"Get off me!"
I scream. I lash out into the dark, fists connecting with nothing. My eyes are still adjusting, breath tearing in and out of my chest. Two men pin my wrists down, rough hands digging into my skin.
"Get away, you—!"
A sharp crack. My head whips sideways. The world blurs, sound folds into a shrill note that rings inside my skull. I can't even turn to see who hit me. I'm sure these were slave drivers.
This is it, I think dimly. I'm going to be dragged out, used, torn apart—just another slave's story that ends before dawn.
My legs thrash, but they feel disconnected, floating somewhere else. My arms follow, weightless. For a moment I imagine my head separating too, drifting upward, looking down at the scene from above.
At least from up there, I can't feel anything. Is this what it feels like to be nothing?
A huge shadow falls over me.
It all happens in a blur—a jagged rock arcs downward, cracking against a skull with a sickening thud. The slave driver hovering above me collapses sideways, his body folding in on itself.
Another noise follows—wet, sharp, the sound of a throat crushed in a massive fist. My vision swims, but I can still trace the movement, follow the dark arm up to the face of the man who bathes slow and carefully. It's... him.
He moves like he's done this before. Efficient. Cold.
The second slave driver, shorter and quicker, snatches his whip and strikes him hard across the ribs. The man doesn't even flinch. He yanks the whip mid-swing, dragging the smaller man forward, then meets him halfway with a brutal knee to the gut. The sound that comes out isn't a scream—it's a collapse.
"Y–you…"
The words die in my throat. I can't tell if it's fear or awe that holds me.
His body radiates heat as he lifts me—carefully, almost tenderly. He doesn't look at me, just trudges through the sand toward his den, larger than the others, built to fit his size. Without a word, he sets me down inside, shelving me away like some fragile thing.
This is… interesting.
Only then do I notice how hard my heart has been pounding. It slows now, syncing to his quiet, steady breathing.
"From now on," he says, voice low and controlled, "you sleep here."
"But—"
"What is your self-given name?" he asks.
"Usha," I answer softly. "What's yours?"
There's a vein pulsing across his forehead, a residue of fury from moments ago. Was he angry for me? Why? I'm just that annoying woman who helps him scrub down.
"Neev," he says at last, turning away.
His back faces me the entire night, broad and unmoving, a silent wall between me and the darkness beyond.
And for the first time since I arrived in this world, I fall asleep under someone else's watch.
When morning came, and three slave drivers were found dead… we were all punished.
There was no work today—no trek under the scalding sun toward the monument or tomb or whatever it is we're building. Instead, they tied us together.
It reminded me of the time we were transferred between sites—herded like livestock, wrists bound to another's cuffs, the ropes linking us one by one until we were a single chain.
A group of drivers huddled inside their tent, whispering. Planning. Waiting.
Next to me, Mino trembled. He was apart from Erbos during this time.
"What's happening?" I asked.
"I–I don't…" His eyes darted toward the tent, unfocused. He'd seen this before. "They're choosing."
"Choosing? For what?"
"Who to punish."
Ah. Of course. They don't know it was Neev who caved their comrades' skulls in. They just need an example. Someone to make the rest of us remember our place. How simple.
The flap opens. Five slave drivers emerge. Fifty slaves stare back.
If ten of us held down each one, we could win easily.
But no one moves.
That's the problem with people born at the bottom—they start to believe that's where they belong. They don't imagine winning; they imagine surviving.
I refuse to die believing I'm a slave. Maybe that's why I am so strange to them.
One driver strides forward and seizes an old woman from the line. There's a sharp intake of breath from the crowd as she's yanked out of the rope chain. She stumbles, tries to crawl away, but they drag her by the back of her neck until she's kneeling before everyone.
A blade gleams in the morning light.
They make her face us, force her chin up.
A few words are said—something about obedience, order, consequence. Then, without hesitation, the knife moves.
The sound is wet. Blood spatters the sand.
A collective breath holds, like the whole line is waiting for their own throats to be slit. But it doesn't stop after one. One life for three? No—they kept picking. Another. And another. I realize then that the meeting in the tent was not for discussing possible suspects but who to cull. Even if they knew it was Neev, the rest of us were inconsequential.
They choose the old, the weak, the useless. Each one dragged forward, forced to face us, and each one cut down as if we were livestock. The sand drinks the blood. Again and again.
Then they pick Erbos.
My eyes snag on Mino, wracked with silent sobs. He trembles like a bird about to be plucked. Erbos wears that same insolent look he always had—defiant to the last, as if even then he wants to tell the boy to look away. He says nothing. He doesn't get the chance.
The blade does its mission.
Something inside me shifts, small and sure. I had thought grief would come—shock or rage, but I was never close to Erbos… But I realize now that he gave me good advice.
When the day is done, they don't release us from our bindings.
We're forced to sleep as one tangled mass—fifty bodies pressed together like a flock of sheep. It's unbearably cramped, limbs and ropes and breath all mixed together.
It is… uncomfortable. But I've never been so warm before.
