The Price of Power Chapter 3 - The First Taste

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Rashon ducked his massive frame through the small doorway of Adeliah's wagon, his broad shoulders nearly scraping both sides of the entrance. He instinctively ducked his head, though the ceiling was high enough to accommodate his height standing up, if just barely. The small space felt incredibly confining, an invisible pressure that had nothing to do with the physical dimensions and everything to do with the strange woman who had invited them in. She stood watching him from the back of the wagon with those unsettling green eyes that seemed to see more than they should.

The interior smelled of dust, leather, and something faintly metallic that tickled his nostrils. Trinkets and curiosities lined wooden shelves — mechanical toys made by some tiny tinker that whirred and clicked, crystal orbs that glowed with soft internal light, and small figurines that seemed to shift position when no one was looking directly at them. A collection of masks hung from one wall, their empty eye sockets seeming to follow his movements. Brass devices with unknown purposes sat on cushioned pedestals, occasionally emitting soft pings or whirs that made his skin prickle.

Behind him, Milaena, Valdis, and Daerreth all climbed in as well, crowding into the small space, their bodies pressing together uncomfortably in the cramped quarters. His eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to the two beautiful women as their bodies moved, the gentle curves of their hips and breasts making their robes rustle as they strained the fabric. Daerreth's flame-red hair seemed unnaturally bright in the dim interior, the flickers of light inside it enough to cast strange shadows on the walls and light up all the useless items. “What is all of this?” Daerreth asked as his eyes flicked around.

"It’s my stock," Adeliah explained. She had a pretty voice… it had a melodic quality, almost like she was singing without any of the volume. She wore simple traveling clothes, but moved with the grace of nobility, her fingers trailing across her wares with familiar affection. “I sell trinkets like these. I’m a merchant of curiosities.”

Frustration boiled in Rashon's gut, his patience worn thin by grief and worry. The muscles in his jaw clenched as he struggled to maintain composure. "What good are toys and trinkets?" he growled, the words rumbling from deep in his chest. "Our friends are being tortured! They need warriors, not peddlers."

The memory of his failure burned like acid in his throat. He should have been able to protect Acalia and Vashara. Should have been stronger, faster, smarter. Instead, he had run, leaving them behind to suffer unimaginable horrors while he escaped with the others. His massive hands clenched into fists at his sides, the leather of his gloves creaking with the strain.

The merchant's smile never faltered. "You might be astounded how useful all of this is.” She gestured around the wagon. "These toys and trinkets make a bigger positive influence on people lives than the rest of what I could sell."

"It won’t for us," Rashon rumbled, impatience making his voice harsher than intended. "You are wasting our time."

"I would be… but like I said, it’s not all I do, Goliath." She moved to what appeared to be a simple wooden panel at the back of the wagon and pressed her palm against it. The wood glowed briefly beneath her touch, arcane symbols flaring to life before fading just as quickly. “It’s just the stuff I prefer to work with. The things that bring people peace, instead of hurt them.” The entire wooden panel slid aside with barely a whisper of sound, revealing a doorway that should not — could not — possibly exist in the confines of the small wagon.

Rashon's eyes narrowed, his warrior's instincts screaming caution even as desperate hope flared in his chest. "What trickery is this?"

"No trickery. Simply a door. Will you step through it?" Adeliah's voice held a challenge, her eyes locked on Rashon's face as if measuring his courage.

He hesitated only a moment before nodding once. For Acalia. For Vashara. He would walk into the depths of the Abyss itself if it meant saving them.

The merchant stepped through first, vanishing into shadow. After exchanging wary glances, the companions followed, Rashon taking the lead with Milaena close behind him, her holy presence a comforting presence at his back.

They stepped through the doorway into a space that defied natural laws. The ceiling soared at least thirty feet overhead, and the room stretched back farther than Rashon could see, fading into shadow and mystery. Rashon had seen plenty of magic in his life, and the Shamans back home had made wondrous things, but he had never seen anything like this. His skin prickled with the unmistakable sensation of powerful magic — not the gentle flow of Milaena's divine channeling or the purity of Valdis's elemental sorcery, but something that felt unnatural enough that it made his teeth ache.

The air felt thick against his skin, like the huge man was walking through invisible honey saturating the empty space. Each breath he took carried strange scents — ozone and sulfur, roses and rot, incense and blood — all layered atop one another in an impossible and dizzying combination. The stone floor beneath his feet and the bricks that made up the walls were all covered in intricate patterns and sigils that seemed to shift when viewed from the corner of his eye, creating the unsettling impression that the very ground was restless. Rashon didn’t know how to do magic, but he knew more than enough to recognize warding spells… and this room was coated in so many of them that they overlapped again and again and again.

Just inside all of those wards were display case after display case lining the walls. Each of them had iron diamond patterns protecting the glass and were secured with multiple locks and glowing with additional protective wards. Inside them rested weapons, armor, jewelry, and objects Rashon couldn't even identify. A serrated dagger with a blade that dripped continuous blood onto a velvet cushion that never stained. A crown of twisted metal that the Goliath swore he could hear whispering in voices too quiet to understand if he looked at it. A shield bearing the crest of a kingdom that had fallen thousands of years ago, its surface still bearing fresh bloodstains of its last defender.

Rashon knew that some merchants used magic to protect their goods. A single chest or case with a warding spell could cost as much as a full month’s sales for a busy store and would need to be purchased from a Guild Mage, so such things were never done frivolously. Completely forgetting about the items in them, the sheer wealth represented here by just the display cases was staggering.

A cage near the center housed what appeared to be a miniature dragon no larger than a cat but with no wings. The creature fixed them with an unnervingly intelligent gaze before it opened its tiny mouth and emitted a sound somewhere between a child's laugh and a scream of pain. The sound made Rashon's scalp tighten, and he instinctively placed his hand on his warhammer. Other creatures moved in the shadows of their enclosures — things with too many limbs or eyes that followed their movements with predatory interest. A mass of writhing tentacles pressed against the glass of one container, leaving smears of luminescent slime that formed patterns reminiscent of ancient text. From another case came a continuous soft sobbing, though Rashon could see nothing within but darkness.

"By the Twin Moons," Valdis gasped beside him, her scholarly composure cracking. "The magical energy in this room... it's overwhelming. I can feel it pressing against my skin, trying to seep inside." The sorceress's eyes were wide, her fingers tracing protective symbols in the air before her. Rashon wasn’t proud of it, but the movement caused her large breasts to strain against the fabric of her robe and despite his emotions and sorrow he still couldn’t tear his gaze away from their generous swell. She seemed so vulnerable in this obvious place of power. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps, and Rashon could see her struggling to maintain control of her own magical senses in the face of such overwhelming arcane pressure.

Milaena stepped closer to her lover, protective fingers intertwining with Valdis's, her body moving with the fluid grace of a dancer. The priestess's slender form pressed protectively against her sorceress lover, her white-gold hair contrasting beautifully with Valdis's auburn locks as she sheltered the beautiful woman from the oppressive magical atmosphere with the white glow of her magic. The priestess's expression was guarded, her posture tense as her eyes scanned the room, likely looking for threats to her companions — and perhaps assessing whether this place represented a danger to their souls as well as their bodies. "How did you acquire such items?" she asked Adeliah, both awe and suspicion evident in her tone. "Some of these artifacts radiate power that should make them... extremely potent weapons of war. The Iron Overlords have declared that all such items belong to the Iron Empire. Armies would kill for items such as these."

Adeliah moved through the impossible space with casual familiarity, seemingly unaffected by the oppressive magical atmosphere that had Valdis practically gasping for breath. She trailed her fingers along the edge of a display case containing what appeared to be a simple wooden flute, though the case was secured with more locks and wards than many of the more obviously dangerous items. "People do kill for these items," she replied, her earlier warmth replaced by professional detachment. "They kill others. Too often, they kill themselves. The price is always high." She tapped the glass above the flute. "This belonged to a bard who could charm any listener into doing his bidding. He used it to make kings gift him their crowns and women open themselves to him. When he grew bored with that, he began making people hurt themselves for his amusement."

She moved to another case, this one containing a simple metal ring. "This makes its wearer invisible to all living eyes. Its previous owner used it to become the most successful assassin in three kingdoms. He slit the throats of sleeping children to punish their parents. The ring drove him mad in the end — made him believe he had become truly disconnected from the world… a wraith in truth. He starved to death because he forgot his body needed sustenance."

She met Milaena’s eyes. "The Iron Empire would indeed love to claim these. Preventing that from happening is my task, passed down from parent to child for generations.”

