The late afternoon sun casts long shadows through the narrow alleyways when Mairi bursts into our hideout, her chest heaving and her brown hair wild from running. She doesn’t even pause to catch her breath before launching into her report, her small hands gesturing frantically as she describes what she’s seen. The usual mischievous glint in her eyes is replaced by something harder, more urgent, and I feel my stomach drop before she even opens her mouth.
“They’re getting ready for something big,” she manages between gasps, her words tumbling out in a rush. “The warehouse is crawling with activity—they’re pulling out weapons from hidden compartments, strapping on leather armor, checking crossbow mechanisms. I counted at least fifteen adults, maybe more where I couldn’t see. The kids are all being moved to the back rooms, away from whatever they’re planning.” Her fingers unconsciously trace the outline of her shiv as she speaks, her nervous habit seems more pronounced recently. Not really surprising with everything going on I suppose.
The anxiety—maybe even fear?—in her voice is clear as she continues, her brown eyes darting between our faces to make sure we understand the gravity of what she’s saying. “This isn’t like before—this doesn’t look like they’re making a show of force or trying to send a message. They’re preparing for a battle. Real weapons, real armor, real soldiers.” She swallows hard, her small frame practically vibrating with nervous energy. “And they kept looking toward this part of the city while they were organizing. I… I think they might be coming for us.”
Iain’s brow furrows as he processes Mairi’s report, his quill hovering motionless above his ledger. “That seems like it’s too much, too fast,” he mutters, more to himself than the others. “We’ve had no further contact with them since we sent that boy back. No threats, no attempts at negotiation, not even any surveillance that we’ve noticed. To mobilize this kind of force now, without any intermediate steps…” He trails off, his mind clearly struggling to make sense of this rapid escalation.
“Maybe that’s exactly the point,” Calum interjects. “Think about it—we’re a bunch of street kids that bloodied one of their scouts. If they come down hard on us, make an example of us, it sends a message to everyone else in the city. ‘This is what happens when you resist.’ They probably want to crush us so thoroughly that no other group would dare stand against them. It’s no great secret we’ve managed to create a pretty secure space here. Everyone that’s ever stood against us would know. And they’ve absorbed and run off several other groups in the past few days.” His fingers drum nervously against his sword hilt as he speaks, but his voice remains steady, the tactical logic of it all providing a strange sort of comfort. “I guess they’ve just decided we’re not worth the effort?”
“Such an unwanted compliment of our skill…” Iain rubs his temple with trembling fingers.
“At worst it’ll take them half an hour to get here, but I doubt they’ll just march though the city like that. They must be planning to come at night.” He looks at Mairi, his gaze searching. “Did you see anything to indicate otherwise?”
Mairi thinks hard, leaning back and forth on ther heels as she tries to remember. “I don’t think so…? It didn’t look like they were rushing.”
I turn to meet Rhona’s questioning gaze, knowing she’s hoping for better news than I have to give. “We’ve made decent progress with the burst rune,” I say, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice, “but I still haven’t figured out how to make any of the others work. The one that eats juice is still just sitting there, doing exactly that and nothing else. I’m fairly certain it’s some sort of storage rune, but it’s only of academic interest now.” I sigh, and I glance at the inexhaustible kids that are still either practicing or playing, I can’t really tell where either begins and ends for them. ”I’ve been studying the other three, and I think I might be able to crack one of them in a few days—it’s complexity is only one order higher than the burst rune—but the other two?” I shake my head, thinking about complexity of their interwoven lines. “They’re beyond me right now. It’s not like I can’t understand, but it’s nearly impossible to form and hold the parts, much less test anything.”
“I’ll get them eventually,” I say, trying to inject more confidence into my voice than I actually feel. “It’s not really that different from deciphering a particularly convoluted codebase—you start with the basic patterns you recognize, then work your way through the more complex sections until the whole thing starts making sense and you can picture it in your mind without effort. The real challenge is remembering every detail well enough that I can form them without much effort. And that’s before I can spend time trying to figure out what they even do.”
My fingers trace invisible patterns in the air as I continue, recalling my frustrated attempts at forming the more complex runes. “The past few days have made one thing crystal clear—you can’t form a rune unless you know exactly what you’re trying to create. It’s not like drawing, where close enough might work. Every line, every curve, every intersection has to be precisely right, and your mind has to hold that perfect image together as long as you want to hold it. Forget about one tiny detail for a moment, and it just fizzles out.”
I sigh, my inability to do more eating at me. How different would our situation be if I could use those insane runes? Since they’re so complex they must do something amazing right?
“Either way, there does seem to be some component of familiarity to forming runes. I haven’t really expended any efforts on the burst rune, but steady practice seems to make it easier and easier. Almost as if my spark remembers, and it just snaps into place.”
Rhona’s fingers drum against the table as she listens, her normally controlled expression betraying a hint of impatience. “That’s all well and good for the future, Emma, but how does any of that help us right now? We’ve got armed men bearing down on us, and theoretical knowledge of complex runes isn’t going to stop a crossbow bolt.”
I wince at her blunt assessment, knowing she’s absolutely right. My academic fascination with the runes feels almost childish in the face of the immediate danger we’re facing. “It doesn’t,” I admit, letting out a frustrated breath. “Not one bloody bit. Unless they’re kind enough to give me a few days to maybe figure out one more rune, all I’ve got is the burst rune.” I find my hands moving towards my non-existent ponytail, before feeling stilling them and feeling foolish. “Right now, I’m about as useful as a programmer trying to debug production while the server room’s on fire.”
I’m struck both by my ability to say that in their language, and by the realization that it must make absolutely no sense to them. At least the gist of it must come across purely by tone.
A heavy silence falls over our little group as we all contemplate the implications. My hand unconsciously moves to the pouch where I keep the pieces of bark with the runes, and a new worry gnaws at my gut. Having these things around while we’re potentially going to be running for our lives suddenly seems like an exceptionally bad idea.
“There’s another problem we need to consider,” I say, pulling out the pieces and laying them on our improvised wooden table. “These things are basically the crown jewels…” I realize this country doesn’t seem to have a monarch, but whatever. “If we get caught with them, I imagine the thugs are going to be the least of our worries.” I let the thought hang in the air, watching as understanding dawns on their faces.
Iain leans forward, his eyes fixed on the bark. As if they might spontaneously combust into flames. “Aye, that’s a fair point. Forget about the Empire, if you just trip in the street and spill them over the ground you are dead. If it is the Empire that pulls them off your body… they might just decide to start the war early to turn this city upside down looking for more…” He shudders slightly, and I don’t blame him. He glances at me. “And…", he pauses for a second, apparently weighing whether to continue before finally ending in a whisper “you better hope you are dead when they do.”
