I stand at the edge of what was once the Red Fields, watching the last group of refugees disappear over the eastern ridge. Twenty-three of them—former stock, mostly, with a handful of Attendants who decided freedom was worth the uncertainty. They’re heading toward a settlement three days’ walk from here. A place where nobody knows what the Vale used to be. Where they can start fresh.
Fresh. The word feels foreign. I’ve never started anything fresh in my life.
“They’ll be fine.” Imara’s voice comes from behind me. Her hand finds the small of my back—casual contact, automatic after weeks of shared warmth. “The settlement needs workers. They’ll fit in.”
“And us?”
“Us?” She moves to stand beside me, her shoulder pressing against my arm. “We stay a few more days. Make sure nothingdangerous crawls out of the ruins. Then we find our own place to start fresh.”
I look down at her. The week has been good to her—color returning to her cheeks, strength returning to her limbs. The ritual burned through her channels, but she’s healing. Slowly. Steadily. The scars along her arms have faded from angry red to pale pink.
Mine have changed in different ways.
I flex my hand. Watch the new patterns ripple beneath my skin—pale threads intertwined with the familiar scarification, catching the morning light. The channels still carry power, but it flows differently now. Quieter. More controlled. Less hungry for destruction.
“Aunt Imara!”
Dena’s voice cuts across the dead fields. The nine-year-old comes running from the makeshift camp we’ve established near the boundary markers—all energy and enthusiasm, her dark hair streaming behind her.
Aunt. The word stuck after the Sanctum fell—something Dena reached for and Imara never refused. I haven’t corrected it either. It feels right.
“Slow down.” Imara catches Dena as she arrives, steadies her with hands on thin shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” The child’s eyes are bright with excitement. “I found a flower. A real one. Growing in the gray dirt.”
“A flower?”
“Come see!”
Dena grabs Imara’s hand and pulls her toward the camp. Imara shoots me a glance—amused, questioning. I nod once. Follow them.
The flower is small. White petals, barely larger than my thumbnail, pushing up through the barren soil near the camp’s eastern edge. An impossible thing—life returning to land that has known nothing but death for two centuries.
“How?” Dena crouches beside it, her face full of wonder. “I thought nothing could grow here anymore.”
“The magic is gone.” Imara kneels beside her. “The Vale’s power came from blood. Now that the blood-wards have failed, the land can heal.”
“Will more flowers grow?”
“Eventually. It might take years. Decades. But yes—eventually, this place will live again.”
Dena considers this. Her small face is serious, processing implications beyond her years.
“Then we’re not just ending things.” She looks up at us. “We’re starting them too.”
I feel something crack in my chest. Not pain—the opposite of pain. A warmth I don’t have words for.
Starting things. Creating instead of destroying. Building instead of breaking.
Is that what I am now? A builder?
The thought is so foreign I almost laugh.
Night fallsover the dead Vale.
The survivors have made camp in the ruins of an old farmstead—one of the abandoned structures that dot the territory beyond the Sanctum’s former reach. The buildings aredecrepit but standing, and the walls keep out the wind. Good enough for temporary shelter.
Dena sleeps in the main building with the other children. Imara insisted on separate quarters for us—a collapsed outbuilding we’ve reinforced with salvaged materials. Privacy is rare in survival situations. She wanted to ensure we had some.
