One day after Cynthia and Rae broke free from the caravan, the surviving merchants reached the city.
They did not look like merchants anymore.
Their clothes were torn. Dust and dried blood streaked their sleeves. Rough bandages were tied wherever they had managed to stop the bleeding on the road. Their steps were uneven as they pushed through the gate.
The gate guards straightened the moment they saw them.
Spears dropped. Hands went to sword hilts.
"Stop there," the senior guard called. "What happened? Why are you injured? Has something followed you?"
All three merchants tried to talk at once.
"Slaves"
"Attack"
"Blood"
"Forest"
The jumble of words made no sense. A few of the younger guards glanced past them, half expecting something monstrous to appear on the road.
"Enough," the senior guard snapped. He pointed at the oldest of the three. "You first. Is anything coming this way?"
The man dragged in a slow breath, trying to calm himself. Sweat shone on his brow. He shook his head.
"No," he said. "No beasts. Nothing behind us. It all stayed out there. In the trees. We got away."
Some tension left the men on the gate, but not all of it.
"Right," the senior guard said. "You can tell the rest where it will not scare the whole street. Medical hall. Move."
He flicked a glance at one of the younger guards.
"Take them in, Bren."
"Yes, Sergeant Loran," the younger man said, and gestured for the merchants to follow.
They were led inside.
The city was really just a large walled town. Houses of stone and timber. Narrow lanes. Hard packed dirt roads. A few market stalls were still open. People stared as the wounded men passed, then looked away just as quickly.
The medical hall smelled of herbs, sweat and old blood.
Healers took over without many questions. Cuts were washed. Wounds were stitched. Fresh cloth wrapped arms, ribs and foreheads. The merchants hissed and grunted but did not complain. Every time the door opened, they flinched.
When the worst was dealt with, Bren jerked his chin toward the far door.
"Captain wants to hear it," he said. "On your feet."
They followed him through a short corridor to a plain wooden door. Bren knocked once.
"Captain Merrow. The caravan men you asked for."
A tired voice from inside replied, "Send them in."
The captain sat behind a simple desk. His beard was threaded with grey. Lines sat deep around his eyes, but his gaze was sharp and clear. A breastplate rested on a stand in the corner. He wore a plain shirt and trousers with his sleeves rolled, as if he had been pulled away from paperwork instead of a drill yard.
He studied each of them in silence, taking in the torn clothes and fresh bandages.
"Sit if you need to," he said. "Then tell me what happened from the start. Do not leave out anything important."
The oldest merchant wet his lips. His voice came out rough.
"My name is Talan," he said. "These are Daro and Grell. We were running a slave caravan south from the river villages."
Merrow nodded once.
"Did you have guards?"
"Yes, Captain," Talan said quickly. "Eight sword hands when we left the city."
Merrow's eyes narrowed a little.
"And now?"
"Two are in your medical hall," Talan said. "The rest" He swallowed. "Some are dead on the road. Some we had to leave. We could not carry them and still run."
Merrow's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. He lifted his hand for them to go on.
Talan swallowed again.
"We took the usual route," he said. "Road was empty, only scrub and dust. We stopped for the night near the old inn. No trouble. In the morning we were back on the road and"
He shook his head. His fingers flexed on his knees.
"Chains broke," Daro said softly. "It started near the wagons with the special stock. The girl with the collar. She was not on our ledgers, she was taken in quiet. We thought she was already broken."
He glanced at Merrow, then away.
"She moved like she was not broken at all," he said. "One moment she was sitting there, head down, the next she was on her feet. There was heat in the air around her. The first guard who went for her screamed before we saw the cut."
He rubbed at the fresh bandage on his forearm.
"The first two guards stepped in," he went on. "One had his arm crushed. The other had his throat opened. It was not a clean sword fight. It was like something was pushing for her. Hard to see in the smoke, but it was not normal."
"And the boy?" Merrow asked.
Grell's mouth twisted.
"The boy is worse in another way," he said. "Foreign tongue. Strange accent. He looked half dead when we bought him, but his eyes were always sharp. Always watching. He barely spoke, but when things went wrong, he was ready."
Talan nodded, jaw tight.
"He is clever," he said. "Quiet and clever. The kind who listens to every word and says nothing. We thought he was just beaten down. Now I think he was waiting. He used the chaos. Cut chains we did not see, moved people where we could not reach them, grabbed gear. That girl had power, but he is the sort that plans around it. Conniving. Insidious. Together they turned the caravan into a trap for us."
He let out a shaky breath.
"We tried to hold them," he said. "But with the girl burning through our line and the boy slipping people loose, the rest scattered. Some fought, some ran. There was smoke, fire, shouting. We lost track of who was still standing."
They did not mention the strange metal frame under the boy's rags. They did not say Cynthia's name. Those details stayed stuck behind their teeth.