The implications cause a shudder to run down my spine that has nothing to with the cooling afternoon air.
“Could we hide them somewhere?” Calum suggests, but Rhona’s already shaking her head.
“Too risky,” she says, running a hand through her tangled blonde hair. “If we’re forced to leave quickly, we might not be able to come back for it. And if they find it while searching the place….” She doesn’t need to finish the thought. We’ve all got a fair idea of what kind of conflict that would unleash.
I look down at the pieces, at the intricate patterns that have consumed so many of my waking hours. Part of me rebels at the thought of destroying them—it feels like burning a library of knowledge we’ve barely begun to understand. But the pragmatic part of my brain, the part that’s kept me alive in this world so far, knows it’s the only reasonable option. It’s not as if we can’t copy them again. The cave near Ronain’s village is not going anywhere. But the idea of destroying the knowledge just doesn’t sit right with me. Like formatting a hard drive with files you haven’t looked at anywhere during the prececing fifteen years. What if you realize you need them next week?
The sound of children’s laughter draws my attention momentarily to where they’re playing, and I’m reminded that there’s more at stake here than my curiosity about magical runes. Survival comes first. Everything else is secondary.
I watch the younger children play their latest invention—a modified version of tag where they form burst runes in the air to create gentle pushes, giggling as they dodge and weave between the invisible forces. Despite Rhona’s constant worried glances and Calum’s periodic wincing whenever a burst comes too close to breaking something, they’ve shown remarkable control over the basic rune. It’s both impressive and slightly terrifying how quickly they’ve adapted what I’m fairly certain was an offensive tool into something playful, their natural creativity finding ways to use it that I never would have considered.
Their easy mastery of the burst rune makes my continued failure with the others all the more frustrating. Every day, I spend hours studying the more complex patterns, trying to understand how they fit together, hoping for that moment of breakthrough where it all suddenly makes sense—just like it did with programming back in my old life. But these runes steadfastly refuse to yield their secrets, remaining as inconceivable as when I first saw them. I know, beyond a doubt, that there is ‘something’ I am missing. In all my time as a software engineer I never did figure out how to overcome this kind of problem besides time. Just keep slamming your head into the problem one day at a time, and eventually it’ll make sense.
At least watching the children play gives me some hope that we’re making progress, even if it’s not quite the kind of progress I’d hoped for.
Rhona’s fingers drum against the worn table as she looks around at our gathered faces, her blue eyes tight with worry. “So,” she says, her voice carrying that forced calm I’ve come to recognize, “what are our options here? We’ve built something good in this place, but I won’t risk our lives defending it if there’s no chance of winning.” The unspoken weight of responsibility seems to press down on her shoulders as she waits for our responses.
“We’d be fucking crazy to fight,” Mairi blurts out, her eyes wide as saucers. The crude language sounds wrong coming from such a young mouth, but none of us flinch anymore, I repress a nearly automatic urge to make a joke about it. This isn’t really the moment. “There’s as many of them as there are kids here, and they’ve got real armor. Real weapons.” She gestures violently toward where the younger children are still playing. “Half of us can barely hold a knife right, and the other half…” She trails off, her expression darkening as she looks at the wooden practice weapons leaning against the wall.
I follow her gaze, feeling my gut twist as I count the heads of our little family. Fifteen kids, ranging from barely-walking to almost-adult, against fifteen trained killers. The math makes me want to vomit. Even with the burst rune, we’d be lambs to the slaughter. And that’s assuming they don’t bring more than what Mairi saw.
“We might as well try fighting the tide with a bucket,” I mutter, earning a few knowning nods. Right, maritime metaphors probably work pretty well in a coastal city, even if they’ve never heard this one before.
The silence that follows is heavy with unspoken fears and calculations. Calum, usually so quick to suggest aggressive solutions, stares down at his practice sword with a grim expression that says more than words could. Even Iain, our master strategist, seems at a loss, his quill has been hovering motionless above his ledger over the whole of the conversation as he mentally runs through scenarios that all seem to end badly. Fifteen trained adults with real weapons against a group of children wielding a single real sword, a rusty hand-me-down and half-understood magic? The math is brutally simple.
It’s Mairi who finally breaks the tension, her small fingers still absently tracing her shiv as she speaks. “We could trap the place,” she suggests, her voice carrying that dangerous edge it gets when she’s thinking age inappropriate thoughts. “Set up tripwires, maybe use some other kinds of traps that’d hurt them when triggered. Make it so that when they try to come here, they pay for every step they take.” Her brown eyes gleam with a predatory light as she warms to the idea, already mapping out potential arrangements in her mind.
Iain’s quill scratches against his ledger as he methodically works through the implications of Mairi’s suggestion. “We could do that,” he says slowly, his hazel eyes distant as he calculates possibilities, “but we’d still need to evacuate everyone before they arrive. If they’re following the most effective strategy—and based on their preparations, I believe they are—they’ll try to massacre us in our sleep. Maximum impact, minimum risk to their forces.” His voice remains steady, but his fingers tighten around his quill until his knuckles whiten.
He flips to a fresh page in his ledger, sketching out a rough timeline as he speaks. “The real challenge isn’t just getting everyone out safely - it’s making it appear as though we haven’t relocated at all. If they have any sense, they’ll have scouts watching our movements, looking for any sign that we’ve caught wind of their plans. If they suspect we’ve abandoned our hideout, they might change their approach entirely, maybe even try to track us down while we’re vulnerable and scattered.” His quill pauses as he glances at the younger children playing in the corner, their innocent laughter a stark contrast to the grim calculations he’s making.
“And then there’s the matter of retaliation,” Rhona breaks in, her voice dropping lower as she leans forward. “Once we’ve avoided their initial attack, we’ll need to strike back hard enough to make them realize they can’t fuck with us like this. We’ll make them believe they’re facing something bigger than just a group of street children.” Her eyes narrow as he sharply looks at Iain, who has his mouth open as if to say something.
“Are you out of your mind?” Iain hisses, his usual measured tone giving way to genuine alarm. “This isn’t some street gang we can intimidate with a few well-placed threats and clever tricks. These are trained soldiers—professional killers. If we strike back and fail to eliminate every single one of them, we’ll just prove we’re a legitimate threat that needs to be crushed immediately.” He slams his ledger closed with uncharacteristic force. “And if by some miracle we did manage to kill them all, what would that achieve?”
“So what then?” Rhona demands, her fingers still drumming that nervous rhythm on the table. “We just run and hide? Give up everything we’ve built here?”
