Imara
FORTY-SIX
The embrace is brief—we don’t have time for more. But I hold her tight for three heartbeats, feeling her small body tremble against mine, breathing in the smell of her hair.
Mine. This child is mine. Not by blood, not by design—by choice.
“You’re going to stay close to me.” I pull back, grip her chin, make sure she’s looking at me. “No matter what happens. No matter what you see. You don’t leave my side.”
“I won’t.”
“Swear it.”
“I swear.” She glances past me to Kharvek, who’s watching us with an unreadable expression. “Is that your orc?”
Despite everything—despite the screaming Sanctum and the dying wards and the final ritual building in the walls—I almost laugh.
“Yes. That’s my orc.”
Kharvek’s expression shifts. Softens for half a second before hardening again.
“We need to move.” He offers me his hand, pulls me to my feet. His palm is warm against mine. “The western exit is three corridors away. Can you lead?”
“I can lead.”
“Then lead.”
I take Dena’s hand in my free one. Turn to face the children.
“Stay close. Stay quiet. And if I tell you to run—run.”
We move.
The western corridors are worse than the eastern wing.
The wards here have failed almost completely. Crimson light bleeds from cracks in the walls, and the floor is slick with—I don’t want to know what. The smell is overwhelming: copper and rot and burning magic. The Sanctum’s heartbeat, once a steady pulse, has become erratic. Staggering. Dying.
The children march in formation behind me. Silent except for the shuffle of feet, the occasional whimper quickly stifled. They’ve been trained not to make noise. Right now, I’m grateful for that training.
Kharvek brings up the rear. His presence presses against my awareness—alert, dangerous, ready to kill anything that threatens us. A steady heat at my back, constant reassurance that I’m not alone.
We turn a corner. Three Attendants block the passage.
They see the children first. See the formation, the orderly retreat. Then they see me—blood on my robes, terror in my wake. Then they see Kharvek.
“Stop—” one of them starts.
Kharvek doesn’t let him finish.
He moves through them with brutal efficiency. The first dies before he can raise a hand. The second manages to scream—cut short when Kharvek’s fist crushes his throat. The third tries to run.
Kharvek catches him. Drags him back. Snaps his neck with a sound that echoes off the walls.
The children don’t look away. They’ve seen worse.
They’ve seen worse. The thought is its own kind of horror.
“Clear.” Kharvek steps over the bodies. Blood drips from his hands, adding to the mess on the floor. “Keep moving.”
I don’t let myself look at the corpses. Don’t let myself think about the lives that just ended, the families that might be mourning, the futures that will never happen.
They chose to serve the clan. They chose to stand between us and escape.
They chose wrong.
The western exit opens onto the Red Fields.
I’ve walked these grounds a hundred times. Attended rituals here. Watched executions. Learned to keep my face blank while people died here.
I’ve never seen the Fields look like this.
The ground is bleeding.
Not metaphorically—actually bleeding. Dark liquid seeps up from the soil, pooling in the grass, running in thin streams toward the Sanctum. The bone pits scattered across the landscape glow with internal fire, centuries of accumulated death responding to the Matron’s final ritual.
The air is thick. Copper-tasting. Every breath feels hot, heavy, tainted.
Above us, the sky has turned red. Not sunrise-red—blood-red. The color of the Vale itself, spread across the heavens.
“Gods.” One of the older children breaks the silence. Her voice is barely a whisper. “What is that?”
“The end.” I push forward, pulling Dena with me. “Don’t stop. Don’t look back.”
Behind us, the Sanctum groans. I glance over my shoulder despite my own warning—and watch a section of the seventh level collapse inward, stone and bone and iron crashing down in a cascade of destruction.
The building is eating itself.
And we’re not moving fast enough.
The Red Fields stretch for nearly half a mile between the Sanctum and the Vale’s outer boundaries.
Half a mile of rust-colored grass. Half a mile of stone altars and bone pits. Half a mile of bleeding earth and copper-thick air.
Half a mile with forty-three children, most of whom have never been outside the Sanctum’s walls.
They try to run. Some of them manage it—the older ones, the ones with longer legs and better conditioning.
But the youngest are already flagging, their small bodies not built for this kind of escape.
Years of confinement, of limited rations, of being bred for magical potential rather than physical endurance—it all shows now, when endurance is the only thing that matters.
A boy stumbles. Falls. Cries out as his knees hit the bleeding ground.
I’m there before I think about it—scooping him up, settling him on my hip, continuing to walk. He weighs almost nothing. Malnutrition. The clan feeds its stock enough to keep them functional, no more.
“Don’t cry.” I whisper it against his hair. “You’re doing fine. We’re almost there.”
He buries his face in my shoulder. His tears soak through my robe. He can’t be more than six years old.
Dena stays at my side. Her hand has found the hem of my robe, gripping tight, anchoring herself to me.
“The boundary markers.” Kharvek moves up beside me, matching my pace. His arm brushes mine—casual contact, but I lean into it. Need the reminder of his presence. “How far?”
“Quarter mile. Once we’re past them, the ritual’s reach diminishes. We’ll have more time.”
“And if we’re not past them when the ritual completes?”
I don’t answer. We both know.
The ground shudders. Not a tremor this time—a sustained vibration that makes the grass ripple, that sends waves through the pooling blood. Somewhere behind us, more of the Sanctum crashes down.
“MOVE!” I push forward, the boy on my hip, Dena at my side. “Everyone, faster! Run if you can!”
The children scatter into a ragged sprint. The ones who can’t run are carried by the ones who can. Kharvek falls back, positioning himself between the group and the Sanctum, ready to intercept anything that might pursue.
I don’t look back. Can’t afford to.
But his emotions pulse against mine. His determination. His fury. His love, burning steady beneath the violence.
We’re going to make it. We have to make it.