“Then why not put them in the hands of the Empire's enemies?” Daerreth's voice was a strained whisper, cracking with a rawness that spoke of his haunted dreams and old wounds. He seemed unable to digest the immensity of Adeliah's collection, and his rage found expression in desperation. “Think of what we could have done with even one of these. We could have saved so many! Acalia and Vashara wouldn’t be…” He choked on the memory, anger and grief mingling, and forced himself to swallow the bitterness.

Adeliah turned her head slightly and her eyes softened slightly. “I could do that… and sometimes I do," she said softly. "But giving them out comes with a cost. Normally, the Iron Overseers would chase artifacts like these to the ends of the world… there is a reason I can get away with taking these out of the world and keeping them from the Iron Empire. A reason no one looks too hard to find the missing artifacts.” She ran her fingertips along the polished surface of a case, her touch tender as if she were petting a venomous snake. “They’re cursed. Every last one of them is cursed.” Her fingers splayed out on the glass. “They have power, but all that power comes with a sinister price that its bearer must pay. It is my sworn duty to collect and contain these objects, keeping them from causing even more harm than they might prevent."

She gestured to a case that contained a huge claymore, the blade a sickly green. It pulsed slowly like a heartbeat. “This? Its owner was a mighty general. His enemies fled when he raised it against them. But it demanded the death of his own soldiers for every foe it slew. His army deserted him after countless brothers fell in the night, each killed by their own comrades. He was captured and tortured, and he cursed the blade with his final breath.”

Her eyes swept over the companions, taking in the weight of their disbelief. Adeliah watched them without malice as they struggled to understand the gravity of her words. "Almost everything in this room would cause more harm than it could hope to prevent if I let it out of its prison. I am sworn to keep them away from the world, and collect more of them… bringing people peace."

"And what do you get out of it?" Daerreth asked, his voice tight with suspicion. The fire genasi's hair flickered more intensely in this place, the flames reflecting in his wary eyes. "Nobody does something this dangerous out of the goodness of their heart."

Adeliah's smile returned, though it didn't reach her eyes. "Let's just say I prefer these items to be in my collection rather than out in the world. I have to live in this world, after all.” Adeliah approached one of the smaller cases, conflict evident in the tight line of her mouth. Her movements were more hesitant now, lacking the casual confidence she'd displayed earlier. She seemed uncertain, as if she hadn’t made up her mind about what she was doing here yet. Then she took a deep breath and settled her shoulders. "If I heard correctly, you have friends in need of rescue? Friends the Empire is hurting? Captured trying to help?”

Rashon exchanged glances with his companions. Admitting that, to the wrong person, could lead to an immediate death sentence… But what choice did they have? He gave a single, curt nod. "It is as you say."

"Your situation is... exceptional," she said. “You are bringing good into the world. Your companions, if rescued, would bring further good into the world.” Adeliah hesitated for a pair of heartbeats, then she nodded her head with finality. "Perhaps an exception can be made. Surely this will not cause too much harm…"

She took five steps over to a single display case. It was simple compared to many others in the room — a simple pedestal of dark wood with a plain glass box with a wrought spiderweb of metal inside of it. The glass had been shaped around the metal, granting it strength. Rashon’s hands were too big to make something so delicate, so he could only imagine the skill it took to craft. The protective wards surrounding it glowed with a sickly yellow light, pulsing slowly like the heartbeat of a dying creature. Inside, laid out on black velvet, was what appeared to be nothing more than a simple leather glove, unremarkable in every way.

Rashon frowned. After seeing weapons that wept blood and jewelry that whispered madness, a common glove seemed almost insulting. "What good will that do against armed soldiers?" he growled.

Adeliah didn't answer immediately. Instead, she produced a key from within her bodice. She inserted it into a lock on the door, and the wards around the case flickered and went out, no longer glowing. The moment the protective magic fell, the air in the chamber grew noticeably heavier. A metallic taste filled Rashon's mouth, and he heard Valdis make a small, distressed sound behind him. Even Milaena, whose divine connection typically shielded her from minor magical discomforts, grimaced slightly.

Adeliah visibly winced as she reached inside the case. Her fingers closed around the glove, and for an instant — so brief Rashon thought he might have imagined it — her form seemed to shimmer, becoming translucent enough that he could see the outline of her skeleton beneath her flesh. Then she was solid again, though her face had gone pale.

She tossed the glove toward them, the movement abrupt, as if she couldn't bear to touch it a moment longer. "Catch," she said simply.

Acting on instinct, Rashon snatched it from the air. The moment his fingers closed around the leather, he nearly dropped it again. The glove felt wrong — cold and somehow slick against his skin despite being dry to the touch. It was the sensation of touching something dead yet still somehow alive, of feeling something that existed in defiance of natural laws. Magic radiated from it like heat from a forge, but twisted and unclean, making his palm itch and his fingers tingle unpleasantly.

"What is this?" he demanded, fighting the urge to fling the thing away from him.

"A glove of deflection," Adeliah explained, wiping her hand against her skirt as if trying to remove some invisible residue. With every passing heartbeat the air in the room slowly shifted back towards normal, like opening the case had triggered an outpouring of energy that had been long contained and gone stale, and it was now dissipating. "When activated by the wearer clenching his fist, it will deflect all metal away from you for a full hour. Most meaningfully, blades, arrows, spears — anything with a metal tip won’t be able to make contact with you.”

Daerreth stepped closer, his eyes widening with desperate hope. "You mean we’d be invulnerable? We could walk right into the garrison and free Vashara and Acalia without resistance?"

"Not all of you," Adeliah corrected. "Just the wearer. And not invulnerable. Wood, stone, sorcery, bare hands — any of those could still harm the wearer. But yes. It would let him treat most normal weapons of the Iron Legions like useless toys against him."

"That sounds wonderful, but you said these items were cursed," Milaena said, eyeing the glove with visible distrust. The priestess kept one protective arm around Valdis, as if physically shielding her lover from the glove's influence. "What price does this one demand?"

"It is cursed," Adeliah confirmed. "The magic only activates after its price has been paid. This one isn't too bad compared to others in my collection, but it's still... distasteful." She hesitated before continuing, her eyes shifting away from them. "To activate it, the wearer must apply the blood of a virgin woman's broken hymen to the palm."

A heavy silence fell over the group. Rashon looked down at the glove in his massive hand, revulsion and necessity warring within him. The leather seemed to pulse against his palm, almost eager, as if it knew what terrible bargain it offered and delighted in the moral quandary it presented. He had no remaining doubts that the item did what Adeliah said — he could feel the power of the item he held. Blood magic. His mouth twisted in hatred. The Blood Sorcery of House Nightweave had enslaved him, and been responsible for the fall of his people and the collar he had once worn around his neck. Among Rashon's mountain tribe, such practices had been forbidden on pain of exile. To use such a thing went against everything his ancestors had taught him.

But they were all gone.

And Acalia was suffering now.

So was Vashara.

Every moment they delayed was another moment their friends endured torture and violation at imperial hands. Was his spiritual purity worth more than their lives?

The weight of the decision pressed down on him like a mountain. He wanted to reject the glove, to maintain the principles that separated him from the empire they fought against. But if he'd learned anything since the fall of his tribe, it was that principles alone wouldn't save anyone. Sometimes survival required compromise. Sometimes rescue required sacrifice.

"So, we're using it, right?" Daerreth was the first to break the silence, desperation clear in his voice. He stepped forward, reaching for the glove. "Give it to me. I'll do whatever it takes to save Vashara."

Rashon moved the glove away from the genasi's grasping fingers. "No. I must do it.” The young man's eyes were red-rimmed from crying over Vashara, and Rashon recognized the look of a man willing to do anything to save what he loved. That kind of desperation led to mistakes, to recklessness. “You are too small,” Rashon said softly, putting a hand of Daerreth’s shoulders. “The one who wears this thing must be prepared to bash through anything that gets in the way. I can do that. You can’t.”

Daerreth looked like it would have hurt less if Rashon brought the warhammer down on his head, and right then and there Rashon promised himself that he wouldn’t let his doubts about what his people would have said about this get in the way. His friend… his brother… was counting on him. “Fear not,” Rashon said firmly. “I will save her. I promise I will act as you would, were you two feet taller.”

“Whatever you choose, your choice is final,” Adeliah warned them. “You will not be able to take the glove off once you put it on. You’d have to cut off the hand.”

"Are you sure about this?" Milaena asked softly.