Mairi’s eyes suddenly light up with that dangerous gleam I’ve come to recognize, her fingers finally stilling on her shiv. “What if we burn it?” she asks, her voice carrying an unsettling mix of excitement and calculation. “Let them think they’ve caught us sleeping, then when they’re all inside searching for us, we set the whole place ablaze. The alley’s the only way out—they’d have to run through the fire to escape.” The casual way she suggests such a devastating trap sends a chill down my spine, since when has this kid be so obsessed with fire? I can’t deny the tactical soundness of her thinking though.
Iain’s sets his quill and ledger aside, an unusual sight. He leans forward, giving the idea some honest thought, mapping out the possibilities. “The timber frames would catch quickly,” he muses, almost to himself, “and the way the buildings lean in would create a natural chimney effect, trapping the heat and smoke.” He pauses, adding a few quick notes to his ledger before looking up with grim determination. “It would work, but we’d lose everything we’ve built here. Though I suppose that’s better than losing everyone we’ve built it with.”
Rhona shakes her head, her tangled blonde hair catching the dim light as she moves. “A fire that size would spread through half the slums before anyone could stop it,” she says, her voice tight with barely contained frustration. “These buildings are all connected, practically leaning on each other, and they’re dry as kindling. One spark in the wrong place and we’d have more blood on our hands than those bastards we’re trying to stop.”
Her blue eyes sweep across our faces, lingering particularly on Mairi’s eager expression. Then glancing pointedly at me, almost as if this is somehow my fault. “And you can bet the city guard won’t just shrug off half their slums burning down,” she continues, her tone hardening. “They might not care much about us street rats, but property damage on that scale? They’d hunt us down like dogs. We’ve already got one enemy planning to kill us—I’m not keen on adding the entire city guard to that list. We need something more… precise.”
Mairi’s eyes light up again, that dangerous gleam returning as she bounces slightly on her feet. “What if we burn down their hideout instead?” she asks, her small hands gesturing excitedly. “They won’t be expecting us to strike first, and we know exactly where they are!” The eager way she talks about arson should probably be concerning, but given what these men are planning, I can’t really fault her enthusiasm.
Calum straightens up, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. “That… might actually work,” he says slowly, his fingers tapping against his sword hilt. “The tannery district is mostly stone buildings, and they’re more spread out because of the smell. Even if the fire burns hotter because of all the chemicals and leather, it’s less likely to spread to the rest of the city.” He pauses, grimacing slightly. “Though we’d have to be careful—those tanning chemicals going up in flames would probably kill anyone who breathes the smoke.”
Mairi’s expression hardens, a cold certainty settling over her young features that makes her look far older than her years. “There’s no one left to worry about,” she says, her voice carrying that matter-of-fact tone she uses when describing particularly unpleasant truths. “They’ve been systematically driving everyone away from that area for days now. The closest inhabited building is three streets over, and even the beggars know better than to sleep anywhere near their warehouse. They’ve made sure they’re properly isolated.”
Rhona asks about the children, and something flickers across Iain’s face—a shadow of his own past perhaps. “The children will run the moment they smell smoke,” he says with quiet confidence. “Those adults might have them under control now, but fear’s a funny thing. Once the fire starts spreading, every one of those kids will bolt for the nearest exit, and those men will be too busy saving themselves to stop them.”
It’s odd to see Iain think without the constant writing in his ledger. He shakes his head, his usual methodical demeanor tinged with frustration. “We can’t possibly do it while they’re inside,” he says, each word measured and precise. “They’re not going to just stand there while the building burns down around them. These aren’t untrained street thugs—they’re organized, disciplined, and well-armed. The moment they smell smoke, they’ll come pouring out of that warehouse like angry hornets from a disturbed nest.”
His hazel eyes narrow as he sketches a quick diagram of the warehouse and surrounding streets, his quill moving with practiced efficiency. “And then what? We’ll have fifteen armed, angry men in the streets, probably already suspecting we’re behind it. They’ll sweep the area, methodically hunting down anyone they find, and we’ll have lost our only advantage—the element of surprise. No, if we’re going to burn their base, we need to do it when they’re not there, or we need a way to keep them contained.”
Rhona’s expression brightens slightly as she leans forward, the prospect of being able to strike back seems to reinvigorate her, her fingers drumming against the table. “What if we trapped them inside?” she suggests, a hint of desperate hope creeping into her voice. “We could wait until they’re all gathered for the night, then bar the doors and windows from the outside. Even trained soldiers can’t fight their way out of a burning building if the door is barred.”
Mairi shakes her head emphatically, her earlier excitement dampened by practical experience. “Won’t work,” she says, her voice carrying the weight of someone who’s spent days studying their target. “They’ve got at least three lookouts posted at all times, rotating shifts. I can dodge them when I’m alone, but trying to sneak up and seal exits while they’re watching? And there’s people coming and going at all hours—messengers, suppliers, sometimes just random thugs reporting in. We’d never manage to trap them all inside at once, and the moment they spotted us trying, we’d have fifteen armed men charging out those doors looking for blood.”
Iain straightens in his chair, his analytical mind clicking into place as he taps his quill thoughtfully against the ledger. “Actually,” he says, his voice carrying that particular tone it gets when he’s solved a particularly complex puzzle, “their attack on our hideout might be the perfect opportunity. If they’re all focused on storming this place, their own base will be largely undefended.” His eyes fix on Mairi, seeking confirmation of his developing theory. “How many do you think they’d leave behind? Would they commit their entire force to the attack?”
Mairi’s brow furrows in concentration as she mentally reviews her observations. “They might leave two or three behind,” she says slowly, her fingers resuming their unconscious tracing of her shiv. “The ones who seem more… important. They do most of the talking, give most of the orders. But the rest?” She shakes her head decisively. “Everyone seemed to be preparing. I’d bet my only knife that at least twelve of them will be coming here.”
Iain finally picks back up the ledger, his quill dances across a fresh page as he outlines his emerging strategy, breaking down their desperate situation into manageable pieces. “We split into three teams,” he says, sketching quick symbols to represent each group. “The first team evacuates everyone—slow and careful, making it look like normal movement patterns. The second team prepares the defenses and traps here, making it look like we’re settling in for the night as usual. And the third…” his quill pauses dramatically over the page, “the third team goes to their warehouse.”
