Chapter 2
Wren
I’m shoved forward as we approach the gate, the metal cuffs tugging my arms back harshly as I struggle to keep my balance. Each jolt sends a fresh wave of pain through my shoulders and I swallow the frustration rising in my throat as the weight of too many stares begins to settle on me.
The line at the gate has nearly doubled under the growing morning light.
Men, women, children—some avoiding eye contact, most staring outright.
I can feel their judgment like a second skin, their assumptions already swirling in their minds and blazing in their eyes.
A child peeks out from behind her mother’s leg as I’m marched past, wide brown eyes watching me like I’m something to fear.
Her mother presses a hand to her and draws her in closer, as if I might attack them at any moment.
That’s what these guards have made me look like, in restraining and parading me to the gate: a monster that needs to be contained for their safety.
The guards keep their formation, one at each side and two behind; the press of their presence is suffocating as we bypass by the line, jumping directly to the front. Each person in line shrinks back as we pass, as if being near me might make them suspect, too.
Ahead, the wall looms larger with every step, cold gray stone split only for the massive metal doors that have rust blooming along the hinges. The guard with the clipboard stands just in front of the entrance, eyes finally looking up as we approach.
“Caught her spying from the hillside,” the guard on my left calls.
Another guard steps forward from the shadows of the gate, and the moment I see him, my stomach twists. He’s the same one who shoved the elderly man into the mud—the same smirk curling across his mouth now, like he’s all too excited at the prospect of having someone else to humiliate.
“Should’ve shot her where she stood,” he muses.
I barely restrain myself from allowing my lip to curl up at his snide remark. A man who gets off on power and violence.
The guard beside me chuckles, not breaking stride as they push me forward. “Would’ve been a waste. This one might have her uses.”
I keep my face blank, though nausea stirs low in my gut and refuses to settle.
The man with the clipboard doesn’t bother looking up again, simply lifting a hand and waving us through. The gesture is careless, like I’m no different than the next sack of supplies to be hauled inside.
Whatever system they’ve built here—it’s not just.
I expect to go through the main doors, but the guard at my left veers toward an entrance cut into the stone wall I didn’t see from afar. Barely noticeable unless you know what to look for, even up close. He knocks once with the side of his fist, and the stone door grinds open.
The second we step inside, the wind and all natural light is gone, replaced with harsh strips of flickering fluorescents above.
The temperature is warmer, but it’s the stale kind of warmth that instantly feels gross.
Behind us the scraping of the door closing sounds, just as my nostrils flare with the scent of sweat and a chemical hitting me.
Wherever we are, my instincts tell me this isn’t a place I want to know intimately. Yet deep in my gut, I know I must. I have to see what’s being done to any human or supernatural that is taken into these depths.
I must bear witness and understand.
My lips thin at the ramifications of being the weaver and the judge of the occupants of this planet.
I see now why I wasn’t allowed to wake with knowledge of who I am and what I’m here to do.
If I had, I wouldn’t have needed more than a week on this planet before deciding to wipe everyone out and start anew.
“This is where we make sure you’re clean,” one of them says from behind me, his voice too close to my ear, sending a shiver of disgust down my spine as his hot breath skates along my skin. “Wouldn’t want you bringing anything…dangerous into our city.”
The word dangerous echoes through my skull like it’s meant to be ironic. I’ve never felt less dangerous in my life with no powers and cuffs on my wrist, in a place where I know no one.
The stone room they drag me into is bare, the walls the same, dull gray and textured all around. A metal table stands to one side, a tray of instruments laid out with a precision that makes my skin prickle as my memory of those tools is provided.
My throat goes dry. What are they going to do with them?
I shift my head back toward the doorway, checking for any sign of escape if the opportunity presents itself.
The guard who shoved the old man earlier leans against the door now, arms crossed as he stares at me with a kind of detached laziness.
“You don’t look like much,” he says, eyes dragging over me without bothering to disguise his leering.
“Hard to believe you’d be worth the trouble, but I’d love to be proven wrong. ”
And you look like someone who has no self-worth and seeks validation by exerting your power over innocents, is on the tip of my tongue.