In answer, Rashon slid the glove onto his right hand. The leather immediately conformed to his size, stretching and reshaping until it fit perfectly, as if it had been crafted specifically for him. The sensation was unnerving, like having a second skin that wasn't quite his own — something alien yet intimately connected to him. The wrongness of it made his stomach churn, but he forced the feeling down. "I'll do what's necessary," Rashon rumbled. "Acalia didn’t abandon me in Ferronatus. I will not abandon her now."

The glove seemed to tighten slightly around his hand, not painfully but noticeably, like an acknowledgment of his commitment. For a brief, disturbing moment, he felt it pulse in time with his heartbeat, as if the thing were alive and somehow attuning itself to him. "Once you get the… activation material… put it on a finger. Then clench your fist to brush it against the palm and trigger the device.” Adeliah instructed, her voice carefully neutral. "The protection will last precisely one hour. Not a second more. Time it carefully."

"And the price?" Milaena pressed. "Beyond the... initial requirement. What else will it take from him?"

Adeliah's eyes met Rashon's and he saw something like compassion in their depths. "Nothing physical. Nothing permanent… not compared to some of the darker items I keep in gaol here. But you'll remember what you did to activate it… that someone else bled for your protection.” She paused. "Can you live with that?"

Rashon thought of Vashara, gentle despite her power, now suffering unimaginable violation. He thought of Acalia, of all she had endured — Tortured and raped by the Blood Mages of the Empire, her wings sheared from her body, years in fighting pits, now being tortured by the Empire once again. What was his conscience compared to their lives if he could stop that?

"I can live with it," he said firmly.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-

Sanguis was close to setting and the second moon Lumaria was rising into the sky to replace it by the time they emerged from Adeliah’s wagon. That marked the time as False Dawn, and the sky was growing significantly brighter. Some of the merchant wagons were beginning to come back to life, taking advantage of the four hours of bright moon light that would enable them to work. Outside, the ordinary world seemed strangely dull and flat after the impossible space they'd just left, and Rashon's massive hand felt heavier with the glove now attached to it. It shouldn’t have — the glove was so light, it was hard to remember that it was even there. Its weight, however, was more spiritual than physical, and it clung to his skin like a parasite. Just like it always would.

The four heroes gathered in a tight circle a short distance from Adeliah's wagon, voices lowered despite the relative privacy. The topic at hand was not one to be overheard by casual passersby. "Where are we even going to find a virgin woman?" Valdis asked, her scholarly mind already working on the problem despite her obvious discomfort. Her fingers twisted nervously in the fabric of her robe. "And how would we even... confirm such a thing without being utterly reprehensible?"

Rashon stared down at the glove, trying to ignore the way it seemed to pulse occasionally against his skin, as if eager for the sacrifice it required. The leather felt warm now, almost fevered, though he couldn't tell if that was the artifact's magic or just his own discomfort manifesting physically. "We don't have time for much delicacy," he rumbled, hating the words even as he spoke them. "Acalia and Vashara are suffering now. Every moment we delay is another moment they—" He couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't put into words the horrors his friends were likely enduring. The thought of Acalia's broken fingers made his chest tighten with rage and grief. “We just have to come out and ask.”

Daerreth turned to the women. "What about one of you two? Neither of you likes men, right? Surely one of you must—"

Milaena cut him off with a roll of her eyes. "We're lesbians, Daerreth. Not virgins." She sighed. “And I’ve been riding horses since I was nine years old — I haven't had a hymen since I was thirteen. And Valdis..." she trailed off, glancing at her lover.

"Also not an option," Valdis confirmed quietly, her cheeks flushing as she avoided meeting Daerreth's eyes. "There are many ways to break a hymen that have nothing to do with men."

Daerreth's flames dimmed slightly as he ran a hand through his fire-hair. "Right. Sorry. I wasn't thinking."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the group. Rashon shifted his weight, acutely aware of how his massive form towered over the others. Among his own people, his size had been a source of pride. Here, among the smaller races, it only served to mark him as different, dangerous, other.

"We're in a merchant caravan," Daerreth finally said. "There must be daughters of merchants. Young women who haven't yet been married off. And if we there’s one thing we know about merchants, it’s that they love selling things."

"You mean we just ask around for virgins?" Valdis’s voice rose slightly before she caught herself, lowering it again. "Somehow I don't think that approach will win us many friends."

"It could work." Milaena said decisively. "Look for merchants with daughters of appropriate age. Men, preferably. Offer coin for 'assistance with a delicate matter.' Be discreet but clear about what we need." She met each of their eyes in turn. "And remember what's at stake. Acalia and Vashara would do the same for any of us."

They nodded grimly and separated, each heading to a different section of the encampment.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-

Rashon made his way toward where he could smell food cooking. Anyone who was trying to serve food to the other wagons might be food vendors, and such people often employed young women as servers or assistants. The glove seemed to grow warmer with each step, as if anticipating its activation.

The first stall he approached fell silent as he neared. The middle-aged woman tending it stared at him with undisguised fear, her hand moving to a knife at her belt. The two young girls behind her — daughters, perhaps, or apprentices — shrank back, eyes wide. "I mean no harm," Rashon said, trying to make his deep voice as gentle as possible. "I seek to hire someone for a task. It pays well."

"We want no business with your kind," the woman replied, her voice tight. "Move along before I call for the caravan guards."

Rashon stepped back, keeping his hands visible, trying to appear non-threatening — a nearly impossible task given his eight-foot height and warrior's build. "My apologies," he murmured, turning away to try his luck elsewhere… but a variation of this scene repeated itself with painful consistency at every stall and wagon he approached. Some vendors were openly hostile, others politely fearful, but the result was the same. No one would speak with him long enough to hear his request, let alone consider it. Women gathered their skirts and stepped away when he passed. Men placed protective hands on their weapons.

At one wagon, he spotted a young woman who might have been the right age, sitting alone mending a shirt. He approached carefully, moving slowly to avoid startling her. "Excuse me," he began. "I'm looking for—"

She looked up, saw him, and screamed. The sound cut through the market noise like a knife, drawing immediate attention. A burly man — her father, most likely—burst from the wagon, holding the haft of an axe. Two other men materialized from nearby stalls, all converging on Rashon with the practiced coordination of people who had dealt with threats before.

"I wasn't—" Rashon started to explain, but the men weren't interested in explanations. They advanced, weapons ready, forcing him to back away.

"Get away from my daughter, you monster," the father growled. "We don't want your kind here."

Rashon retreated, burning with shame and frustration. He hadn't even been able to state his business, let alone make his request. The cursed glove seemed to mock him with each step, its presence a constant reminder of his failure.

He found a relatively quiet spot between two wagons and leaned against a wooden crate, trying to calm the storm of emotions raging within him. This wasn't about him, he reminded himself. This was about Acalia and Vashara. His pride didn't matter. His comfort didn't matter. Only their rescue mattered.

And yet, he couldn't help but feel the bitter sting of rejection. It had been… god, years… since he'd seen another Goliath even as a slave, more than a decade since he'd been among his own people. The Empire had been thorough in their extermination of the mountain tribes. Sometimes, in his darkest moments, he wondered if he was the last of his kind — a living relic of a people who would never return. That isolation had never felt more acute than now, as he watched humans, elves, and other races interact freely while he remained apart.

It had been a very long time since he'd had a woman. Most prostitutes refused him, afraid his size would cause them injury. The few who had agreed had approached the act with such obvious trepidation that it had left him feeling more beast than man. He still remembered the last time he'd attempted to purchase companionship. The madam had looked him up and down, her eyes lingering on the bulge in his trousers, and had laughed. "You'd split my girls in half with that monster," she'd said, not unkindly but matter-of-factly. "Try the livestock instead."

The memory burned, even now. He was a warrior, a survivor of his people's genocide, not an animal to be directed toward beasts for relief. He had walked away from that brothel with his spine straight and his face impassive, but something inside him had broken that day — a final connection to normal life severed. He'd eventually stopped trying, channeling his natural desires into battle rage instead.

Even among his companions, he was the outsider — respected for his strength but he wasn’t sure he ever truly belonged. The cursed glove seemed to pulse in time with his darkening thoughts, as if feeding on his misery. He wished that he could tear it off… but the reason he had put it on was the same reason he did belong. Acalia. He did belong when she was around, and the thought of the beautiful, brave woman in chains again was agonizing. His discomfort was nothing compared to what she was enduring. His humiliation was a small price to pay for her freedom.

He pushed himself away from the crate, prepared to try again despite the futility, when he felt a light touch on his arm. Turning, he found Milaena standing behind him, her expression a reassuring smile. "Come," she said simply, her hand resting on his forearm — the first casual touch he'd received since before they’d gone into the garrison. "Daerreth found someone."