“The timing has to be perfect,” he continues, adding precise notations beside each group’s symbol. “When they commit their forces to attack us here, the third team strikes their base. They’ll have left their most valuable assets behind—their records, their supplies, their coin. We burn it all.” His voice carries an uncharacteristic edge of vindictive satisfaction, almost as if the idea of burning someone’s records is worse to him than the idea of burning the people themselves. He elaborates, “The warehouse team waits until they’ve engaged here, then sets the fire. By the time they realize what’s happening, it’ll be too late to save anything, and they’ll be caught between two terrible choices—continue their pointless attack on an empty building while their base burns, or abandon the assault to try saving what they can’t possibly reach in time.”
His hazel eyes gleam with calculated intensity as he adds the final details to his plan, the scratching of his quill punctuating each point. “The beauty of it is, they’ll never know for certain if they fought ghosts or if we were just one step ahead of them. Either way, they lose their base, their supplies, and their air of invincibility, all while we slip away with minimal risk. The confusion and chaos of the fire will cover our retreat, and by the time they sort everything out, we’ll be long gone, leaving them with nothing but ashes and questions.”
I shift uncomfortably in my chair, the weight of what we’re proposing settling heavily in my gut. “Three officers against what—two, maybe three of us? That’s assuming we can spare anyone from the evacuation efforts and the defense preparation.” My fingers tap against the worn table surface as I work through the numbers in my head, each calculation more depressing than the last. “Even with the burst rune, we’d be severely outmatched if they really turn out to be properly trained military officers. And if they have actual combat experience against channelers, we might be in for a bad time.”
The memory of my own clumsy attempts at channeling flashes through my mind, a stark contrast to the smooth, practiced movements I’d glimpsed at the city gates. “We’ve barely scratched the surface of what these runes can do,” I continue, frustration creeping into my voice. “If, and that’s a big if, but if these officers are actually channelers, then they must have been training with them for years. One wrong move, one moment of hesitation, and we’d be facing powers we don’t understand wielded by people who actually know how to use them. It would be like sending a bunch of script kiddies against professional hackers—we might know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to survive if things go sideways.”
My eyes drift to where Mairi sits, her small frame practically vibrating with eagerness to prove herself. “And before anyone suggests it—no, we can’t send Mairi in alone just because she’s good at staying hidden. I don’t care how skilled she is at sneaking around, we’re not sending an eight-year-old to assassinate military officers.” The words come out harsher than intended, but the thought of risking her life like that makes my blood boil. “We need a different approach, one that doesn’t rely on us outfighting trained soldiers at their own game.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Mairi’s expression darkens at my words, her small frame tensing like a coiled spring. “I could do it,” she says, her voice carrying that dangerous edge I’ve come to recognize, though there’s something else there too—a slight waver that betrays her youth despite her best efforts to hide it. Her fingers trace the outline of her shiv with practiced familiarity as she continues, “I’ve killed before. I know how to be quiet, how to wait for the right moment. And they wouldn’t expect it from someone my size.”
Her brown eyes meet mine with fierce determination, but I catch the way they flicker briefly to Rhona, seeking reassurance she won’t admit to needing. “Besides,” she adds, her tone taking on a defensive note that makes her sound more her age than she’d probably like, “it’s not like I’d have to fight them properly. Just wait until they’re distracted by the fire, then…” She trails off, as if the answer should be obvious.
Rhona’s face hardens as she rounds on Mairi, her blue eyes flashing with that peculiar mix of protective fury and barely contained fear I’ve come to recognize. “That won’t be necessary,” she says, her voice carrying the kind of finality that brooks no argument, even from our most stubborn member. “We’re not sending you to kill anyone, Mairi. You’ve already done enough of that.” The last part comes out softer, almost broken, and I catch the slight tremor in her hands as she reaches out to brush a strand of hair from Mairi’s face—a gesture more maternal than tactical. “You’re eight years old. Your job is to stay alive, not take lives. We’ll find another way.”
The silence that follows Rhona’s declaration is broken by Mairi’s small voice, her tone carrying that particular mix of innocence and calculation that only children can truly master. “But Emma said it was okay that I killed people before,” she says, her eyes fixed on Rhona with an expression that’s half challenge, half plea for understanding. “She said sometimes we have to do bad things to survive, and that that doesn’t make us bad people.”
Rhona whirls on me, her blue eyes blazing with a fury I haven’t seen since the day I brought Mairi back holding my arm. “You said what?” she demands, her voice tight with barely contained rage. “She’s eight years old, Emma! What possessed you to tell her killing people is okay?” The protective maternal instinct that’s kept these children alive radiates from her like a physical force, and I find myself unconsciously taking a step back.
I wonder where these kids put the cutoff point. Eilidh is thirteen, and she’s their self-professed assassin. Rhona is sixteen. They’re all children in my eyes.
“That’s not exactly what I said,” I protest, raising my hands in a placating gesture. “It came up during our trip with Eilidh, when Mairi was worried about… about her past. She needed to know that surviving doesn’t make her a monster, that sometimes we’re forced into impossible situations.” I meet Rhona’s burning gaze steadily, at least in this one aspect completely confident in my own assertion, but willing her to understand. “We weren’t discussing future killings—I was helping her cope with what she’s already been through. There’s a difference between accepting the past and encouraging more violence.”
Calum shifts his weight, the sword hanging loosely at his side as he breaks his unusual silence. “She’s not wrong though,” he says, while nodding at Mairi, his voice carrying a weight I’ve never heard from him before. “Let’s be honest—there’s going to be more fighting. More killing. Whether it’s these imperial bastards or someone else, we can’t protect these kids forever without sometimes having to hurt people. Telling them it’s wrong now only to expect it from them later… that seems cruel in its own way.”
I stare at him, genuinely surprised by this unexpected display of emotional insight from our usually straightforward protector. Calum typically leaves the philosophical discussions to others, preferring to focus on the immediate, practical aspects of keeping everyone safe. Yet here he is, wading into the murky waters of morality and childhood trauma with a perspective that, while uncomfortable, carries an undeniable ring of truth to it. The way his fingers tighten around his sword’s hilt suggests he’s speaking from experience rather than mere speculation.
I study Calum’s face, searching for traces of his mentor’s wisdom in this unexpectedly profound observation. “Was that another lesson from your mentor?” I ask, genuinely curious about the source of this insight. It seems too carefully considered for him.
Calum shifts his weight, a slight flush creeping up his neck as he shakes his head. “No, actually,” he admits, his fingers absently tracing patterns on his sword hilt. “Well, not directly anyway. It was one of his first lessons—about how hesitation kills more surely than any blade. He said that doubting yourself in the moment, questioning whether you should strike… that’s when you die. Took me years to realize he wasn’t just talking about swordplay.” His voice carries a mix of embarrassment and pride, like someone who’s just discovered a deeper meaning in something they thought they understood long ago.
