That's when I feel the weight around my ankles. Iron shackles, crude but effective, connected to a chain that disappears into the shadows. I follow it with trembling fingers until it ends at a ring bolted deep into the stone wall.
"You clever bastards." My voice echoes strangely in the cramped space, bouncing off walls that seem to press closer with each breath. "Can't kill a pregnant woman outright—too much bad luck. So you hide me away like a dirty secret instead."
I test the chain's length, shuffling forward until it pulls taut. Three steps. That's all they've given me. Three steps in any direction from this corner of hell they've carved out for me.
The door stands just beyond my reach, naturally. Thick wood reinforced with iron bands, no handle on this side. No way out except through whoever put me here.
My hands shake as I press them against the rough wood, feeling for any weakness, any gap I might exploit. Nothing. They've done this before, planned for every possibility except the one where I go quietly into whatever darkness they've prepared.
"Help!" The word tears from my throat, raw and desperate. I pound my fists against the door until my knuckles split and bleed. "Someone help me! Please!"
Silence answers me. Thick, absolute silence that swallows my voice like a hungry mouth.
"I know you can hear me!" I scream louder, putting everything I have into it. "You cowards! Face me!"
My voice bounces back from stone walls, distorted and hollow. The echo mocks me—cowards, cowards, cowards—until it fades into nothing.
I sink back against the wall, chest heaving, and wrap my arms around my belly. The baby shifts restlessly inside me, responding to my panic.
"Shh," I whisper, though my voice shakes. "We're going to be fine. Vargath will find us."
But even as I say it, doubt creeps in like the cold. How long have I been here? Hours? Days? And if they were bold enough to take me from the temple itself...
"HELP!" I surge forward again, throwing my entire weight against the door. The chain jerks me back, sending pain shooting up my legs. "HELP ME!"
Only my echo answers, growing fainter with each repetition until even that abandons me to the dark.
The fight drains out of me like water through cracked stone. My fists ache, my throat burns raw, and the silence presses against my eardrums until I want to scream again just to break it. Instead, I slide down the wall until I'm curled in the corner like a broken doll, knees drawn up as much as my swollen belly allows.
The tears come whether I want them or not—hot, angry things that blur my vision and taste of salt and defeat. I press my face against my knees and let them fall, each one a small surrender I can't afford but can't stop.
"We're alone," I whisper to my belly, voice muffled and thick. "Just you and me against all of this."
The baby responds with a gentle flutter, as if to sayI'm here. I flatten my palm against the curve where I felt the movement, imagining tiny hands and feet taking shape in the dark.
"Listen to me, little one." My voice steadies as I find my purpose again. "Whatever happens, I'm going to keep you safe. I don't care what they want or what they think you are. You're mine. You're wanted. You're?—"
My throat closes around the wordloved, too big and too dangerous to speak aloud in this place.
I scrape my fingernail through the gritty dirt floor, carving letters with deliberate strokes. V-A-R-G-A-T-H. His name takes shape in the earth like a prayer, like an anchor. Like the only solid thing left in a world gone sideways.
"Your father," I tell the baby, tracing over the letters until they're deep enough to last. "He has your eyes, you know. Dark and fierce and?—"
Footsteps echo from somewhere beyond the door. Heavy boots on stone, accompanied by low voices that rise and fall like distant thunder. My heart kicks up the pace as I strain to make out words, but they're speaking too quietly, too far away.
I hold my breath until my lungs burn, waiting for the scrape of a key in the lock, for the door to swing open. For someone—anyone—to acknowledge I exist.
The voices fade. The footsteps retreat.
Nothing.
"Bastards," I breathe, but the word lacks heat. I'm too tired for proper rage, too hollowed out by fear and the crushing weight of my own helplessness.
The cold seeps deeper into my bones, and exhaustion pulls at my eyelids like lead weights. I can't fight it anymore. Can't keep my eyes open or my thoughts sharp. Sleep takes me despite the stone floor, despite the chains, despite everything.
In my dreams, warmth surrounds me like summer sunlight. A figure approaches through golden mist—tall, broad-shouldered, but wrong somehow. Too perfect. Too bright. His skin gleams like burnished bronze, and grain spills from his massive hands with each step.
When he speaks, his voice resonates like distant thunder, ancient and patient and absolutely certain.
