The torchlight flickered along the corridor's stone walls, painting shaky shadows that danced as if trying to escape.
Bob shivered in the draft and pulled his threadbare uniform coat tighter. He was sitting alone at the tiny communication post — a glorified desk wedged beside the old armory, stacked with sealed messages, loose parchment, and a tin mug of bitter tea gone cold.
He glanced at the broken clock above the door.
Midnight.
He sighed and scribbled another tally in the worn ledger: Food count. Guard rotations. Maintenance schedule. Each stroke of the quill steadied his nerves. Paperwork was reliable. Predictable.
The sudden flutter of wings made his hand jerk.
A pigeon thudded softly against the shuttered window, then pecked once with mechanical insistence.
Bob cursed under his breath, unlatched the tiny hatch, and let the bird inside. It hopped onto the desk, puffed up its chest, and held still while he unfastened the tiny cylinder from its leg.
There was only one seal on it — black wax, pressed with a symbol he hated seeing: a sunburst behind an obsidian tower.
Capital seal.
He opened the message with trembling fingers, eyes scanning the fine script in growing horror.
[ "Arrival confirmed. Lady Emilia en route. Prepare subjects for tribute. Compliance will be verified."]
Bob stood so quickly his chair clattered over behind him.
"No, no, no—" he muttered, pacing the narrow room in frantic little steps.
Lady Emilia. Her. The elegant viper. The one who didn't raise her voice but made hardened men tremble with a look. The one who inspected with gloves on and smiled like a sculptor admiring a statue right before breaking it.
Bob's skin crawled.
He looked around the cluttered room as if answers might be hiding under the dusty files.
"This can't be right. The Vorrak tests haven't even started. We haven't begun separating the stock. Half of them are still bruised from transport. What does she want now?"
He turned back to the message and read it again. Then again. The date was clear.
Three days.
Three days until inspection. Three days until the children were evaluated. No time to begin the assessments. No time to initiate the trials. No time for a single thing to go wrong.
Bob picked up the candle lamp. He had to wake the head warden. The others too. They'd want everything spotless. Silent. Submissive.
He lingered for a moment, looking down at the pigeon. It stared up at him with dark, unblinking eyes.
"Why now?" he whispered.
But the bird gave no answer.
Outside, the wind howled against the stone. And somewhere in the dark, the clock kept ticking.
___________________
The darkness didn't come all at once. It trickled into Cale's dreams like water seeping under a door.
He stood in the yard. But something was wrong.
The air was too still. Too cold. Moonlight fell in thin, unnatural lines across the dirt, and the buildings around him sagged as though exhausted. Cale looked down and realized he wasn't alone.
The children were lined up in rows.
Silent.
Expressionless.
Each one held a small glass vial in their hands — filled with a swirling liquid that shimmered violet under the moon. A guard paced between them, barking orders that didn't reach Cale's ears.
Then she appeared.
The woman with the red-hair. The one who had visited them when Cale was still kept in the old wooden house. Yes—she's the one who had delivered that message.
She moved through the gate like smoke, escorted by two faceless guards cloaked in black. Her hair was perfectly pinned, her coat a shade too pristine for the setting. She walked with slow, deliberate elegance, smiling as though attending a recital.
Cale's breath caught.
No one else reacted to her. But he did. He took a step back, instinct roaring in his chest.
One by one, the children drank.
Glass clinked.
And then came the screams.
It started as retching. Low. Sickening. The sound of bodies rejecting something they were never meant to consume.
Then came the twisting.
Arms bent the wrong way. Eyes bulged. Skin cracked. One child dropped to all fours and began convulsing. Another clutched their throat as it stretched impossibly long.
Cale backed away, shaking. "No. No—what is this?"
The children changed. They were becoming… things. Not quite Vorraks, but close — hunched shapes, grey-veined flesh, jaws splitting where there were no seams.
He wasn't moving.
Why wasn't he moving?
Then he realized — he was holding a vial too.
Still sealed. Still full.
He looked up — and Lady Emilia was staring at him.
There was no confusion in her eyes. No surprise.