Calum leans forward, his expression darkening as he continues. “That’s exactly what worries me about this conversation. What happens when Mairi—or any of the younger ones—finds themselves in a situation where it’s kill or be killed? Are they going to waste precious seconds wondering if they’re doing the right thing? Asking themselves if Rhona or Emma would approve?” His voice takes on an edge of urgency. “Those moments of doubt, that hesitation while they wrestle with what we’ve told them about killing being wrong… that’s when they end up dead.”
He shifts his gaze between Rhona and me, his usual density replaced by an unsettling clarity. “I’d rather have them alive and struggling with what they had to do than dead because they thought we’d judge them for surviving. Because that’s what this comes down to—survival. And if we make them feel guilty about defending themselves now, we might as well be signing their death warrants for later.”
Rhona’s shoulders slump as she runs her fingers through her tangled blonde hair, her earlier anger giving way to a bone-deep weariness. “You might have a point, Calum,” she admits, her voice barely above a whisper. “We can’t shield them forever, and pretending we can might do more harm than good. But she’s eight years old. Eight. I don’t care how capable she is, or how much she’s already been through—sending a child to kill people in cold blood…” She trails off, her blue eyes seeking mine for support.
I nod, feeling the weight of responsibility pressing down on us all. “There’s a difference between accepting that violence might be necessary and actively planning to use children as assassins,” I say, my voice firm despite the churning in my stomach. “We can teach them to defend themselves, to survive in this world, without asking them to murder in cold blood. Besides, if something went wrong, if she got caught…” I let the implications hang in the air, knowing everyone in the room is imagining the same horrific scenarios.
Calum’s fingers finally still on his sword hilt as he fixes us with a hard stare, his earlier uncertainty replaced by a grim certainty that makes him seem older than his years. “She’d die,” he states flatly, the words falling like stones in the tense silence. “But would it be any different for any of us? Those men won’t care how old we are when they come. They won’t show mercy just because we tried to keep our hands clean.” His voice carries no anger, no fear—just the cold certainty of someone who’s seen enough of the world’s cruelty to know better than to expect anything else.
Iain closes his ledger with deliberate care, his voice taking on that particular tone he uses when trying to bridge impossible differences. “Let’s keep it as a last resort,” he suggests, his quill tapping thoughtfully against the worn leather cover. “We’ll explore other options first, but… having a backup plan isn’t the same as intending to use it. Sometimes just knowing we have choices makes it easier to think clearly about our main strategy.”
Mairi’s shoulders relax slightly at Iain’s words, though her fingers continue their restless dance along her shiv’s outline. Her expression shifts between pride at being considered a viable option and uncertainty about the weight of what that really means. The way she straightens her spine, trying to look more grown-up while unconsciously leaning closer to me, speaks volumes about her internal struggle.
Calum merely shrugs, apparently satisfied with this compromise, while Rhona and I exchange a loaded glance. In that brief moment of eye contact, I see all her fears reflected back at me—the terror of losing these children to violence, the guilt of even considering using them as weapons, and the grim acknowledgment that we might not have better choices. It’s a look that carries the weight of countless difficult decisions, each one chipping away at our souls in the name of survival.
I straighten up suddenly, a memory from my old world clicking into place. “Wait a minute,” I say, my voice carrying that particular tone it gets when I’m onto something. “We don’t actually need to fight them at all. If we can get enough of those tanning chemicals near their building, the fire will do all the work for us. Those things aren’t just flammable—they’re explosive under the right conditions. One good blaze and the whole place could go up before anyone has time to react.”
Iain’s eyes light up as he catches my meaning, his quill flying across the page as he sketches out new possibilities. “The tanneries usually store their chemicals in wooden barrels near the back of their buildings,” he says, adding quick notations to his rough map. “If we could… relocate a few of those barrels during the night, position them strategically near the warehouse… We wouldn’t even need to get close when we set the fire. A single burning arrow from a safe distance would be enough to start the chain reaction.” His voice carries an almost academic enthusiasm as he works through the logistics, like a scholar solving a particularly interesting puzzle rather than someone planning an explosion.
Mairi leans forward, her brown eyes sparking with renewed interest. “Actually,” she says, her fingers stilling on her shiv, “there are already quite a few barrels stacked around their warehouse. Been using them as cover when I need to get closer. No way to tell what’s in them without getting too close, but…” She shrugs, a small, calculating smile playing across her face. “Way I figure, if we move a few more there, or take a few away, who’s going to notice? They’re not exactly counting their neighbors’ barrels, are they? Too busy playing soldier to worry about what’s in the alley.”
Rhona’s shoulders visibly relax as she processes the chemical fire plan, some of the tension finally draining from her face. Her fingers stop their anxious drumming against the table as she nods slowly, her blue eyes brightening with cautious hope. “This… this could work,” she says, tucking a strand of tangled blonde hair behind her ear. “No direct confrontation, no risking anyone in close combat, and if we time it right, we might not even need to get too close to their warehouse.” The way she straightens in her chair, her entire demeanor shifting from defensive to purposeful, tells me she’s already starting to see the possibilities. It’s the first time since Mairi brought her news that she’s looked truly optimistic, rather than just determinedly brave.
image [https://pub-43e7e0f137a34d1ca1ce3be7325ba046.r2.dev/Group.png]
We crouch in the shadows of an abandoned tannery’s upper floor, the acrid stench of chemical-soaked leather barely noticeable after so many hours of surveillance. Through gaps in the weathered boards, we have a clear view of the warehouse across the street, its hulking form outlined against the star-speckled sky. The night is still young, but already I can feel the tension in Mairi’s small frame beside me, her fingers unconsciously tracing the outline of her shiv as we watch and wait.
Suddenly, her hand shoots out, gripping my arm with surprising strength as she hisses a warning to stay still. Following her gaze, I spot movement at the warehouse’s main entrance—shadows detaching themselves from deeper shadows, moving with the practiced stealth of trained soldiers. I count them as they emerge: ten, twelve, sixteen figures, each heavily armed and armored, their leather gear muffled to prevent any betraying sounds.
Calum shifts slightly beside us, his hand instinctively moving to his sword hilt, but Mairi’s fierce whisper freezes him in place. We watch in tense silence as the group forms up in the street below, their movements suggesting military precision rather than common thuggery. They pause briefly as one figure—presumably their leader—makes a series of hand gestures, then move out as a unit, heading in the direction of our hideout. The significance of their numbers isn’t lost on any of us—they’ve left exactly who Mairi predicted behind to guard their base, even less. At best, we might have only a single man to deal with besides the children.