Relief and dread mingled in his chest as he followed the priestess through the growing shadows of early evening. The glove seemed to vibrate against his skin now, anticipation radiating from the cursed leather. Soon it would have what it wanted. Soon they would have what they needed.

Milaena led Rashon through the maze of wagons to a small, weathered caravan parked at the edge of the encampment. Daerreth stood beside a balding human merchant whose expensive clothes couldn't quite hide the shabbiness beneath the surface. He wore expensive golden rings, but his fingers were stained with dirt, and his silk vest was patched with chunks of rougher fabric, stretched over an expansive belly well-fed by teeth that were near-rotten away. The merchant's eyes gleamed with avarice as he counted the coins Daerreth had placed in his palm, testing each one with his remaining teeth as if he couldn't quite believe his good fortune.

The sound of Rashon’s heavy footsteps drew attention. The merchant looked up at the sound, his eyes widening momentarily at Rashon's size before quickly recalculating, likely wondering if he should have asked for more coin. "This is him?" the merchant asked Daerreth, gesturing toward Rashon with a flick of his chin. “He’ll kill her!”

"He’s not going to fuck her," Daerreth said exasperated, his voice tight with barely controlled desperation. The genasi's eyes were haunted, his fiery hair burning low and dull like embers nearly extinguished. "We’re not going to hurt her. We’ll be... gentle."

The merchant's mouth curved into a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Rashon was pretty sure the man didn’t believe him… but he wanted the money. "Then my daughter will help you. Your price is worth it." He pocketed the coins with practiced smoothness, then turned toward the wagon. "Mara! Get out here, girl! It's time to earn your keep!"

A moment later, the wagon's door creaked open, and a young woman stepped out. The girl couldn't have been more than eighteen, her eyes downcast, fingers nervously plucking at the frayed hem of her dress. She was thin — too thin, really — with the pallor of someone who hadn't seen enough sunlight or consumed enough food. Her brown hair hung limply around a face that might have been pretty in different circumstances, with kinder care.

"These fine folks need your... assistance," the merchant said with lustful cheer, placing a hand on his daughter's shoulder that made her flinch almost imperceptibly. His fingers dug into her flesh as he spoke, a gesture of ownership rather than affection. "They’re going to turn you into a woman today."

She showed neither enthusiasm nor outright refusal — merely resignation, the look of someone who had long ago learned that her life and her body were not truly her own. She, like many freemen of the Empire, lived in the shadows of those more important than her. For her, that included her father. She kept her eyes on the ground, shoulders hunched slightly as if trying to make herself smaller, less noticeable.

Rashon felt sick. They were buying some poor girl's virginity. Among his tribe, such a transaction would be unthinkable. Among his tribe, women were warriors, leaders, shamans… equals in all things. Their bodies were their own to give or withhold as they chose… but it had to be given. Selling their bodies was shameful, and especially the first union between lovers was to be celebrated, a joyful rite of passage surrounded by ritual and meaning. It was not something that should be sold by a father for a handful of coins.

But Acalia and Vashara were suffering worse indignities with each passing moment. Their bodies were being violated not for coin but for cruel pleasure, broken and abused by men who saw them as objects to be abused, trophies to be conquered. How could he prioritize his moral comfort over their lives? Besides, hadn't he just been thinking about how he'd tried to hire whores in the past? What was the difference? The hypocrisy of his own disgust wasn't lost on him. Was his outrage merely because he wouldn’t get any gratification from this transaction?

He swallowed his disgust and tried to ignore the way the girl seemed unhappy about this arrangement. Acalia was counting on him. Vashara was counting on him.

"I'll be gentle," he promised the girl, keeping his voice low and soft despite its natural rumble. He tried to catch her eye, to convey through his gaze what he couldn't say aloud with her father present — that he would treat her with as much respect as this disrespectful situation allowed.

She nodded once, still not meeting his eyes, and turned back toward the wagon. Rashon followed, having to duck significantly to enter through the small door. He heard Milaena's voice behind him, speaking to the merchant in tones too low to distinguish, but the cold edge in the priestess's voice suggested she was making her displeasure known in one way or another.

Inside was a narrow cot, the blankets threadbare but clean. A small oil lamp provided the only illumination, casting long shadows across the cramped interior. There was barely enough room for Rashon to stand upright, forcing him to hunch uncomfortably, his shoulders brushing against the curved ceiling.

The girl — Mara — stood with her back to him, her posture rigid with tension. The silence stretched between them, uncomfortable and heavy.

"I just need..." Rashon struggled to explain, his massive hands suddenly feeling too large, too clumsy for such a delicate task. How could he put into words what he required without making this already terrible situation worse? "There's magic that needs... I don't need to... I don't want to hurt you."

"I know what you need," she whispered, her voice surprisingly steady as she turned to face him, though she still wouldn't meet his eyes. "My father has been trying to sell me for months." Her tone was matter-of-fact, empty of emotion in a way that spoke volumes about what her life must be like. She lay back on the cot, the thin mattress sagging beneath even her slight weight - a hollow between hipbones sharp enough to catch moonlight and collarbones that formed twin valleys above the swell of child-sized breasts straining against translucent skin. With an emptiness that struck Rashon like a physical blow, the girl removed her clothing piece by piece: narrow wrists rotating with marionette precision as fabric slipped from legs like peeled willow shoots down to ankles that might vanish between his thumb and forefinger. Her final exposure left nothing hidden - rosebud nipples drawn tight by cold or fear above a concave stomach shifting with shallow breath, down to smooth vulva folds gleaming bare as plum blossoms in winter, so artificially hairless he could see the faint pressure marks where some blade had scraped adolescent softness into compliance. “Please… don’t hurt me…”

Her fragility roared in his ears as she turned away. It was impossible to ignore how his calloused hand could practically wrap around the narrowest point of her waist, how those sparrow-wing shoulder blades would cave under a single palm's weight. Even trembling made art of her form - jasmine-pale thighs revealing subtle muscle tension when she shifted slightly, teacup breasts trembling not with ripe fullness but anxious respiration, making shadows pool where ribs threatened to breach their paper prison of flesh. Mara's clinical nudity hung between them like an indictment - not of desire, but of power measured in centimeter gaps between his knuckles and her doll-jointed waist. Mara turned her face to the side as if already resigned to this particular humiliation, a single tear escaping to stain the pillow beneath her. Her expression was turned inward in a way that made him think she was escaping into some safer place, somewhere they couldn't reach her, even as her body lay exposed and vulnerable.

It was a look he knew too well. He had seen it on many slaves. He had seen it on Acalia.

“I’ll be gentle,” he said, moving forward. Rashon wished, desperately, that this could have happened differently, that they hadn't been forced into such a shameful transaction. He wondered how many times her father had tried to sell her like this, and he hated this world, this empire where the choice for someone like Mara was to die or allow herself to be treated like merchandise.

Rashon knelt awkwardly beside the cot, his frame too large for the confined space. He dwarfed her. His knees pressed painfully against the wooden floor, his head brushing the ceiling even in this position. The girl's thighs were pale and thin, trembling slightly as she exposed herself to him. He tried to avert his eyes as much as possible, giving her what little dignity he could in this undignified moment… gods knew he didn’t have much of his own to spare.

"I'll be quick," he murmured, putting his newly gloved index fingers into his mouth. He tried not to think about how thick they were before he carefully brought them between her legs. He kept his touch as gentle as he could, acutely aware of how massive his hand must seem to her, how threatening his size and strength could appear. Mara was dry and tense, her body instinctively resisting the intrusion. Guilt gnawed at him as he felt her flinch when his finger pressed against her entrance. He paused, giving her time to adjust, trying to be as considerate as possible in a situation that allowed for little true consideration.

"Does your father beat you?" he asked suddenly, the question escaping before he could consider its wisdom.

For the first time, she looked directly at him, surprise momentarily overcoming her resignation. "Only when I deserve it," she answered softly, then looked away again. "Just do it. Please. Before he comes to check."

The words — and the acceptance behind them — made Rashon's chest tighten with anger. He wondered what this merchant's "discipline" entailed, what abuse this girl had endured that made his current task seem routine by comparison. He wanted to storm out, to confront the father, to break the man's hands so he could never strike his daughter again. But the caravan barely tolerated him as it was, and they didn’t have time… Acalia and Vashara suffered worse than Mara did every single second he delayed. She might be hurting, but one act of violence wouldn't change the system that allowed fathers to sell their daughters' bodies. Saving Acalia and Vashara could change that.