"We barely got away with our lives," Talan said at last. "We cut the beasts loose, left the wagons. Ran for the city. I do not know how many slaves escaped. At least a handful. Maybe more."
Merrow listened without interrupting. When they finally fell quiet, he steepled his fingers, thinking.
"And you believe this was the work of a bloodline user," he said.
"Yes," Talan said at once. "The girl. Nothing else explains how fast she moved, how hard she hit. That was not some field hand with a lucky swing."
Merrow's frown deepened.
"A bloodline user," he repeated. "Out here."
This part of the world was quiet. A few small cities. Scattered villages. Long stretches of empty land. No famous clans. No great sects. No names that carried beyond a valley.
"There are no registered bloodline families within a month of riding from here," he said slowly. "And you are telling me one of their brats just happened to sit in your wagon."
Talan hesitated.
"We did not know for sure," he said. "She kept her head down. Looked like any other girl in chains. But the way she moved when it began, and the way the air felt around her" He shook his head. "That was not normal strength. You asked what happened. That is what we saw."
Silence held the room for a few heartbeats.
Merrow leaned back and glanced at the map pinned on the wall behind him. A thin line marked the caravan route, cutting through bare country.
"I do not fully believe you," he said at last. "Men who are frightened see all kinds of things. And slavers like to find excuses when things go bad."
Grell's mouth tightened, but he said nothing.
"But," Merrow went on, "I cannot ignore the chance you are right either."
He let out a slow breath through his nose.
"Here is what I can do," he said. "I will send a small patrol. They will follow your trail, check the scene, count the bodies, bring back what they can of your goods, and look for any sign of this girl. Or the boy. That is it. The wilderness is large. If your slaves and this bloodline user have gone deep into it, we may never see them again."
Talan bowed his head.
"It is more than nothing, Captain," he said. "Thank you."
Merrow gave a small, tired snort that was not quite a laugh.
"Do not thank me yet. If you are right about a bloodline out there, and she decides to cause trouble near my walls, I will be cursing your names for months."
He flicked his fingers toward the door.
"Go. The healers will find you cots. Try not to die of your stitches before my men get back."
They rose, moving stiffly. As the door closed behind them, Merrow stayed staring at the map for a moment longer.
"A bloodline user in this wasteland," he murmured. "Let us hope it is only fear talking."
He turned back to his papers.
Outside the walls, the land stretched on, dry and sparse, hiding two people no one in the city had any name for.
Days later, the forest was starting to feel familiar.
The worst of Rae's withdrawal had eased. The shakes still came sometimes, especially when he woke, but they no longer knocked his feet out from under him. His thoughts were clearer. The hollow craving under his ribs was still there, but it no longer drowned everything else.
Cynthia's bitter root drink helped. So did work.
They walked under twisted branches and rough roofs of leaves. The air here was cooler than on the road, smelling of damp earth and old plants instead of dust and dung.
They hunted when they could.
Rae had been clumsy at first. He stepped on every noisy branch. He turned too much with his shoulders and not enough with his feet. His knife grip was wrong.
Cynthia fixed him.
"Raise your knife," she said, stepping in close to adjust his hand. "You are not cutting bread."
She tapped his ankle with her boot and shifted his foot.
"Turn a little. Do not stand straight on. Make your chest smaller. If they hit your arm instead of your heart, you live."
Her tone was calm and practical, like they were discussing where to stack wood, not how to survive a fight.
She slipped through the trees with easy, quiet steps. Her own knife work was quick and clean. No wasted motion. No showing off.
Rae copied her as best he could.
They brought down rabbit like animals with long ears, ugly birds that tasted like fish, and once a lean horned creature that fed them for several days when cut thin and dried.
They kept their fires small and low, tucked into hollows or behind rocks. Smoke hugged the ground instead of climbing into the sky.
Rae still felt the collar around his neck whenever he stopped to think. The chain between them clicked softly when they walked too close together. The metal reminded him he was not truly free.
But there were no slavers now. No buckets. No wall to build. No one shouting at him at dawn.
The forest did not care who they were, and that was its own kind of mercy.
Unelectedly they found the fort near midday.
It sat in a clearing like a rough wooden box turned on its side. A simple palisade of logs. A gate that leaned slightly. Inside, a squat building and a couple of small sheds pushed against the inner fence.
No smoke rose from inside. No voices. No movement.
Cynthia stopped beside him and studied it.
"Looks empty," she said.
"Or maybe waiting," Rae said. His accent still bent some of the words, but they came smoother now.
She started walking toward the gate.
He blinked.
"Did you not just say it empty?" he asked.
"I said it looks empty," she replied. "I did not say it is safe."
She glanced back over her shoulder, a quick crooked smile on her lips.
"Besides," she added, "between this place and me, I am the more dangerous one."
Then she walked on.
Rae muttered something in his own language that she thankfully did not understand and followed. Being alone in the forest sounded worse than following her into trouble.