We wait in tense silence for what feels like hours, though my internal clock suggests it’s been less than thirty minutes. Mairi’s eyes never leave the warehouse entrance, her small frame completely still except for the slight rise and fall of her chest. When she finally moves, it’s with such sudden purpose that I nearly jump, her hand gesturing for us to follow as she leads us down the rickety stairs with an eerie silence that makes me acutely aware of every creak my own boots make against the weathered wood.
At ground level, the chemical stench is almost overwhelming, making my eyes water as we crouch behind the pre-positioned barrels. Mairi holds up her hand, fingers spread, then slowly closes them one by one as she counts down. My heart pounds in my chest, each beat seeming to echo in the quiet street as I brace myself against the nearest barrel, feeling Calum’s shoulder press against mine as he takes position.
When Mairi’s count reaches zero, she shoves open the door. The first push is the hardest—breaking the barrel’s inertia requires every ounce of strength I can muster, and I hear Calum’s barely suppressed grunt of effort beside me. But once it starts moving, momentum takes over, and the heavy barrel picks up speed as it rolls down the slight incline toward the warehouse. We quickly move to the next one, then the third, each barrel following the same path as the first, their contents sloshing audibly in the night air. We didn’t count on just how heavy these barrels would be. No way we could carry them across the street in any decent timeframe, hence the current strategy.
Sweat drips down my back despite the cool night air, my arms trembling from the exertion as I watch the barrels’ slow, but inexorable progress toward their target. The sound of their rolling seems thunderous in my ears, though logically I know it’s barely audible over the normal nighttime noises of the city. As the last barrel picks up speed, I catch myself holding my breath, every muscle tense as I wait to see if anyone will emerge from the warehouse to investigate the noise. But Mairi’s timing proves perfect—if any guards are left, they must be doing their regular circuit of the building’s far side, leaving us this crucial window of opportunity.
Mairi closes the doors again, and we make our way back upstairs to observe as the barrels complete their journey with three distinct thuds against the warehouse wall, each impact sending a shudder through my chest despite the relative quiet of their collision. The sound seems to hang in the air for a moment, amplified by our heightened nerves and the stillness of the night. I feel Mairi’s small frame tense beside me, her fingers frozen mid-trace on her shiv as we collectively hold our breath.
After what feels like an eternity but can’t be more than a few seconds, a small figure emerges cautiously from around the corner of the warehouse. The child—I can’t tell if it’s a boy or girl from this distance—peers into the darkness with the wary alertness of someone who’s learned the hard way to be careful. Their gaze sweeps across the area, passing right over the newly positioned barrels as if they were part of the ordinary backdrop of the tannery district. I find myself wondering if they’ve become so accustomed to the cluttered environment that a few more barrels simply don’t register as noteworthy.
The child lingers for a moment longer, head tilted slightly as if listening for any further disturbances. In the dim starlight, their posture reminds me eerily of Mairi—that same combination of premature vigilance and barely contained nervous energy that seems to characterize all street children here. Finally, apparently satisfied that nothing threatens their temporary sanctuary, they retreat back around the corner, leaving us once again alone with our thundering heartbeats and the acrid smell of tanning chemicals.
Mairi’s small frame suddenly goes rigid beside me, her fingers freezing mid-trace on her shiv. “The kids,” she whispers, her voice carrying that particular mix of hardness and vulnerability that always makes my heart ache. “When the chemicals go up… will they make it out in time?” The question hangs in the air between us, heavy with implications I’ve been trying not to think about.
I exchange a helpless glance with Calum, seeing my own uncertainty reflected in his eyes. For all my confidence in the chemical reaction’s destructive potential, I realize I have no real understanding of how quickly it will spread, how much warning the explosion might give, or whether the children inside will have enough time to react. It’s one thing to theorize about chemical fires based on half-remembered safety protocols from my old world, but quite another to stake young lives on that sketchy knowledge. The sick feeling in my stomach intensifies as I realize we’ve moved from planning hypothetical violence against our enemies to potentially endangering innocent children—children not so different from Mairi herself.
Mairi’s small frame relaxes slightly as she shakes her head, though her fingers continue their restless dance along her shiv. “Most of the kids don’t actually sleep inside,” she whispers, her voice carrying that peculiar mix of street-wisdom and childish certainty. “They keep us—them—in the abandoned buildings nearby. The warehouse is for the adults and their important stuff. Though…” she hesitates, biting her lower lip, “sometimes they let the favorites stay inside. The ones who help keep the others in line.”
Calum’s face hardens at this, his hand tightening around his sword hilt until his knuckles whiten. “Then they’ve already chosen their side,” he says, his voice carrying a coldness that makes him sound far older than his years. “Anyone who’d hurt other kids just to curry favor with those bastards deserves whatever comes their way. They’re not victims anymore—they’re part of the problem.”
I feel Mairi tense beside me at Calum’s words, her small frame practically vibrating with conflicting emotions. Her fingers still on her shiv as she stares at the warehouse, and I catch a glimpse of something raw and painful in her expression—perhaps recognition of how easily she could have become one of those “favorites” under different circumstances. The silence that follows feels heavy with unspoken understanding of just how thin the line can be between victim and perpetrator in their world.
A crushing wave of frustration washes over me as I realize we never actually planned how to light the fire—all our careful strategizing, and we forgot the most basic element. None of us actually has a bow, nor the skill to use one anyway. The irony of being undone by something so simple makes me want to scream, but instead, I grip the torch tighter in my sweating palm, its flames casting dancing shadows across the chemical-soaked ground beneath the barrels. There’s only one option left, and it’s far from elegant.
With a muttered curse, and before I can think better of it, I hurl the torch toward the warehouse, aiming for the growing puddle of chemicals seeping from the barrels. Time seems to slow as the torch spins through the air, its flames leaving trails of light in the darkness, and lands in the puddle. We don’t wait to see if it catches—Mairi is already pulling at my sleeve, and Calum’s urgent whisper cuts through the night air as we retreat back down the stairs and through the back door into the shadows of the tannery district, hoping the volatile chemicals will do their work once we’re safely away.
The first indication that something has gone terribly wrong comes as a wave of heat that seems to ignite the very air around us. Before I can even process what’s happening, my back feels like it’s being seared by an invisible iron, the sensation burning through my clothes as if they weren’t even there. I barely have time to reach for Mairi before the world explodes into chaos.
The blast hits us like a physical wall, lifting us off our feet with terrible, irresistible force. Time seems to stretch as we’re hurled forward, my arms somehow managing to wrap around Mairi’s small frame even as I lose all sense of direction. The night air rushes past us, carrying the acrid stench of burning chemicals and the deafening roar of the explosion.