"Just do it," she whispered again, closing her eyes tight, a single tear escaping down her cheek. "Get it over with."

Rashon pushed his finger inward as gently as his warrior's hands would allow. He felt the resistance of her maidenhead, the thin membrane stretching against his intrusion. With a quick, decisive movement meant to minimize her pain, he pushed through.

The girl gasped, her body tensing. A small trickle of blood coated his fingertip. Rashon immediately withdrew, falling back, being sure to keep his hand spread wide… he wouldn’t touch the palm with the blood. "Thank you," he said inadequately to the softly crying girl, unable to meet her eyes, shame burning in his chest despite the necessity of their transaction. "It's done."

He ducked out of the wagon, the blood on his fingertip already beginning to dry in the cool evening air. The cursed glove seemed to vibrate against his skin, as if eager for its activation. Milaena stood a short distance away, her posture rigid, face set in the stone-cold expression she wore when dealing with situations that offended her sense of justice but which she could not immediately rectify.

When she saw him emerge, she moved swiftly to his side, placing a gentle hand on his arm. "It's done?" she asked quietly.

Rashon nodded once, not trusting himself to speak. A complicated mix of emotions churned within him — disgust at what he'd participated in, hatred for the merchant who would sell his own daughter, determination to make it worth something by rescuing their friends. "Don't clench your fist until we're ready to attack," Milaena reminded him, her tone professional, focused on the task ahead rather than the moral compromise behind them. "We have exactly one hour once you activate it. Not a moment more."

Valdis and Daerreth joined them, their expressions grim but resolute. No one spoke of what had just transpired. No one needed to. They all carried the weight of it, feeling like they had been part of something dirty tonight. But Acalia would have done the same for them. Vashara would have done the same. Surely that was true.

"Let's go," Rashon rumbled, carefully keeping his right hand unclenched as they turned toward the forest… and the imperial garrison on the other side of it.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-

Lumaria had long since set by the time they reached the other edge of the forest, allowing the darkness of the Dead Time to fully claim the world. Now, and for the next handspan of hours, there would be barely a light in the sky save for intermittent stars twinkling. Even so, Rashon could see the imperial garrison looming before them like a crouching beast. Torchlight illuminated the stone walls in uneven patches, creating pools of orange light separated by impenetrable shadow. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter in pairs, their armor gleaming dully in the flickering light, swords and spears at the ready. Rashon, for the ten-thousandth time, checked to make sure the bloodstain was still on his fingertip… the reminder of the price already paid for what they were about to attempt.

"Stay behind me," Rashon commanded his companions as they crouched at the edge of the woods, studying the garrison's defenses. He recognized the layout from their previous failed assault — the same watchtowers, the same gate, the same patrol patterns. That familiarity was both comforting and unsettling. They had failed here before. Acalia and Vashara had paid the price for that failure. They wouldn’t be able to sneak in again… this time, they would need to smash their way straight through, and do it quickly enough that the mages couldn’t be organized in sufficient number to get through Milaena and Valdis’s countermeasures.

"When I move, follow quickly. Don't get separated." His voice was low, but carried the weight of certainty. Years in the empire's slave legions had taught him discipline, if nothing else. Milaena knelt beside him, her white-gold hair gleaming even in the darkness. "I'll focus on shielding us from anyone that gets around him," she murmured. "Valdis, if you see a mage, try to kill them. Those are the biggest threats.”

The sorceress nodded, her innocent face set in determined lines. "I'll call lightning when needed. Just keep them off me long enough to complete the incantations."

Daerreth checked his daggers one final time, the blades catching the distant torchlight with deadly promise. "I'll make sure anyone who runs into your wards dies before they can get to us on his flank,” the Genasi said firmly, his eyes hard.

Rashon nodded, satisfied with their strategy. It wasn’t much of a plan… they had put far less time and planning into this assault than they had the last one. This time though, they had the glove. If they hurried, it might not matter if they were outnumbered a hundred to one, at least not for long enough to let them save their friends.

Rashon took a deep breath, steadying himself. The girl's face flashed in his mind — her resignation, her quiet dignity in the face of exploitation. He pushed the image away. Time for guilt later. Time for atonement later. Now was the time for violence.

He nodded, took a deep breath, and then clenched his massive fist.

The virgin’s blood seemed to liquify again as it brushed the palm of the glove, like the leather itself was drinking it in greedily. Immediately the glove grew warmer, pulsing against his skin with an almost hungry sensation. The dried blood melted into the leather, disappearing completely within seconds with no visible trace. Power surged through him immediately. Not like the natural strength his ancestors had infused him with, or the muscular might that came from a Goliath’s frame, but something alien and cold that encased him like armor. The glove tightened around his hand, the leather feeling like it was fusing with his skin. A faint nimbus of sickly yellow light surrounded him for a moment before fading from sight, though he could still feel it clinging to his body like an oily film. The sensation was disorienting — a constant pressure against his skin, as if he were submerged in water but could still breathe normally. His movements felt slightly slower, slightly delayed, like he was pushing against an invisible resistance. But with that resistance came certainty, an unnatural confidence of his invulnerability.

It was working.

"Now!" he roared, breaking cover. With a strict time limit and the garrison already on alert, it was no good trying to sneak in the way they had before. That and he had already broken down the main gate. Now he charged for it with long, loping strides, cutting through the pitch black night like a Shadow Drake on the prowl. The guards barely had time to see him in the flickering torchlight and shout warnings before Rashon was upon them, swinging his warhammer in a devastating arc. The massive weapon whistled through the air with lethal purpose, connected with the first guard's chest with a sickening crunch that crushed the man's breastplate and the ribcage beneath it. The guard crumpled without making another sound, dead before he hit the ground.

The second guard recovered quickly, thrusting his spear directly at Rashon's heart — only for the blade to cut through the fabric of his shirt before it skittered harmless off his skin. It looked like boots sliding across thick winter ice as the metal glided away with no friction, repelled by the magic of his new glove. Rashon felt the impact as a dull pressure, but no pain, no penetration.

The guard's eyes widened in shock and disbelief for just a moment before Rashon's fist connected with his jaw, sending him flying backward into the wall with bone-shattering force. Blood and teeth sprayed from the man's shattered face, but the Goliath couldn’t be bothered with him anymore. He had bigger problems. More guards rushed forward, alerted by the commotion. Swords were drawn, bows nocked, and the Iron Legion attacked. The first volley of arrows flew toward Rashon, only to strike him and suddenly stop as they hit his skin, skittering away. Most deflected, clattering harmlessly to the ground or embedding themselves in the walls and ground behind him, but a few hit directly and the shafts splintered into a shower of wooden fragments. Several of them sliced through his thick skin like needles, and Rashon winced… in that, too, Adeliah had been speaking true. The spell provided no protection at all from anything but metal.

Behind him, Milaena's prayers summoned bursts of divine light that blinded their enemies. The priestess moved with determined focus and impeccable grace, her incantations creating barriers of shimmering energy that deflected attacks meant for Valdis and Daerreth. The latter darted through the confusion like a living flame, his daggers finding vulnerable points in armor with deadly precision as soldiers tried to flow around Rashon. With the Goliath almost invulnerable, Milaena was free to focus almost all of her efforts on protecting just the Fire Genasi, and the frustration of soldiers trying to attack him showed how effective her defenses were.

Valdis's fingers wove complex patterns as she conjured slim ribbons of elemental fire. She sent them out like streamers, herding soldiers into tight groups that either got them out of the way or made them easier targets for follow-up spells. Her usually gentle, shy face was transformed by concentration, eyes glowing with arcane power as she channeled the Aetheric currents.

They had just been here before, fighting through this very garrison. It seemed so odd to be back, retracing the steps of their failure. But this time was different. This time, Rashon was untouchable. A sword swung at his neck with enough force to decapitate him, only to stop against his skin as if he had struck solid steel. The force behind the blow made Rashon take a step to keep his balance, but the huge Goliath wasn’t overly bothered. He couldn’t say the same about the soldier who had struck him: The soldier stared in disbelief, his momentary confusion costing him his life a moment later when Rashon's warhammer caved in his skull.

The sudden scent of something rotten was Rashon’s only warning of Aetheric energy surging before a column of flame roared across the courtyard, lapping at him with a mage's deadly intent. He barely had time to raise his shield, bracing against the wave of searing heat. Even through the protection of Milaena's magic and his own armor, Rashon felt the burn… his new artifact could do nothing to protect him from such an attack.