The gate groaned when Cynthia pushed it. No one shouted. No arrows flew. No sound came from inside.
The yard was plain.
A cold firepit sat in the centre, full of old ash. Barrels were stacked against one wall. Crates, rope, scattered tools. The door of the main building hung slightly crooked on its hinges.
Inside, cots lined the walls, rough wood frames with stuffed sacks on top.
Rae counted without thinking.
"One, two, three," he murmured under his breath.
By ten, he stopped.
"Ten beds," he said. "So maybe ten people live here."
Cynthia was already going through a crate. She pulled out flat bread, dried meat and some hard slices of root.
"People live here," she agreed. "But they are not here now."
She tossed him a strip of dried meat. He caught it without thinking.
"We will take what we can carry," she said. "Food first. Tools if they are useful."
Rae walked the room a second time, this time thinking about what they needed.
"Food first," he said quietly. "Then rope. Knife. Hammer. Bow maybe."
Food. Spice sacks. Rope. Knives. A short bow and a cracked quiver with a handful of decent arrows. A hammer that felt right in his hand.
The whole place felt like a hideout built for comfort, not for a siege.
"If someone set the wall on fire from outside," he said, looking at the dry logs, "all burn. Very fast."
Cynthia shrugged.
"Then whoever built it should hope no one hates them enough to try," she said.
They did not stay long. Their packs grew heavier as they took what they needed. Rae measured it all in his head, how long they could stretch the food, how many arrows made sense to carry, which tools would actually help them stay alive.
At the gate, he looked back one last time at the rough wall.
"They come back," he said. "Soon."
"Of course," Cynthia replied. "And they will be angry. That is why we will not be here."
He let out a breath he had not realised he was holding.
"Good plan," he said.
They turned away and disappeared back into the trees. The wooden fort shrank behind them until it was gone.
About an hour later, six men walked into the same clearing.
They were laughing as they came, packs full, faces bright from the easy success of their last raid.
The largest of them, Garron, slapped the shoulder of the man next to him.
"Did you see his face when we took the last barrel," he said. "He looked ready to cry."
Jor snorted.
"Two guards on a carriage like that," he said. "Might as well hang a sign saying rob me."
"His mistake, our food," Mal said, shifting his pack.
"We are eating well tonight," Tef grinned. "Meat, drink, no trouble."
Kesh, the quiet one with the bow, walked near the front. Peren trudged at the back, already thinking about where he would hide his share.
They stepped into the clearing.
The fort looked exactly the same from the outside. Same wall. Same gate. Same slight lean.
Garron shoved the gate open and strode in.
He stopped after two steps.
"Who touched my stash," he shouted.
The others came in behind him. Their laughter died at once.
"I told you lot I was saving those snacks," Garron said, voice rising. "If one of you"
"We have been with you all day," Jor snapped. "None of us touched anything."
Garron glared at him, but as he looked around properly, his expression changed.
The corner where he kept his food was empty.
He slowly scanned the rest of the room.
A coil of rope was missing. A barrel lid sat back at the wrong angle. One of the crates, usually heavy, moved too easily when he pushed it with his boot.
"Wait," he said.
Now the others saw it too.
"Where is the spare bow," Mal demanded.
"And my good knife," Tef growled. "The carved one."
"Half the spice sacks are gone," Peren yelled from the far side of the room.
Silence fell.
"We have been robbed," Jor said.
Kesh let out a short breath that might have been a laugh.
"Bandits getting robbed," he said. "If anyone else hears about this, we are never going to hear the end of it."
"No one will hear a thing if we find them and break their jaws first," Garron snapped. His face was red. "Whoever did this cannot be far. We were not gone long."
"I told you we should leave someone here," Peren muttered. "But no, we are so deep in the forest that no one will ever find us."
He copied the last words in a whining voice.
"Shut up," Garron said. "Complaining will not put food back in my mouth."
He turned to Kesh.
"You have the best eyes. Find their trail. I do not care how faint it is."
Kesh was already heading back to the gate.
Outside, he knelt near the churned earth just beyond the wall.
At first all he saw was their own mess, boot prints piled on boot prints from months of walking in and out. He took a slow breath, narrowed his eyes, and looked again.
There. Two different sets. Lighter prints crossing the old path. One unsteady in places. The other sure and balanced.
"Two people," Kesh said. "Light, but carrying more weight than usual. They did not try to hide their tracks. They thought this place was empty."
He pointed into the trees.
"They went that way."
The clearing suddenly felt less safe, even to the men who lived there.
"All of you, move," Garron ordered.
The six of them stepped back into the forest, weapons ready, anger pushing them faster than caution would have liked.
Kesh followed bent grass, disturbed moss and faint scuff marks where boots had scraped stone. The others came behind in a tighter line than before.
Ahead of them, deeper under the trees, Rae and Cynthia walked with stolen food in their packs and iron still around their necks, unaware that their first small theft had already sent six hunters onto their trail.