My world becomes a blur of motion and pain as we slam into something solid—probably one of the surrounding buildings’ walls, though I’m too disoriented to be sure. The impact drives the air from my lungs and sends waves of agony through my body, but I manage to maintain my grip on Mairi, trying to shield her smaller frame from the worst of the collision. Through the ringing in my ears, I hear Calum’s grunt of pain somewhere to my left, suggesting he’s suffered a similar fate. Charred pieces of wood lie all around us.
Pain shoots through every part of my body as I force myself to my feet, using the wall for support while keeping Mairi tucked protectively against me. The ringing in my ears slowly gives way to an eerie silence, broken only by the distant sound of falling debris and Calum’s muffled groans somewhere to my left. Through the haze of dust and smoke, I can make out his silhouette as he stumbles upright, one hand pressed against his side where he hit the wall.
When we finally turn to survey the damage behind us, the sight steals what little breath I have left. The building we were hiding in is more or less gone. Where the warehouse once stood, there’s now a massive crater, its edges glowing with an unsettling blue luminescence that reminds me sickeningly of the glow a fed rune gives off, but a dive into quicksight doesn’t show me any indications of rune activity. The surrounding buildings did not catch fire as we planned—they’ve been completely flattened, their walls reduced to scattered debris across a blast radius that must span at least thirty meters. The acrid stench of burned chemicals mingles with something else, something almost electrical that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Mairi’s small frame trembles against mine as she stares at the destruction, her fingers frozen mid-trace on her shiv. “That… that wasn’t supposed to happen,” she wails, her voice carrying a mix of awe and horror that makes her sound younger than I’ve ever heard her. “The chemicals shouldn’t have… I mean, even with the tanning solutions, it shouldn’t have…” I trail off, unable to find words to describe the devastation before us, and I feel a chill run down my spine as I realize what must have happened—we didn’t just trigger a chemical fire, we somehow activated something else, something magical that these people kept stored in that warehouse.
A scream of raw anguish tears through the night as Calum lurches forward, his usual grace abandoned in desperate haste. “The children!” he roars, his voice cracking with emotion I’ve never heard from him before. The sword at his hip forgotten, he stumbles over debris and through lingering flames, driven by a primal need to reach those who might still be alive.
I try to hold Mairi back, but she slips from my grasp with the practiced ease of a street rat, darting after Calum with a speed that belies her recent impact with the wall. Her small form weaves between burning timbers and glowing puddles of whatever unholy mixture we’ve created, her movements driven by the same desperate urgency that propels Calum forward.
Cursing under my breath, I follow them into the devastation, my boots crunching over shattered stone and splintered wood. The heat is intense, forcing me to shield my face with one arm as I push forward. Blue flames dance at the edges of my vision, casting an otherworldly glow over the scene that makes everything seem somehow less real, like a nightmare that refuses to end.
Through the smoke and chaos, I catch glimpses of Calum and Mairi ahead, their silhouettes distorted by waves of heat as they search frantically through the rubble. Mairi shouting to follow her to all the places she knew kids were at. The acrid stench of burned chemicals mingles with other, more terrible smells that I force myself not to identify. Each step forward feels like walking through molten lead, but the sound of children crying somewhere in the darkness drives us onward, heedless of our own safety.
Mairi moves through the wreckage with the practiced ease of someone who’s memorized every detail of their surroundings, her small frame ducking under fallen beams and skirting around patches of still-burning debris. She leads us first to a partially collapsed building just outside the main blast radius, where frightened faces peek out from behind broken walls. These children, at least, seem largely unharmed—scared and smoke-stained, but alive. They shy away from us at first, until Mairi calls out to them in that particular street cant they all seem to share.
The next location brings us closer to the epicenter of the destruction, where the warehouse’s walls once stood. Here, the devastation is total, and the first body we find leaves no doubt about survival. Mairi’s fingers trace her shiv as she stares down at what remains, her face a mask of carefully controlled emotion. She whispers something—a name perhaps, or a prayer—before moving on, her steps somehow even quieter than before, as if trying not to wake those who will never wake again.
We find three more children in what must have been some kind of storage room, trapped beneath fallen timbers still glowing with that unsettling blue light. Two are beyond help, their small forms already still and cold despite the heat around us. The third still breathes, barely, but the extent of their injuries leaves no hope for survival. Calum takes his sword with shaking hands, and does what needs to be done. Mairi watches with ancient eyes, her small hand finding mine afterward in a grip that feels like it might break bones.
The search continues through the night, each new location bringing fresh horrors and occasional miracles. Some children managed to flee the moment the soldiers left, their instincts proving stronger than their conditioning. Others weren’t so fortunate. We find them in varying states, some injured but salvageable, others beyond any help we could provide. Each discovery seems to age Mairi by years, though her steps never falter as she leads us to every hiding spot and bolt-hole she’d mapped during her surveillance.
Through the inferno’s roar comes the unmistakable sound of children screaming for help, their voices muffled by layers of debris we can’t possibly shift in time. My spark moves before my mind can process the implications, forming the burst rune with desperate precision as I drop into quicksight. The world slows to a crawl around us, the dancing blue flames becoming almost beautiful in their languid motion. Beside me, I feel rather than see Mairi and Calum make the same transition, their movements taking on that peculiar fluidity that comes with accelerated perception.
Calum’s attempts at the burst rune are clumsy, more likely to bring the remaining structure down than clear a path, but Mairi’s move with surgical precision. Each burst she creates chips away at exactly the right points, clearing debris with the careful calculation of someone who’s spent days memorizing every detail of the building’s construction. Through our combined efforts, we slowly carve a path through the wreckage, each silent push bringing us closer to the trapped voices.
I burn through juice at an alarming rate, the slighty drain of sustaining quicksight while continuously forming runes. Mairi’s determination never wavers—her movements becoming more precise even as exhaustion threatens to overwhelm her. Between her perfectly placed bursts and my broader clearing efforts, we finally break through to a pocket of relative stability where three children huddle away from the rapidly closing fire, scared but alive, protected by a fallen beam that had formed an accidental shelter.
As the rescued children disappear into the relative safety of the night, Mairi stands motionless amid the destruction, her small frame silhouetted against the eerie blue flames. Her fingers move in that familiar pattern along her shiv as she recites locations under her breath, each name accompanied by a slight twitch that I’ve come to recognize as her marking off mental tallies. The ritualistic precision of her counting feels almost like a prayer for the dead, though I know it’s really her way of ensuring we haven’t missed anyone.
