All of them marked for death. All of them too broken by fear to see the opportunities that still remained.
Brynn had spent her month of imprisonment more productively.
The strange tools Lord Edmund's men had confiscated were long gone, locked away in some vault where scholars could decipher their construction. But the two pieces she'd palmed during her capture, a delicate probe and a tension wrench that warmed when she held it just right, remained hidden in the specially sewn pocket of her vest.
One month of imprisonment had given her time to prepare in other ways. She'd convinced her guards that a condemned woman deserved final comforts, playing the role of a frightened girl seeking solace in stories. They'd brought her books. Old tales about the Death Lords and their realms, the kind of folklore meant to frighten children into obedience.
The guards had thought her a fool, seeking escape in fairy tales while awaiting her doom. But she'd read every word, learning what she could. The five Death Lords and their domains. The Courts of Violence, Consumption, Lingering, Mourning, and Forsaken. Not enough to save her, but enough to know what she might face.
The landscape beyond the wagon's barred window had been changing for hours. Gone were the rolling farmlands and tidy villages of the inner kingdoms. Here, the trees grew gnarled and leafless even though it was spring, their branches reaching toward the sky like skeletal fingers. The grass had turned from green to a dull brown, brittle and dead. Even the air tasted different, thinner, with a metallic undertone that made her mouth water unpleasantly.
"We're getting close," she murmured, more to herself than the others.
Morgan's sobbing intensified. The praying boy's voice cracked on whatever plea he was making.
Through the bars, Brynn caught her first glimpse of their destinationrising from the horizon. The ritual grounds sat atop a massive hill that looked unreal, its slopes bare except for standing stones arranged in concentric circles around the summit. Even from miles away, the place radiated menace. The kind that settles in your bones and makes you understand why people cross to the other side of the road to avoid walking too close to certain ruins.
But danger could be studied. Could be understood. Could be used.
"Look," she told the others, her voice cutting through Morgan's sobs. "Up ahead."
They looked. The praying stopped mid-word. The empty-eyed woman's head turned for the first time in two days. The older merchant's gaze surveyed the hill with the same practicality Brynn recognized in herself. Even Morgan's crying hiccupped to a halt.
The ritual grounds weren't just old; they were older than the kingdoms themselves, older than the roads leading to them, maybe older than the human settlements that had sprung up around them. The stones crowning the hill weren't carved from any quarry Brynn knew. They were black as night, so dark they seemed to have no surface at all. Runes covered every visible surface, symbols that seemed to pulse with their own slow heartbeat.
"Gods preserve us," the young man whispered.
"The gods aren't invited to this party.” Brynn kept her gaze on the ritual grounds ahead, refusing to let her voice waver. "That's rather the point."
Their wagon crested a slight rise, revealing the full extent of the ritual grounds. The hill was surrounded by what once had been a town, but the remaining buildings felt off in the same unsettling way as the place itself. Houses with too many angles, doorways that didn't quite connect to roads, windows that seemed to look inward instead of outward. People still lived here. Smoke rose from chimneys, laundry hung from lines. But Brynn suspected the residents weren't entirely human anymore. Places like this changed those who lingered too long in their influence.
"How do you know so much about this place?" the empty-eyedwoman asked suddenly. Her voice was raspy from disuse, barely above a whisper.
"I don't," Brynn admitted. "I just pay attention. One month isolated in a cell gives you plenty of time to think, and thinking beats crying any day of the week."
She didn't mention the dreams that began after her encounter with the strange tools. Dreams of stone circles and death magic, of voices speaking in languages she'd never learned but somehow understood. Dreams where she stood in places like this and felt welcomed rather than threatened. Reading about the Death Lords and the barriers between realms only made the dreams more vivid and specific, until she could no longer tell what was from the books and what came from something deeper.
The wagon wheels changed rhythm as they began climbing the hill. The road here was paved with stones that looked too much like bone for comfort, fitted together without gaps or mortar. The standing stones grew larger as they climbed, until each one towered above the roadway.
"I can't do this," Morgan whispered. "I can't. I'll die of fear before we even reach the top."
"Then you'll die," Brynn said. "But dying of fear here is still better than dying of fear after you've been chosen by something that feeds on terror. So pull yourself together and save the panic for when it might actually help you."
Harsh, maybe. But she'd learned in the last ten years that kindness was a luxury none of them could afford. The guards escorting their wagon weren't the ones who would decide their fate. That honor belonged to creatures who measured mortal lives in moments and found most of them wanting. The Death Lords wouldn't be impressed by tears or moved by pleas.
They might, however, be intrigued by defiance.
The wagon finally reached the summit and came to a stop before gates that looked like they belonged in nightmares—two massive archways flanked by pillars of bone-white stone, each carved with faces. Hundreds of them, twisted in expressions of terror and despair,their mouths open in silent screams. The gates themselves were forged from metal so dark it seemed to swallow light, and they weren't just closed. They were sealed with what looked like dried blood, dark stains coating the metal in patterns that suggested desperate hands clawing at the surface from the inside. Guards waited beyond the threshold. They wore human faces, but their eyes held no white, only solid black. When they breathed, their chests rose and fell in perfect unison, like puppets pulled by the same strings.
"End of the line," called the wagon driver, a grizzled man who'd spent the entire journey refusing to meet any of their eyes. "Everyone out."
The manacles were removed from their wrists, only to be immediately replaced by ceremonial chains. Lighter in weight but far more ornate, each link carved with symbols matching the standing stones. Brynn realized the chains would mark them as tributes, property of the ritual, claimed by old laws that outweighed any kingdom's authority.
As they were led through the gates and into the ritual grounds, Brynn caught sight of the amphitheater where their fates would be decided. Stone benches arranged around a central platform, every surface carved with more of those writhing runes. The air here was so charged with otherworldly energy that it made her teeth ache, and the hidden tools pressed against her ribs felt warm, as if responding to this place.
Above them, the sky was starting to darken even though it was still early. This wasn't the natural evening gloom, but rather a darkness that indicated the boundary between worlds was growing thin, allowing things from the other side to push through.
Brynn was guided down the worn steps with the other tributes, their ceremonial chains jingling with each step. The sound echoed oddly in the vast space, creating strange harmonies. She counted the levels as they went down—thirteen terraces, each marked with different symbols.