Only recognition.
As if she'd been waiting for him to be revealed.
She raised one gloved hand and pointed. "There you are."
Cale dropped the vial. It shattered.
The monstrous children turned toward him, twitching, sniffing the air.
Cale turned to run—
And woke with a gasp.
His bed creaked under him as he sat bolt upright, drenched in cold sweat. The dim room was quiet, save for the soft breathing of the other children.
It had been a dream.
But not just a dream.
He looked at the mark on his wrist.
"You showed me," he whispered.
There was no response.
But the spiral pulsed faintly, once — like a heartbeat.
Emis had shown him what was coming.
And now, more than ever, Cale knew:
They had to escape. Before it was too late.
_________________
The storage building was still and silent, save for the soft rhythm of sleep-breaths and the occasional creak of old wood settling in the cold.
Rosanna slipped through the door like a shadow.
She didn't bother with shoes. The soles of her feet made no sound against the rough planks as she crept toward the back storeroom—what the guards liked to call the "utility closet." It wasn't locked. They didn't think they had to.
She eased the door open, heart steady, movements efficient. Inside, the shelves were cluttered with useless junk—buckets, chipped lanterns, crates of rusted nails—but she knew where to look. She'd already memorized the layout over the past week, piece by piece.
She grabbed the old coil of wire they'd need to bind the gate. A rusted hammer that still had some weight. A small bottle of oil to loosen hinges. And—most importantly—a broken-handled screwdriver tucked behind a shelf bracket.
She slipped the items into a stolen satchel and closed the door behind her.
Easy.
Still, her thoughts weren't quiet.
Cale had been off that morning.
Not the usual brooding kind of off either. He was anxious. Eyes darting. Jumpy. She'd caught him scanning the guards, scanning her—like he was searching for something only he could see.
She'd almost asked.
Almost.
But pride stopped her.
After all, he had practically lunged at that kid. And the two of them had barely exchanged anything civil since.
She adjusted the strap of the satchel and slinked back toward the sleeping quarters. No one stirred. A lifetime of early training under her father's strict watch had taught her how to move like silence made flesh.
______________
Back on her cot, she pretended to rest. But her mind kept circling the same question:
Why now?
Why the sudden urgency?
Cale had been patient—meticulous even. Until today. And Regan? He'd nodded so fast when Cale said they had to move sooner, it felt rehearsed.
She respected Regan, in a loose, reluctant way. Back when they were held at the previous site, he'd been calm under pressure. Smiled too much, but that was his way. Still… he wasn't reckless.
So why the change?
She opened one eye.
Across the room, Cale sat on the edge of his cot, tense as a bowstring.
*
(Flashback to that morning)
The bathroom was their meeting place now.
It was barely more than a wooden stall with a rust-stained basin, but it was quiet, and none of the guards wanted to linger there.
Rosanna slipped in through the side door and found them waiting.
Cale looked up immediately. His face was drawn. He looked like he hadn't slept—and his eyes had that same haunted distance.
Regan leaned casually against the wall, but Rosanna noted the tightness in his jaw.
"We're moving the timetable," Cale said without preamble.
Rosanna raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"
"Can't explain," Cale replied. "But we don't have days. We might not even have one."
She folded her arms. "That's not good enough."
"I know," Cale said. "But it's all I can give you."
He met her eyes, and there was something behind them. Something she didn't recognize.
Not fear. Not panic.
Conviction.
He wasn't guessing. He knew something.
Rosanna turned to Regan. "Do you agree with this?"
Regan nodded slowly. "I do."
Of course he did. Too quickly. Too easily.
Rosanna exhaled through her nose.
"This isn't how you do these things," she muttered. "You plan. You test. You don't just… throw it all in and hope the gods are in a good mood."
"No one's hoping," Cale said. "We're acting."
She looked between the two of them. Two boys, so different, so strange—and both hiding things from her.
Still…
She glanced at the bag slung over her shoulder. The tools clinked softly inside.
She'd already made her choice the moment she stole them.
"Fine," she said. "Then let's hope your gods aren't watching."