“Mage!” Milaena's voice rang out in sharp warning, alerting the others. A second spear of fire tore across the courtyard. Milaena screamed, an incongruously fierce noise for the serene woman, and a brilliant white barrier rose before him and the fiery spell. Light flared as the two magics contested with one another… but the priestess’s ward could only slow and weaken the flame, not stop it. It bought Rashon time enough to hunker down beneath the metal shield, hoping it would hold long enough for him to survive. Even with all the strength and endurance his ancestors granted him, Rashon still felt the force of the magic as it strained against Milaena’s ward and the fire licked around the edges of his shield, burning his arms. The shield itself began to glow orange as it absorbed the punishing heat.

Soldiers rushed him, seeing their chance while he was under attack. Rashon barely had time to register Valdis weaving her hands together in a complex knot before he turned and batted their guard aside, barely pausing to register how the metal swords rang against his invulnerable skin before tilting the shield towards them and letting the flames splashing off it it reflect back onto them. The men screamed as they burned, and Rashon showed them no mercy.

Valdis cried out in incantation, and Rashon was momentarily blinded by the flash of a lightning as it lanced from the auburn-haired woman’s outstretched fingertips. The lethal white skyfire left an afterimage burned into his eyes as it streaked across the courtyard. For a moment, Valdis’s sorcery lit up the entire courtyard, revealing how many soldiers were coming out of the gates, and how little time they had left here before they were overrun. Then Rashon saw the lightning strike a man in the darkness, and for a split second, he could see the man burn so intensely that his skeleton was visible through his skin. Then the fire streaming towards him cut off abruptly with the mage’s death.

“There will be more!” Daerreth warned, his voice as sharp as his blades. The Genasi was already in motion, twin daggers glinting as he darted around Rashon in lethal circles, making sure no soldier had a chance to get close to Valdis or Milaena.

Power surged through Rashon, cold and alien. He hardly felt the heft of his massive warhammer as he swung it, crushing the skull of an approaching soldier and sending blood and brain matter splattering across the stone walls. As more soldiers came, he cleared a path with devastating efficiency, focusing on the immediate threat that iron weapons posed to his three friends behind him. They were coming in from all sides, but the more soldiers there were, the less able they were to avoid his massive swings.

“We need to move!” Valdis urged, her urgency cutting through the din of battle. She sent another stream of flame arching across the courtyard as a fresh group of soldiers poured out of a door, forcing them to retreat back from its entrance. Her wards kept them safe for now, but every second was precious.

"Don't stop! Keep pushing forward," Rashon shouted, urging his companions on with his deep, rumbling voice. He felt more than saw as Daerreth slid in beside him, the smaller man's knives slicing through the gaps in armor with deadly precision, opening up bleeding wounds in those he fought that would take them out of the battle in less than a minute. He was counting on those wounds being fatal. Milaena's voice rose in prayer, and another wave of divine energy pulsed out from her, blinding the men before they could recover and counterattack. The four heroes fought ferociously and left dozens of broken bodies in their wake, using Rashon’s magically protected body as a shield.

A particularly large soldier, wearing the heavier armor of a squad leader, charged at Rashon with a battle axe raised high. The goliath didn't even bother dodging, instead focusing on smashing two other soldiers, and so the axe descended with bone-splitting force — and stopped cold against the impenetrable barrier his skin had become. It forced Rashon to his knees, making him grunt in pain, but it had almost as much of an effect on the soldier looking like he had punched a brick ball with everything he had. He dropped the ax with a cry of pain. Rashon took advantage of the man’s sudden weakness and seized him by the throat with his gloved hand, lifting him off the ground as easily as a child might lift a doll. The soldier kicked and struggled, his booted feet connecting with Rashon's chest, but the damage was minimal compared to what a blade would have done.

"Where are you keeping them!?” Rashon roared, squeezing just enough to restrict airflow without crushing the man's windpipe. Blood from earlier kills dripped down his arms, staining the soldier's armor where the Goliath gripped him. “The rebels you captured tonight! Where are they!”

When the soldier hesitated, Rashon slammed him against the stone wall, hard enough to rattle teeth and crack ribs. "Answer me!" he roared, his patience exhausted by the knowledge that every second delayed was another second Acalia and Vashara suffered.

"Barracks!" the man gasped, his eyes bulging with fear. "The soldiers' barracks! North side of the compound!" He pointed a trembling hand in the general direction.

Rashon nodded once, acknowledgment and sentence of execution coming in the same gesture. He smashed the soldier against the wall once more, hard enough that the man's back broke in a dozen places, the sound of splintering bone oddly muted in the chaos of battle. "This way," he called to his companions, already moving toward that side of the courtyard and through the gate into the hallway. The moment they were through it, Milaena warded it behind them, hopefully buying them a little bit of time with no one at their back, and Rashon broke into a sprint down the hallway, racing to get ahead of possible organized resistance. Behind him the others struggled to keep up, but the Goliath wouldn’t slow down… Acalia was waiting for him.

A long corridor stretched before them, lined with doors. Rashon ignored all of them. This garrison’s layout was familiar. At its core it was just a legion army camp that had been crafted out of stone, which meant that the main barracks should be just a little bit…

At the far end of the hallway, a heavy wooden entrance likely led to the barracks proper. A dozen guards formed a hasty defensive line halfway down the hall, spears leveled at chest height. "Stay behind me!" Rashon shouted, and charged directly into the spear points.

The metal tips skittered off his invisible protection, but an instant later he felt a stabbing pain. Looking down, one of the metal spearpoints had broken off, and the broken wood of the spear shaft impaled him. Thankfully, his invulnerable body had deflected it far enough upward that it had only stabbed him in the shoulder. He grabbed two spears and wrenched them from their owners' hands, snapping them like twigs before plowing through the defensive line with the unstoppable momentum of his massive body. If he had thought he was unstoppable in the open, being in an enclosed space made him realize he hadn’t had a clue. Here, no one could get around him, no one could get away. Among the soldiers he accepted a half dozen stabs from spears like they were nothing as they slid off his body or his shield, absorbing countless blows that would have felled a normal man.

Then he was past them, and Rashon's shoulder slammed into the barracks door with enough force to tear it from its hinges.

The heavy wood splintered around the impact point, crashing inward with a sound like thunder. He burst through the broken entrance, warhammer raised for slaughter, only to freeze at the threshold, the scene before him momentarily stealing his ability to move, to think, to breathe. Behind him, he heard Daerreth's sharp intake of breath, followed by a sound that might have been a sob or a growl of rage — indistinguishable in the madness of the moment.

The barracks was a long, open room lined with bunks, but it had been cleared to create a makeshift torture chamber. Torches in wall sconces cast a sickly orange glow over the scene, creating grotesque shadows that danced across the stone walls like mocking spectators. Acalia and Vashara hung from chains on the far wall, their bodies naked, bloodied, and bearing unmistakable signs of repeated violation. Their thighs were caked with dried blood and semen, their firm breasts and torsos marked with whip welts and bite marks.

Acalia's once-proud form was nearly unrecognizable beneath the layers of abuse, yet even through the blood and filth, Rashon could see glimpses of her inherent beauty—the elegant curve of her neck, the defiant set of her jaw, the lean muscle of her thighs now marred by the evidence of repeated violations but still powerful beneath the skin. Her pale blue skin was mottled with bruises and cuts, layered one atop another in a grotesque testament to hours of intense abuse, and her features were almost impossible to see beneath the layers of semen that covered her face. Most horrifying were her hands — each finger bent at unnatural angles, deliberately broken one by one. Her white hair hung in matted clumps, stained pink in places with her own blood. Despite her condition, she looked up as they entered, and Rashon almost broke as he saw a flicker of hope ignite within their golden depths. She tried to speak, but her voice emerged as only a cracked whisper, her throat likely raw from screaming.

A dozen feet away, Vashara's condition was equally appalling. The elf's pale skin was a canvas of cruelty — burns, cuts, and bruises transforming the ancestral shaman’s lithe form into a monument to imperial sadism. Her jet-black hair had been partially shorn, chunks that would have been proud braids cut away and taken for trophies. The spiritual energy that usually danced around her moved sluggishly, barely visible in the torchlight, a dying ember rather than the normal vibrant flame. The elegant contours of her slender body had been violated by deliberate marks of torture. Yet even hanging there broken, there remained a haunting beauty to her—the graceful arch of her spine, the delicate curve where neck met shoulder, the ethereal quality that even the most brutal treatment couldn't fully extinguish from her gorgeous body.

