Lila
The ride was long. Silent.
No one had spoken to me since the palace gates disappeared behind the curve of the hill. The driver avoided my eyes, didn’t respond to my questions. When I asked for the name of the territory, he muttered something about “temporary reassignment” and tightened his fists.
We rode through barren fields and thinned–out woods, the kind where trees leaned skeletal and wind howled through the branches like they were mourning.
The clouds hung low, thick and gray, stretching across the sky like a woolen veil. The air grew colder with every mile. The roads narrowed. Dirt turned to rock.
By the time the wheels jolted to a stop, my fingertips were numb.
“This is it,” the driver said flatly. He didn’t look at me as he jumped out and opened the door without a word. A cold gust swept in as he nodded to the path ahead.
I stepped out, my boots sinking into damp, uneven earth. I turned to ask what “it” meant, but the driver was already turning around. Within seconds, he’d faded into the hills behind me.
I stepped out on numb legs and stood utterly alone.
The outpost looked like it had been abandoned a decade ago. A low, squat building half–buried in moss and creeping vines. Stone cracked along the sides. The front door hung crooked on rusted hinges, and a window shutter flapped in the breeze. Weeds sprouted from the foundation.
A sign once nailed above the entrance lay on the ground, half–buried and illegible. No one else waited to welcome me. No guards. No staff. Not even a letter explaining what this place was supposed to be.
This wasn’t a trial site. It was a forgotten corner of the ass end of nowhere.
I walked inside to damp and stale air. It smelled of mold and ash and something metallic. The single room held a collapsed cot, a dented stove, and a barrel of water with a cracked lid.
A small crate sat near the hearth. Inside, I found a few ration packs–dried meat and hard biscuit. Enough for maybe four days. Five, if I rationed food for
myself.
There was no firewood. No map. No weapons. Nothing.
My pulse pounded behind my eyes.
This isn’t a mistake, Ruby said quietly.
“No,” I whispered. “It’s exile.”
The word sounded too loud in the empty space.
I walked back to the doorway, the cold wind catching the loose edges of my coat. From this angle, I could see the jagged hills that formed the edge of the Rogue border. Not far. Maybe a day’s walk, if that.
The perfect distance for something to go wrong. And for no one to know.
They didn’t just reassign me. They threw me away.
I stepped outside again, wrapping my arms around myself as the wind bit harder. The silence stretched, thick and total.
1/3
Chapter 75
I went still for minutes contemplating my situation. Then I turned back toward the crumbling door and said aloud, Fine”
If they wanted me to disappear–then I’d make damn sure they remembered what it took to bury me.
The cot creaked as I sat. I didn’t unpack. There was no point.
By twilight, my fingers were stiff, and my toes had gone numb despite the boots. My cloak smelled like old wool and damp stone.
Hours passed. I ate half a ration bar, drank two sips of water. Night fell outside with no ceremony and not a single star in the sky.
There was no one coming.
I’d circled the outpost three times. Checked the path. Waited. No footprints. No messages. Not even the flutter of a pigeon with sealed scrolls.
I was alone.
Inside the outpost, I started to take stock. There was one knife–rusted, but it had an edge, tucked beneath a loose floorboard near the hearth. A few glass jars of something unidentifiable and vile smelling, the labels peeled off or rotted away.
The water barrel held maybe a gallon of drinkable liquid once filtered and boiled.
Not enough.
I needed a fire. There was a hearth, but no wood.
Outside, I gathered what I could. Damp branches, some moss–covered. A few dry twigs where the wind had dried out the higher brush. My hands throbbed with cold as I piled it inside, then crouched down on the dusty stone floor to try and remember what the trainers had taught us in survival simulations.
Small bundle first. Feed it slow. Spark. Shelter. Breathe.
The flint was chipped. The steel weak. I struck them again and again, the sound sharp and desperate in the silence.
Spark. Missed.
Spark. Dead.
Spark- A flicker.
I bent closer, shielding it with my hands. Blew gently. The ember caught on a twist of bark. A tiny flame unfurled like a breath held too long.
I fed it slowly. Carefully. A dry twig, then another. The fire hesitated, crackled, then settled into a steady, low burn.
My whole body slumped forward. It wasn’t much. But it was heat.
I rubbed my hands in front of it until I could feel them again. Pins and needles prickled at the edges of sensation. I flexed my fingers, cracked my knuckles. My knees ached from crouching, but I didn’t have a way to get comfortable.
I just stared at the fire, sick with the weight of everything that had happened.
This isn’t a trial, I thought. It’s a death sentence with clever packaging.
Ruby stirred faintly. Her presence was quiet–distant, but constant. Like a thread I could still follow if I reached for it. She was bone tire
You’ll survive, she said. We always do.
“That’s not the same as living,” I murmured aloud.
I searched the edges of the clearing, setting simple traps the way I’d learned as a girl. A loop of string here. A bent branch trigger there. Squirrels, maybe,
2/3
14:59 Tue, 3 Jun G
Chapter 75
Rabbits, if I was lucky. It felt strange–primitive, methodical–but it gave me something to do. Something to control.
I didn’t feel safe shifting to hunt properly. Not with Ruby being as tired as she was.
I found a patch of blackberries not far from the outpost wall. Half–withered. Bitter. I picked them anyway, hands staining purple–red. The taste was sour and sharp, but delicious.
When I came back, I spread my cloak near the fire, laid the berries in a tin plate, and ate them one at a time, forcing myself to chew slowly.
I sat near the fire and began wrapping the worn blanket from the cot around my shoulders. It smelled like mildew and dust. I didn’t care.
Ruby stayed quiet, but I could feel her alertness. She was watching the edges of the dark, sensing movement. Wind or something worse. It didn’t matter.
What mattered was that I was still breathing.
I pressed my back to the wall, curled around what little heat the fire offered. My eyelids drooped, but I didn’t let myself fall asleep.
Not fully. Not here. I would rest. But I would not forget. I would not forgive.
If this was exile–fine. They thought they’d buried me. They didn’t realize I’d been forged in worse places than this.
I’d slept in short bursts, curled beneath the blanket by the fire. My muscles ached from the cold, and my mouth felt like something had died inside. But the fire hadn’t gone out entirely–small mercies.
AD
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