The one at my side steps in front of me, saving me from letting my tongue betray me.
I have to force my chin up to meet his eyes.
His smirk is all confidence and suspicion, like he already knows what I’m thinking and wants me to let it out, just to give him any validation to what they’re about to do.
“That’s the thing about you types,” he murmurs as he lowers his face, those blue eyes alight with a depravity that chills me to the bone once more. “Always hiding what you really are.”
I fight the urge to look away. My heart pounds, a steady thud against the inside of my ribs, and I can’t tell if it’s fear or fury setting the pace. Maybe both.
He turns toward the tray, lifts a small black device that hums faintly in his palm, and angles it toward my throat.
“Hold still,” he murmurs.
My hands flex instinctively behind me, metal biting against my wrists. I keep my face neutral, though it gets harder by the second. Every part of me wants to flinch, to fight, to escape—but there’s nowhere to go, and no powers within me to stop them.
“Maybe we should check her the old-fashioned way first, without clothes,” the door guard says, voice light and cruel. “Just to be thorough.”
Laughter rises from the one holding the humming device to my neck and veering down toward my collarbone. “You’re right. Pesky clothing can throw off the results.”
Heat burns across my cheeks and climbs down my neck as my rage reaches new levels.
This is what they think power looks like. A room with no windows and a woman in cuffs.
“I told you,” I warn, “I’m not here to hurt anyone, but that can change.”
They don’t hear me, or they don’t care. He brings a hand up to replace the device, trailing the tip of his finger over my exposed skin. His other hand lifts to clasp my arm, jerking me around to fully face the other.
By some miracle, just as my feet still, the door opens. At first, the sound barely registers, just the low scrape of metal and then a voice follows, calm and almost bored, cutting across through the tension.
“What do we have here this morning, gentlemen?”
The guard's hands jerk away from my skin, gone in an instant, and the shift in the room is immediate. Shoulders straighten and feet move back half a step.
My head tilts as a large man enters the run, my gaze sweeping over him carefully and deliberately from beneath my lashes.
He’s dressed in black, the fabric of his uniform clean and pressed, every seam sharp.
Polished metal pins sit on one side of his chest, catching the light without a single scratch or smear of dirt on them.
His pale face seems freshly shaved, jaw set in a way that looks habitual rather than performative, and his dark brown hair is cut short and neat.
Everything about him screams order and compliance.
He steps into the room without hurry, his booted steps echoing loudly in such a quiet room. I’m surprised as his attention doesn’t land on me first, but the two guards.
He takes in the guard still too close to my side and then the other. His light green eyes flick across me after, and I watch him notate my arms bound behind my back and my clear unease. I make no move to hide it, unsure if it will help my cause, but unable to keep suppressing my disgust any longer.
“Ryoden, uh, I mean, sir,” the guard who just had his dirty hand on me says sharply. “We caught her outside the walls, north ridge. Watching the gate, Colonel.”
The words come out rehearsed, neat, like they’ve been spewed before.
Whoever this Ryoden is, he doesn’t acknowledge the guard right away.
His eyes linger on the device still humming faintly on the tray and back to me.
The way his eyes continue to assess me doesn’t make my skin crawl, which throws me off kilter for a moment.
Strangely enough it actually begins to put me at ease as I feel like I see the wheels turning in his mind as he processes the situation.
It’s clear these guards don’t believe their earlier behavior will be accepted, given their immediate change of tone.
“Is that so,” he says, yet this time there is a bite to his words, an undercurrent of disbelief threading through them.
His eyes drift up to land firmly on my face then and I hold my ground, unwilling to flinch or look away.
Then his attention goes back to them.
“So, gentlemen,” he adds quietly, gesturing once with two fingers toward the room and then at me, “is this how we’re ‘protecting our city’ now?”
No one answers and the silence stretches.
I keep my mouth shut, my breathing steady, and for the first time since the guards found me up on that damned hill arguing with the earth, I feel a faint, dangerous edge of possibility.
Ryoden lets the silence stretch for another beat before stepping closer. The guards shift again, more tension in their stances now than there ever was when I was cuffed and surrounded as a supposed threat.