"This is all your fault," someone whispers.
I glance toward Mino, but he's asleep, his face blotched with dried tears. The voice belongs to someone else—older, roughened by grief.
"I saw what happened last night," she continues. "You should've just borne with it."
So there was a witness.
"What if it were you?" I snap, voice low and sharp. How dare she?
"I would've just shut up," she hisses back. "But you… you're a sly one. You bewitched the beast."
That stirs something in the huddle. I can feel it—the shift of breath, the prickle of eyes turning toward me in the dark. Suspicion. Blame.
Why is it always my fault?
And why do they think I should care?
"Stop."
The deep, rolling voice cuts through the murmurs. Neev.
"We have all been in her place," he says quietly, addressing the older woman. "And I know you wished, back then, that someone had saved you."
Silence follows. Then a sharp tsk of her tongue.
No one says another word after that.
Neev is more useful than I thought. I was right, he would play a vital role in my escape. He commands a quiet respect. There's something in the way people look at him, like he carries safety with him.
The slave drivers made us work again the next day, and the next after that. Then they bind us together once more to transfer us to another work site. Rough ropes bite into my wrists, and I count the days until freedom. Nobody ever complains. The only sound is the shuffling of feet and pained groans.
There is a key difference now. The new location has no river—only a single, narrow well surrounded by dry stone. The air here is harsher, the ground cracked and pale.
Nobody's pleased. Who am I kidding? We're all slaves. Miserable is the default.
The first thing I do when they unbind us for work is approach Neev. "I need you to do something."
He looks at me with that unmoved, almost annoyed gaze. He's definitely a hard one to crack. I keep myself from feeling too frustrated.
"Later, when we wash up by the well…" I whisper the rest into his ear. Obviously, getting him to agree is integral to my escape plan.
"Why would I do that?" he asks. I can tell there's genuine confusion in his voice.
My hand finds his arm—tension of muscle under his skin. I saw him kill those three slave drivers; it would be so easy to sic him on the five left. I heard earlier that three more would meet to replace them tomorrow.
"I'm sorry," I say, looking a bit disappointed. "I thought we were…" I look away, hoping he'll change his mind. With people like Neev—those who build their walls up to high heaven, yet remain softhearted and dutiful—you need to stroke the part that welcomes you most. In this case, Neev's sense of duty.
"Fine," he said with a sigh.
I thought the working day would go without any hitches, but then I see Neev being taken inside the tent… and never coming out.
No. No. No. No. No.
What are they doing to him? He's a vital part of my plan!
Against my better judgment, when the afternoon comes, I slip out of the line of stone haulers and sneak into the tent. There, Neev lies on the ground, a pool of blood spreading beneath him, already soaking into the dirt floor.
"Neev!" I shake him, but his huge body doesn't budge against my feeble strength. "Neev, are you alive? Wake up!" I try to lift him from behind, but he's just too heavy.
Then… something warm falls from my eyes. I look down at his sorry state, my tears landing on his body. There was a valley in the horizon I was planning to escape to and I was going to use Neev as a guard. Frankly speaking, I can't survive on my own as of now.
It's all ruined if he's dead!
"What are you doing—" I can't hear the rest of the slave driver's words before the whip cracks across my back. The sting slices into my skin and I yelp, being swatted away like a fly. A scream rips from my throat as he grabs a clump of my hair and drags me out of the tent. I know what comes next—he'll beat me in front of everyone, make an example out of me.
Neev, wake up, you oaf! I tried so hard to earn your interest, and now I'm just gonna die before the ball even starts rolling? You must be kidding me!
As if I had any sort of summoning ability, his huge body rises from the ground. He grabs the back of the slave driver's skull… and squeezes. The man groans in pain, like it's a migraine, but his eyes turn bloodshot—and Neev doesn't stop. The slave driver releases me, and I scramble away, dust flying from the sand. That's when I notice…
All the slaves' eyes are on Neev. They watch with some kind of sick delight as he crushes the man's skull.
I was playing with fire, I realized. If Neev ever came to hate me for using him, he could easily wring the life out of me.
Three slave drivers arrive, shouting curses as they take in the scene. Before Neev can even turn, one throws a weighted net over him. The cords snap tight around his shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides.
"Get him down! Now!" one of them yells.
The other two pile onto him, driving him to his knees. Neev growls—a deep, feral sound that doesn't belong to any normal man. He thrashes, muscles bulging against the ropes, but the net only tightens. One of the drivers slams the hilt of his whip into the back of Neev's neck, forcing his face toward the dirt.
I can only watch, breath caught in my throat. The sound of his labored breathing, the coarse scrape of sand, the grunts of men trying to hold him—it all melds into a blur.
"Stay down, beast!" one snarls, pressing his knee into Neev's back.
For a moment, I think they've won—until Neev lifts his head, eyes blazing with something primal. The cords creak. The men shout.
I blink. "What the fuck," I can't help but say.
"The beast is fighting back!" one of the slaves shouts. "He's fighting back!"
Did Neev just turn into a giant fucking panther?