A soldier stepped forward and lifted a dagger, its bronze edge catching the morning light—dark and stained.
“That’s not mine!” he shouted. “By the gods, someone’s framing us!”
My heart thundered. The air tasted of dust and blood. “This is madness!” I shouted. “We were together! Ask the villagers! Ask anyone!”
The captain stepped forward, his shadow swallowing us. “Save your words for the warden,” he said, each syllable measured, final. “You’ll have time enough to speak at the Dreadhold.”
The name struck me like ice plunged into my chest.
The Dreadhold.
No one returned from there. Not even the innocent.
I choked, shaking my head. “No… no, this isn’t real. Who’s doing this?!”
They didn’t answer.
A hand like iron gripped my tunic, wrenching me upward.
“Let me go!” I roared, thrashing until my shoulders burned.
Salvatore’s voice tore through the chaos, “You bastards! You’ll pay for this!”
They slammed him into the wall, the thud of impact echoing like a drumbeat.
Amara screamed. She tried to hurl herself toward me, but the guard locked her in place, his arm a chain across her waist. She kicked, clawed, her hair wild around her face, her brown eyes wide with terror. “Stop! He didn’t do this! None of them did!”
Her cry broke into a sob as the guard seized her by the jaw, forcing her face aside and silencing her.
The captain’s voice cut through everything. “Take them.”
This was wrong—all of it.
Who would murder my mother—and brand me her killer?
We had no enemies. No wealth. No influence.
In Ugarit, we were dust—too small to notice, too quiet to matter.
And yet, someone had chosen to destroy us.
Outside, the sun burned mercilessly over the rooftops, the light so bright it turned everything cruel. Shadows fell long and thin across the dirt.
They bound our wrists behind us with coarse hemp. The rope bit deep, cutting into skin already torn from the fight. The guards said nothing. Their silence was worse than the blows.
They shoved Salvatore and me forward, their hands like hooks on our shoulders. We were thrown into the back of a wagon—no words, no rites, no dignity. Just thrown. Like carrion.
Dust rose in choking clouds as the horses lurched forward. The wheels groaned. The air was dry enough to scrape the throat raw. My wrists throbbed. My heart felt skinned open.
Minutes passed in a silence that wasn’t silence at all—only the creak of wood, the dull rhythm of hooves, and the jingle of iron binding the condemned.
Salvatore spoke first, his voice low and ragged, soaked in fury.
“Whoever did this wanted us erased. Someone’s playing a game far bigger than us—and when I find him, I’ll feed him to the dark.”
I turned to him slowly. My throat felt like sand. “Tell me the truth,” I said. My voice barely carried above the wheels. “Did you kill your father? The others?”
The questions scraped out of me like a wound reopening. But I had to ask. The world was already burning—what was one more truth to throw into the fire?