And there, standing next to her with a knife pressed to Vashara's throat, was a man in black armor. The commander who had been there during their failed infiltration. His eyes were narrow, his face a mask of tension as he assessed the intruders, the knife in his hand never wavering from Vashara's throat. "Kill the rebels,” the commander ordered, his voice clinically detached. Then, without a moment of hesitation, he drew the blade across Vashara's throat.

Time seemed to slow as multiple actions converged in a single catastrophic moment. Vashara's eyes widened in shock, her body jerking once against the chains that held her. A terrible gurgling sound escaped her opened throat as she tried to draw breath through the ruined passage. Her gaze found Daerreth, locked onto him with desperate intensity as if trying to communicate something vital in her final moments. Daerreth lunged forward, flames erupting from the embers in his hair as rage overwhelmed reason. Valdis began an incantation, fingers weaving a pattern that would come seconds too late. Milaena's hand stretched out, a futile gesture of denial and warding… and blood spurted from Vashara’s neck in a crimson arc from cut arteries, spattering across the stone floor in a gruesome pattern.

Daerreth screamed with raw anguish, a sound so primal and pain-filled that it seemed to physically strike everyone in the room. His flames roared higher, illuminating the barracks with the intensity of his grief. The commander looked to Acalia, obviously wondering if he could make it to her to kill her too. His eyes calculated distances, probably weighing whether he could reach her and slit her throat before they fought through the room and Rashon's warhammer found his skull. Deciding the answer was no, he turned and pushed his way through the crowd of soldiers rushing into the room, abandoning them to face the intruders' wrath. Daerreth crossed the remaining distance in a blur of motion, heedless of the commander who had already turned to flee, heedless of everything but reaching Vashara.

"Block the door!" Rashon roared, even as he moved toward Acalia, unwilling to let Daerreth face the last few soldiers in their way alone.

Valdis responded immediately, her scholarly demeanor replaced by battle focus. She completed her interrupted incantation, and a wall of fire sprang into existence across the shattered doorway. Soldiers who had been charging forward recoiled with screams of pain as flesh met flame, creating a momentary barrier between the companions and their pursuers.

Daerreth reached Vashara and frantically worked to free her from the chains, his fingers burning through the metal links with desperate strength. As the shackles gave way, her body collapsed into his arms, blood still pumping from the gaping wound in her neck.

"Milaena!" he screamed, cradling Vashara against his chest. "Help her! HELP HER! Heal her, gods damn you!"

The priestess was kneeling over her, her hands already glowing with divine energy… but Rashon could see the horrified look on her face. The haunted look, the way shock and grief etched into her features. "Vashara… stay with me, Vashara. Look at me…"

"Try harder!" Daerreth demanded, his voice cracking with desperation. "You have to try harder Milaena! She's dying!"

The light around Milaena’s hand slowly faded. Looking haunted, the half-elf shook her head, tears streaming down her face. "I… I’m sorry, Daerreth. I'm so sorry."

Daerreth cradled Vashara in his arms, his agonized sobs filling the room as her life drained away between his fingers. Her silver eyes, once so bright with intelligence and love, found his one last time, filled with sorrow and perhaps a shadow of acceptance, before the light in them dimmed forever. The spiritual energy that had always surrounded her body faded completely, leaving only the broken shell of the woman he'd loved. "No," he whispered, then repeated it, louder, as if volume could change reality. "NO! Vashara, please! Come back!" He pressed his forehead to hers, his tears falling onto her still face, mingling with the blood that continued to pump more slowly now from her fatal wound. "Don't leave me. Please don't leave me."

Meanwhile, Rashon roared with rage and grief as he ripped Acalia's chains from the wall, the metal rivets tearing from the wall at his ancestor-empowered strength. The tiefling sagged against him, too weak to stand. He caught her gently, mindful of her injuries, especially her ruined hands. Up close, the damage was even worse — she had been put through hell in the day since they had left her.

"You came," she whispered, her voice a ragged shadow of its usual strength.

"Always," Rashon replied, carefully wrapping his cloak around her naked form. "I couldn’t leave you."

Her golden eyes flicked past him then, and they filled with tears as she saw Vashara's lifeless body in Daerreth's arms. "No," she breathed, a single syllable containing a universe of grief and guilt. "Not her. Not because of me."

"It wasn't your fault," Rashon told her firmly as he lifted her into his arms, cradling her against his chest with as much gentleness as his warrior's hands could manage. "None of this was your fault."

The wall of fire at the doorway was beginning to flicker and fade as Valdis's concentration wavered, her attention divided between maintaining the spell and watching the heartbreaking scene before her. Beyond the flames, they could hear soldiers regrouping, preparing to charge through the moment the barrier fell.

"We need to go!" Milaena shouted, already moving to help Daerreth, who refused to release Vashara's body. "Rashon, Valdis can’t hold this forever. The longer we wait, the more mages will arrive. If we don’t leave now, we won’t leave at all!"

The practical reminder cut through Rashon's rage. It was true. Even if it wasn’t, they had limited time before the glove's protection faded, leaving them vulnerable to the blades and arrows of the entire garrison. If they were still here when that happened, they would all die, and they would all join Vashara in the Valorous Halls.

"Daerreth," he called, his voice gentler than his companions had ever heard it. "We must take her from this place. She deserves better than to lie here among enemies."

For a moment, it seemed the fire Genasi hadn't heard him, so lost was he in his grief. Then, slowly, deliberately, Daerreth rose to his feet, Vashara's limp body cradled in his arms. Her head lolled against his shoulder, the gaping wound in her throat no longer pumping blood but still seeping, staining his chest with crimson rivulets.

"I won't leave her," he said, his voice hollow but determined. "Not here. Not with them."

"You won't have to," Rashon promised. "We'll bring her home."

Valdis allowed her wall of flame to collapse as they positioned themselves for escape. Rashon took the lead, warhammer and shield leading the charge. Behind him came Daerreth with Vashara's body, supporting Acalia as best they could. Last came Milaena and Valdis, the women guarding their rear with spell and prayer.

They burst out of the barracks into chaos. The alarm had fully sounded, and soldiers swarmed the courtyard like angry wasps. Archers lined the walls, their bows drawn and ready. The moment the companions appeared, a hail of arrows descended upon them.

Rashon didn't flinch as the arrows struck the invisible barrier surrounding him, clattering harmlessly to the ground. One passed close enough to Acalia that she flinched closer to Daerreth, and the Goliath moved his body more into the way, offering her additional protection. "Stay close!" he shouted to the others. "Right behind me! We break through!"

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-

Fighting their way back out was a blur of violence and desperation. Rashon led the charge, creating a path through the press of bodies with devastating swings of his warhammer. Blood splattered across his face and chest as he crushed skulls and shattered ribcages, his rage finding outlet in the systematic destruction of anything that stood between them and freedom.

Soldiers fell like wheat before a scythe, their weapons useless against his magical protection, their bodies fragile beneath his furious assault. Some tried to target his companions instead, only to be repelled by Milaena's divine barriers or struck down by Valdis's lightning bolts. In truth, the guards seemed to lack the fire for this fight. They were unnerved by the invulnerability the unstoppable Goliath showed. Armies fought on their morale, and right now theirs was badly shaken. If he turned around and came at them, Rashon had little doubt that they would fight with everything they had… but when the invulnerable threat was trying to flee, few soldiers wanted to try too hard to stop them from doing exactly that.

They fought their way across the courtyard, through the gate they had entered, and into the darkness beyond. A few Iron Legionnaires gave chase, but few had the courage to follow them into the forest during True Dark. The heroes vanished into the forest and continued through the night, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the garrison, each step carrying them closer to temporary safety, each moment taking them further from the horror they had witnessed — but not from the grief that chased them like a shadow.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-

It must have been Sunwake by the time they stopped, but it was hard to tell. A storm had rolled in, and rain fell in icy sheets… seemingly summoned by their collective grief. The forest path had become a treacherous mire of mud and hidden roots, slowing their already burdened progress. Rashon's muscles burned with exhaustion, but he refused to stop moving. He had taken Acalia into his arms as soon as they were free of the fighting and he refused to put her down, just as Daerreth had refused to surrender Vashara's body despite the growing stiffness of death. Water streamed down their faces, mingling with tears some of them would never acknowledge and blood that would never fully wash away.

The encampment where dozens of merchant wagons had stopped during last gloamrest was now an abandoned expanse of trampled grass and mud. Circular impressions marked where wheels had rested, already filling with rainwater like miniature reflecting pools. Extinguished campfires hissed softly as the rain saturated their remains, sending tendrils of steam rising like ghostly fingers into the night air. "They've gone," Valdis observed unnecessarily, her scholarly voice hollow with exhaustion.