Her voice catches slightly as she reaches certain names, and her free hand unconsciously seeks mine whenever she marks off a location where we found only bodies. The subtle tremors running through her fingers betray the emotional toll of this inventory, though her voice remains steady as she works through her mental map of the warehouse and its surroundings. When she finally falls silent, the weight of those unspoken numbers hangs heavy in the smoke-filled air between us, a grim testament to both those we managed to save and those we couldn’t.
Calum’s voice breaks through the eerie silence, barely above a whisper but somehow carrying over the crackling of the blue flames. “We shouldn’t have done this,” he says, his usual confidence replaced by a rawness I’ve never heard before. “All our planning, all our clever strategies… we never really thought about what it meant, did we? Just treated it like some kind of game, moving pieces around in our heads until we found a solution that worked. But these aren’t pieces—they’re children. Real children who died because we were too caught up in our own survival to consider the cost.”
His hands shake as he sheaths the bloody sword, the motion lacking its usual fluid grace. “My mentor once told me that the hardest part of fighting isn’t the physical toll—it’s living with the choices you make in the heat of battle. But this wasn’t even battle, was it? We just… decided these deaths were acceptable losses.” He falls silent then, his shoulders slumping as he stares at a small body half-buried in the rubble, the blue flames casting dancing shadows across his face that make him look far older than his fifteen years.
Mairi’s voice comes soft and hollow beside me, lacking her usual sharp edge.
“That’s Dougal,” she says, and I hear her swallow hard. “He… he was good with numbers. They used him to count coin and goods. Always shared extra food with the younger ones when he could get away with it.” Her fingers trace her shiv faster now, an almost frantic movement. “He wanted to be a merchant someday. Said he’d learned enough that he could probably get an apprenticeship when he grew old enough.”
The weight of those simple words—that glimpse of a future now forever lost—settles over us like the ash still falling from the sky. I feel the tremor in Mairi’s small frame as she forces herself to look away, her face set in that terrible mask of composure that no child should ever have to wear.
The words burst from me with more force than intended, my hands gesturing wildly at the devastation around us. “That is crazy talk. Our plan was to set the building on fire, maybe tear a chunk out of it if the explosion was even that big. All the children should have been safe in the surrounding buildings. What we’re seeing here… this is like someone storing a gunpowder magazine in the middle of the city. This isn’t normal tanning chemicals—this is something else entirely.”
My voice cracks slightly as I continue, the magnitude of what we’ve witnessed finally hitting home. “There was no possible way we could have anticipated this. Even if we’d spent months planning, how could we have known they were storing something capable of… this?” I wave my hand at the eerily glowing crater, trying not to focus on the implications of that unnatural blue light. “The blast radius, the color of those flames—this isn’t just chemistry anymore. This is something else, something magical, and there’s no way we could have known they had that kind of power stored here.”
Mairi’s small frame seems to collapse in on itself as she stares at the destruction, her voice barely a whisper. “I should have gotten inside,” she says, her fingers moving frantically along her shiv. “I could have found out what they were storing, could have seen the dangerous stuff. I’m supposed to be good at this—at finding things out, at keeping us safe. If I’d just tried harder, been braver, snuck in just once…” Her words trail off into a choked sob that she quickly tries to suppress.
“Stop that right now,” I snap, dropping to one knee to meet her eyes despite the protest from my battered body. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do—observe from a safe distance and report back. Getting inside would have been suicide. Even if you’d managed it, what then? Would you have recognized magical weapons? Known what chemicals could do when mixed together? I have some experience with hazardous materials from my old life, and even I didn’t see this coming. This isn’t on you, Mairi. None of it is.”
A small voice rings out of the darkness, raw with grief and rage. “You killed them! You killed them all!” The words pierce through the crackling of the flames, each syllable dripping with a fury no child should know. Through the shifting shadows and ethereal blue light, I catch a glimpse of movement—a tiny figure emerging from behind a partially collapsed wall.
The child launches themselves at us with reckless abandon, their small frame propelled by pure anguish. A jagged rock clutched in their white-knuckled fist catches the ghostly light as they swing wildly, aiming for any part of us they can reach. Their wails echo off the ruins around us, a heart-wrenching mixture of rage and despair that makes my chest ache.
Mairi moves faster than I can process, intercepting the child’s attack with practiced ease. But instead of defending herself, she simply wraps her arms around the smaller form, pinning the rock-wielding hand against her own chest. The child struggles violently, their screams becoming more desperate as they realize they can’t break free. “They were my family! We promised to protect each other! We promised!”
The rock falls from their trembling fingers as their fury finally crumbles into grief, their small body going limp in Mairi’s embrace. Through their broken sobs, they continue to mumble names—a litany of the dead that sounds like a prayer and a curse rolled into one. Mairi holds them tighter, her own face wet with silent tears as she rocks gently back and forth, offering what comfort she can while surrounded by the ruins of their shared tragedy.
Calum’s voice cuts through our shared grief like a blade, his words carrying an urgency that pulls us back to our immediate danger. “We need to move. Now. The city guard will be here any minute, and those bastards will be racing back when they see what happened to their base. We’ve already stayed too long.” His hand rests on his sword hilt, but the gesture seems more habitual than threatening as he glances nervously at the surrounding streets.
I follow his gaze across the devastation we’ve left behind, wincing at the obvious signs of our rescue efforts. The path we carved through the debris stands out like a scar against the chaotic destruction around it, the precise patterns of our burst runes creating an unnaturally clean line through the wreckage. Anyone that sees this will know something is up, if not what rune created the effect—there’s nothing natural about the way those stones and timbers have been systematically cleared away, and it could not have been done with anything short of a bulldozer. We might as well have signed our names in the rubble. In a manner of speaking anyway. I don’t think there’s any identifying marks to juice feeding, or remaining resonance afterwards.
Mairi’s grip on the grieving child never wavers as she stands, lifting them both with a strength that belies her small frame. When Calum opens his mouth to protest, her eyes lock onto his with such raw fury that he physically recoils, the words dying in his throat. The look carries all the weight of her own losses, all the nights she spent alone before finding her new family, daring him to suggest leaving another broken child behind. Her fingers clench as she waits, the gesture carrying an unmistakable warning despite the gentleness with which she supports the still-sobbing child.
We slip into the maze of alleyways surrounding the devastation, our footsteps eerily muffled by the thick smoke that’s begun to settle over the area. The standing buildings loom over us like silent sentinels, their walls still warm from the blast but somehow untouched by the strange blue flames that continue to dance at the heart of the destruction behind us. Through it all, Mairi maintains her protective hold on the child, navigating the familiar paths with the same predatory grace she uses for scouting, though now it serves to shelter rather than hunt.
image [https://pub-43e7e0f137a34d1ca1ce3be7325ba046.r2.dev/Group.png]