope at her wrists for several long minutes, every small sound amplified in the stillness, until the fibers frayed and the rope came loose. She stretched her fingers. Then she turned to the lock.
She held the nail the way she had once held a hunting knife — carefully, with the patience of someone who understood that mechanisms had logic to them. Traps had springs. Snares had triggers. Locks had tumblers.
"Same idea," she murmured to herself. "Feel for the — come on—"
The nail slipped.
It hit the metal floor with a sharp, clear clink.
Both girls froze.
"What was that?"
A guard's voice. Footsteps coming fast. Kilifay threw herself against the wall and pressed the nail into her palm and arranged her face into blankness. Reerie pressed against her side, motionless, small enough to disappear into the shadow Kilifay made.
The guard's face appeared at the bars. He scanned the cage. The prisoners stared back at him with empty eyes.
"Shit, I swear I heard something," he said at last, and walked away.
Kilifay did not breathe for a long time after.
When she finally tried the lock again her hands were slick — sweat or blood, she couldn't tell — and the nail felt uncertain in her grip. The lock resisted. Then it clicked.
She opened the door slowly. Untied Reerie's wrists with practiced hands. Pulled her close.
"Stay behind me," she whispered. "Don't make a sound."
They moved into the night like shadows.
The camp was a mix of firelight and shadows. Kilifay navigated it like a skilled hunter, staying low and sticking to the blind spots she had memorized.
Reerie trailed behind, her small hand clutching Kilifay's shirt, her bare feet making no sound on the packed earth.
They moved past the fire. Past the sleeping tents. Past the row of horses tied to a post, their breath visible in the cool air.
Almost there. Almost—
"STOP!"
The shout sliced through the night like a whip.
Kilifay turned her head sharply. A guard—the one with the flask, the one she had been following—stood ten paces away, sword half-drawn.
"They've escaped! Our gold is escaping!"
Everything unfolded too quickly.
Kilifay pushed Reerie forward hard, causing her to stumble and hit something solid—a tree root or a post, she couldn't tell. The world was spinning.
Boots pounded. Steel clashed. Voices yelled over one another in a chaotic noise.
Kilifay took off running.
Reerie followed—scrambling up, her legs moving before her mind could catch up, crashing through the darkness.
Behind her, a shout: "STOP!"
Heavy footsteps were getting closer.
Reerie's lungs felt like they were on fire. Her bare feet slipped in the mud. She couldn't see where she was headed, just ran blindly, away from the voices, away from the steel—
A scream pierced the night.
Kilifay's scream.
Reerie's legs froze. She turned, her heart racing.
Twenty paces back, illuminated by torchlight: a guard was holding Kilifay. His arm was wrapped around her chest, pinning her arms, lifting her off the ground.
Kilifay was thrashing—wild and desperate. Her legs kicked. Her body twisted with all her strength.
Her elbow hit something. A crunch. The guard's nose.
"You little—!"
Reerie spotted the blade.
It glimmered in the firelight, silver and sharp, and then it was plunged into Kilifay's side—just below her ribs, angled upward.
The guard let her go.
Kilifay staggered back, her hands gripping the injury. She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. Only a wet, choking gasp.
She dropped to her knees.
Blood, dark and thick, soaked her shirt. Too much blood. It gathered in the dirt below her, black in the firelight.
Kilifay's body twitched—once, twice. Her hands pressed against the wound, trying to contain the flow, but the blood continued to pour. It coated her fingers, trickled down her wrists. Her breaths came in quick, desperate gasps.
She attempted to rise. Failed. She fell forward onto her hands, and the blood pooled more quickly.
Her eyes met Reerie's.
Wide. Confused. Terrified.
Then the light in them started to fade.
Kilifay's arms gave way. She fell completely, her cheek against the mud, and her body convulsed one last time—a violent, full-body jerk—before becoming still.
The silence was worse than the screams.
Reerie was frozen. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Unable to think. She just gazed at Kilifay's body, at the blood still spreading, at the way Kili's eyes stared into nothingness.
"Coll, you KILLED her?!"
A new voice—sharp and filled with rage.
A man in black steel walked into the firelight, his cape dragging through the mud. He halted beside Kilifay's body, looked down at it, then turned to the guard with the bloody nose.
His fist struck Coll's jaw, sending him staggering.
"Do you have ANY idea what you've just done?!"
Coll stumbled, hand to his face. "She—she hit me—"
"She was worth SIXTY GOLD, Coll!" The commander's voice boomed like thunder. "A hundred! A healthy female, sixteen summers, trained to hunt—look at the muscle in her legs! Look at her teeth, her skin! No pox scars, no brand marks! That's SIXTY GOLD COINS at the Sumeiyash market!"
He seized Coll by the collar, shaking him.
"You stabbed her because she bloodied your NOSE?! A broken nose costs a copper to fix! You just ruined SIXTY GOLD COINS over a COPPER'S WORTH OF PRIDE!"
Coll's face turned pale. "I didn't mean—"
"Didn't MEAN?!" The commander pushed him away, breathing heavily. "You will pay for this. Every single copper. I will deduct it from your wages for the next ten years if necessary."
His eyes scanned the camp—and landed on Reerie.
She stood frozen, exposed, blood splattered on her bare feet.
"And what about THAT one?" The commander waved dismissively. "A little one. Six years old at most, small for her age. She probably won't even make it through the voyage."
He turned back to the guards.
"Forget the little one. Let the street rats take her—she won't survive three days in the Sink anyway. Secure the REST of the cargo before I lose my entire investment!"
The soldiers moved—toward the main wagon, toward the other prisoners who hadn't attempted to escape.
But one guard—a younger one, eager to prove himself—approached Reerie.
His hand reached for her shoulder.
And something snapped.
Reerie bolted.
She didn't think. Didn't strategize. Her legs just propelled her away from Kilifay's body, away from the blood, away from the hands reaching for her.
Behind her, shouts erupted.
"CATCH HER!"
"Leave her! The commander said—"
"She's still WORTH something—"
Reerie didn't catch the rest. The world shrank to the sound of her own breathing, the thumping of her heart, the sensation of her bare feet hitting the ground.
She dashed through the darkness. Tripped over roots. Fell hard, scraped her knees, scrambled up, and kept running. Branches lashed at her face. Something ripped at her shirt. She didn't stop.
Her lungs ached. Her side tightened. Her legs screamed for her to halt, but fear pushed her onward.
Behind her, the sounds of pursuit faded. Voices calling, then growing quiet. Boots on the ground, then silence.
She didn't realize when the ground changed beneath her feet—from soft earth to hard-packed dirt. Didn't notice when the trees thinned and wooden structures emerged in the darkness. Didn't perceive the scent of smoke shifting from burning thatch to hearth fires.
She just ran.
Until her legs gave out.
She collapsed in an alley that smelled of urine and decay, her body too tired to take another step. Nearby, there was a crate. She crawled into it, curling up into the smallest shape possible.
The darkness was total. No moon. No stars. Just blackness.
Her chest heaved. Her throat was on fire. Her knees were bleeding from where she had fallen.
Somewhere far off, voices were laughing. Boots clattered on stone. A dog barked. Sounds she didn't recognize, in a place she didn't know.
She shut her eyes.
"Kili..."
The word barely escaped her lips. A whisper. A prayer.
The darkness offered no reply.
Kilifay was gone. Her blood was cooling in the dirt miles away, and Reerie was here—wherever here was—curled up in a crate.
She didn't realize this was a city. Didn't know its name. Didn't know she had crossed into the nation that had burned her village, killed her family, and taken everything she cherished.
All she understood was this:
Kili was gone.
And she was alone.