“Moved on towards the next town with first light,” Milaena agreed.

Through the curtain of rain, a solitary light beckoned from the far edge of the clearing. A single wagon remained where all others had fled, its windows glowing with warm lamplight that seemed to defy the surrounding darkness. Adeliah's wagon. The merchant was still here, sitting on the edge of her wagon’s small porch, dry beneath the roof of her wagon despite the downpour. Her green eyes gleamed in the dim light, reflecting the lamplight with an almost feline intensity.

"Glad… they moved…" Acalia whispered from within Rashon's arms, the first words she'd spoken since their flight through the forest. Her voice was a ragged shadow of its usual commanding tone. "If they come looking for us… don’t want them… to be hurt. Empire doesn't... distinguish... between guilty and innocent." Acalia closed her eyes, a single tear escaping down her battered cheek. "My fault," she whispered. "All my fault."

"No," Rashon told her firmly. "The empire's fault. Always the empire's."

They stood in the rain for a moment, the weight of their failure pressing down upon them like a physical burden. They had rescued Acalia… but they had failed to save Vashara.

Slowly the party moved towards the only shelter here, towards Adeliah. The merchant showed no surprise at their approach, no shock at their blood-covered forms or the body Daerreth carried or that they were returning at all from their suicidal attack. Her eyes simply flicked to Rashon’s glove once, and she gave a small, sad smile. "You've returned," she said simply, rising to her feet with fluid grace.

"We need shelter," Milaena said, stepping forward. The priestess's white-gold hair was plastered to her head, her robes sodden and stained with blood.

Adeliah nodded once and gestured toward her wagon. "Enter. What I have is yours to use."

They crowded into the small space that had seemed so mundane before they'd discovered the impossible room beyond. Now, with rain drumming on the roof and their wounded companion needing immediate care, the cluttered wagon seemed a sanctuary of almost sacred significance.

Rashon carefully laid Acalia on a narrow cot, his massive hands gentle against her abused blue skin. Despite the brutality she had endured, there was still something breathtaking about her—the proud curve of her horns, the lean muscle of her abdomen that tightened as she winced in pain, the stubborn beauty that even torture couldn't erase from her sharp features. The pale blue woman hissed in pain as her broken body settled onto the thin mattress, but no complaint escaped her lips. Her golden eyes remained fixed on Daerreth, who stood by the door, still cradling Vashara's body, unwilling or unable to relinquish his burden.

"Let me see," Milaena murmured, her hands already glowing with soft divine light as she bent over Acalia. The priestess's face was drawn with exhaustion and grief, but her movements were sure as she assessed the extent of the damage. "Multiple fractures, internal bleeding, severe tissue damage..." She closed her eyes, her lips moving in silent prayer. "Saphyria, grant me strength to mend what has been broken."

The divine light around her hands intensified, spreading to encompass Acalia's broken form. Where it touched, bruises faded from angry purple to sickly yellow, then disappeared altogether. Cuts sealed themselves, leaving behind only faint pink lines where deep gashes had been. The visible transformation was remarkable, but Rashon knew the internal healing would be far more extensive — and far more taxing on Milaena's reserves.

"Her fingers," Rashon prompted, gesturing to Acalia's mangled hands. Each digit had been systematically broken, the damage deliberate and methodical, clearly intended to cause maximum pain while eliminating any chance of wielding a weapon.

Milaena nodded grimly, redirecting her focus to the destroyed hands. "This will hurt," she warned Acalia. "I'm sorry."

"Do it," Acalia replied through clenched teeth.

As the healing began, Acalia's body arched in agony, a ragged scream tearing from her sore throat as bones shifted back into proper alignment. Rashon moved behind her, supporting her shoulders, offering what comfort his presence could provide. She gripped his arm with surprising strength, her nails digging into his skin as wave after wave of pain washed over her.

Meanwhile, Valdis had collapsed onto a small stool, her scholarly composure cracking as her large breasts heaved with each shuddering breath. Rashon found his eyes drawn to the way the fabric of her robe stretched across their fullness before he forced his gaze away, ashamed of noticing such things in this moment of grief yet unable to completely ignore how her curves seemed to demand attention even now. Silent tears streaked down the sorceress’s face as she stared at Vashara's body, her hands trembling as they clutched her own elbows in a self-comforting gesture. "She saved me," she whispered to no one in particular. "One of the soldiers was going to kill me… his sword was descending already. She put an arrow in his throat. Didn’t ever even mention it.”

Daerreth remained by the door, his face a mask of grief too profound for tears. The fire that normally danced in his hair had dimmed to barely visible embers, his usual vitality quenched by sorrow. Vashara's body had grown stiff in his arms, her silver eyes closed by Milaena's gentle hand during their journey through the forest. The rain had washed away much of the blood, displaying the grotesque slash across her delicate neck, the skin around it waxy and pale in death.

"I was going to ask her to bond with me," he said suddenly, his voice raw. "Had a ring made from a fragment of glass. I knew it was stupid… only Citizens marry. It’s meaningless for freemen, especially rebels." A harsh, broken laugh escaped him. "Stupid. Should have given it to her anyway. Should have told her every day how much I loved her. Should have..." His voice broken, unable to continue. The should-haves and might-have-beens hung in the air like tangible things, ghosts of possibilities that would never be realized.

Adeliah studied their grief with an expression that might have been sympathy or might have been calculation — impossible to tell in the shadowed interior of the wagon. She moved with that same fluid grace, gathering cloths and a basin of water, which she placed beside Milaena to aid in cleaning Acalia's wounds as they healed.

"The first death is always the hardest," she commented, her voice neither cold nor particularly warm. "The first companion lost to violence or fate. It changes something fundamental within you."

"She wasn't just a companion," Daerreth snapped, flames briefly flaring in his hair before dying back to embers. "She was everything. My heart. My future."

"Even more painful, then," Adeliah acknowledged with a slight inclination of her head. She approached Daerreth, standing before him and Vashara's body without apparent discomfort at the proximity of death. "May I?" she asked, indicating the corpse.

Daerreth hesitated, his arms tightening instinctively around Vashara's form before slowly, reluctantly, loosening. "Don't... don't hurt her," he said, the absurdity of the request — how could anything hurt the dead? — lost in the depth of his grief.

Adeliah placed her hand on Vashara's forehead, then moved it to the fatal wound in her throat. Her fingers traced the edges of the cut with an almost tender precision, her expression thoughtful rather than repulsed by the gruesome injury.

"A clean cut," she observed. "Death would have been swift. Almost painless." She met Daerreth's eyes directly. "She knew she was dying. Her last thoughts would have been of you, not of pain."

"Is that supposed to comfort me?" Daerreth demanded, though there was more despair than anger in his voice.

"Merely truth," Adeliah replied. "Whether it comforts is your choice. And whether or not it is permanent is also your choice."

The statement hung in the air like smoke, heavy with implication. Even Milaena paused in her healing, her head lifting at the merchant's words. "What do you mean?" Daerreth asked, the first flicker of something other than grief — perhaps hope, perhaps fear — crossing his features.

"Exactly what I said," Adeliah replied. Her voice remained even, matter-of-fact, as if discussing the weather rather than impossible magic. "Death is merely another lock, and with the right key it can be opened.”

"You're talking about resurrection," Milaena stated flatly, her hands still glowing with divine energy as they hovered over Acalia's halfway-healed form. "Such magic is beyond the reach of mortals. Even my connection to Saphyria cannot call back a soul once it has passed beyond this world."

"Your goddess has her limitations," Adeliah agreed with a small, enigmatic smile. "I work with... different sources."

"Are you saying," Valdis whispered, her scholarly instincts overriding her grief momentarily. "That you have something in your vault of evil artifacts that can bring someone back from the dead?”

"No," Adeliah dismissed with a wave of her hand. "I don’t.” She paused for a second. “But I do know how it can be done. Where to find a way to do it. But all magic like that comes at a cost. The question is always; what price are you willing to pay for what you want?” The merchant stood up. "What would you give up to get her back?" she asked Daerreth directly, her green eyes peering into the depths of his soul, measuring his desperation, his capacity for sacrifice. “How much is too much?

For a long moment, the only sound in the wagon was the rain drumming on the roof and Acalia's labored breathing as Milaena continued her healing work. Then Daerreth spoke, his voice steady despite the tears that had begun to flow freely down his face. "Anything," he promised, the word both oath and surrender. "I would give anything to have her back."

Adeliah smiled at him, a smile that never reached her eyes, glittering with something ancient and knowing. "Then perhaps," she said softly, "that will be enough."

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