"You're gonna get yourself killed, Lyra."
She didn't even look up. She wiped the mud off her hands onto her trousers and kept crouching low in the ruins.
Jace, her so-called "friend," hissed behind her, shifting his weight from foot to foot like he had somewhere better to be.
"You listening? Wyrmwatch isn't far. Patrols sweep this sector now. You get caught, you vanish. Just like the others. I'm telling you, there's something wrong under this hill. Something's moving down there. People go missing, and no one talks about it."
Lyra glanced back over her shoulder. "Then run, coward. But someone's got to bring food back for the kids in the village. I'm not leaving empty-handed."
Jace huffed but didn't move. Typical. Too scared to stay. Too proud to leave first.
Ahead of them, the cracked stones of Seresthos Hill gleamed wet under the rain. Wind rattled through broken prayer carts. Somewhere in the distance, a bell clanged uselessly.
Lyra's stomach growled loud enough to make her grimace.
Another night. Another empty belly. Another desperate plan.
"What's the target?" Jace muttered.
She nodded toward a battered stack of crates near a half-collapsed tent. "Canvas bag. Rations or supplies, maybe. Worth enough for a week's food if we're lucky."
"And if you get caught?"
"I don't plan to. I'm starving. You're starving. Everyone in the village is starving. We can't keep waiting for miracles."
He snorted. "You never do."
"What, you think we should just be selfish? Run from the village? From this damned hill and everyone left starving behind us?"
Before he could answer, Lyra slipped into the rain, boots sliding across the blackened mud.
The plan was simple. Slip in. Snatch. Vanish.
She muttered under her breath, "Easy. Like always."
The Wyrmwatch knights stomped past nearby, armor clinking, their voices low and sharp. Lyra's heart thudded painfully against her ribs. Cold bit through her soaked clothes, but she pushed forward, step after careful step.
Almost there.
Her fingers brushed the canvas.
Then a sharp voice barked: "There!"
She spun. Too late.
A gauntlet clamped onto her wrist, metal crushing bone. She gasped, trying to twist free, but the knight yanked her hard, sending her sprawling into the mud.
Another knight laughed.
"Found us a little gutter-rat," he jeered, kicking her side with his boot. Pain bloomed white-hot through her ribs.
Jace bolted, just like she knew he would.The knife-twist of betrayal burned hotter than the knight's kicks.Lyra gritted her teeth against a scream as the others laughed, boots sloshing through blackened mud.
The knights dragged her across Seresthos Hill. Rain gathered around their boots, smeared with oil and blood.Ash drifted from the cracked sky. Grass and weeds clawed uselessly at the rubble.
A bell clanged somewhere distant, swallowed quickly by the wind.
Lyra gritted her teeth against a scream.
"If you like stealing like a rat," one muttered, "you'll love where you're going."
The others laughed, boots sloshing through the mud.
Ash drifted from the cracked sky. Grass and weeds clawed at the rubble, but the ruins sprawled lifeless down the hill's broken slope.
The ruins loomed empty, no living soul in sight.
Lyra spat blood into the mud. Her wrists throbbed from earlier shackles, but her hands were free, trembling with cold and fury.
The knight dragging her wore a necklace of cracked bones, stained with salt and grime.
Wind pushed through the ruins, rattling loose stones.
Ancient plazas lay broken, stones cracked and scattered. Statues of saints lay face-down in the mud, arms snapped and heads missing. Prayer carts, their wheels shattered, lay abandoned in puddles of ash-thick water. Scavengers picked through toppled tents, tugging at stormglass, glass born from lightning striking sand. Their hands were filthy, their eyes hollow. Blood still stained the trampled ground.
A body hung half inside a collapsed shaft, clothes rotted to rags, face half-buried in rubble.
Lyra stumbled. A gauntlet smashed her spine.
"Move, filth," a knight growled.
Everywhere, the shattered remains of the city sagged under broken stone and bone.
Ahead, a squat hut of scrap wood and rusted metal slumped over a pile of broken stone, barely standing against the wind.
In the middle of the hut's floor, a thick iron hatch lay chained shut, sealing off a stairwell that plunged into the rubble below. The metal was scarred with rust, the chains bolted tight into the cracked stone floor.
The knights halted.
Lyra stared at the doors.
Blood-signs smeared the hatch: WYRMWATCH MONSTERS GO DIE.
One knight spat into the mud. Another glanced around once, wary. Lyra's breath hitched. Her heart hammered against cracked ribs.
She flinched, expecting chains, but her hands were empty and shaking from cold and pain.
The knight with a storm-scar across his jaw stepped close.
He seized her hand and twisted it cruelly. Then he turned her around roughly, patting down her pockets with quick, practiced hands. He yanked out a few crumpled scraps, tossing them into the mud. With a sneer, he struck her across the backside with the flat of his hand, hard enough to drive her forward a step.
One of the knights yanked the chains loose and hauled up the iron hatch with a grinding screech.
Cold air rushed out from below, thick with the stink of wet stone and mold.
The knight leaned in, breath meat-thick, whispering:
"Get moving. We'll come back after our shift. If you're still breathing,"
Then they shoved her into the dark.
The hatch slammed shut behind her, the chains rattling as they locked it back in place.
Darkness swallowed her whole.
For a moment she stayed crouched, one hand pressed to the wet, filthy floor. Her breath came in sharp, ragged bursts. Mud oozed through her fingers. She gritted her teeth and forced herself upright, muscles screaming with every move.
Cold soaked into her bones.
She forced herself up, legs shaking, breath steaming in the freezing dark. Water lapped around her boots, ankle-deep and cold enough to bite through skin.
"Hey!" she shouted, voice raw. "Come back, cowards!"
Muffled laughter. Then silence.
Her fists clenched, nails biting flesh.
Quick hands. Quicker mind, she told herself bitterly, knowing full well she'd been caught like a fool.
She kicked at a loose stone. It shifted. Pain shot up her foot. She hissed, hopped and slipped.
She slammed down. The cold ripped her breath away.
Below, the broken stones shifted and scraped against each other, groaning under their own weight.
Crack.
...
...
Another crack, sharper.
The floor split.
Lyra dropped hard, a ragged shout tearing from her throat as the broken floor gave way beneath her. Rubble and darkness swallowed her whole.