ATASHA’S POV
180
55 vouchers
“This…” I tried to speak, but the words came out fractured, hollow. My voice barely reached above a whisper as my eyes swept across the clearing, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Blood stained the stone floor. Thick, dark, and drying in wide streaks that trailed toward the shadows. The stench of it clung to the air, sharp, metallic, and suffocating. But that wasn’t what made my stomach turn.
It was the cages.
Dozens of them.
Lined up in tight rows along the cave’s far walls, stacked in some areas two or three high. They were made of thick iron, welded crudely, rusted at the hinges. Inside each one was a child.
Some looked no older than five or six. Others barely into adolescence. Their clothes, if they had any, were torn, filthy, and soaked in mud, blood, or both. Several had open wounds, untreated cuts, infected gashes, bruises in shades I hadn’t known skin could take.
But what unsettled me more than their physical injuries was the expression on their faces—or rather, theplete absence of one. Their eyes were dull, lifeless, and unfocused. None of them were crying. None of them were speaking.
They just sat ory still inside their cages, unmoving, their small fingers curled tightly around the rusted iron bars. It was as if whatever had been done to them had stripped away not only their strength, but also their will to react, to resist, or even to hope.
My heart raced, pounding hard against my chest as my mind tried to catch up with what I was looking at.
Cassian had already moved forward, his expression unreadable as he inspected the cages, one by <i>one</i>. He crouched near a small boy whose shoulder was wrapped in a blood–soaked bandage. The boy didn’t flinch when Cassian approached, didn’t even look up,
Is this the secret? Is this what my father was hiding all along?
Dozens of questions flooded my mind all at once, ovepping and colliding until I could no longer tell where one ended and another began.
What was this ce?
Why were these children brought here, and for what purpose?
<b>80 </b>
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What was my father nning to do with them, were they being held as leverage, as test subjects, or something far worse?
Where had theye from? Were they the children of captured enemies, rogues without packs, or―my stomach turned at the thought, were they from our own people?
The idea alone was unbearable. And yet, I couldn’t dismiss it.
Children. Kept in cages like animals. Discarded like they didn’t matter.
It was too calcted to be random. Too many for coincidence.
My eyes locked onto a girl near the back. Her hands were too small to wrap fully around the bars, but she held on anyway, her knuckles white from the pressure. She had arge burn mark on her arm and a fresh cut across her cheek, but she didn’t cry. She just sat still, watching me with dull, unblinking eyes.
A wave of nausea twisted in my stomach as the full weight of what I was seeing sank in. No amount of warning, suspicion, or mental preparation could have prepared me for this. This wasn’t a disy of cruelty driven by rage, nor was it punishment meant to make an example. It was far worse.
Every detail, the number of cages, the istion of the location, the way the children were broken but still alive, pointed to something carefully organized. This wasn’t done in haste or by ident. It had been nned, structured, and executed without hesitation.
And there was no justification for it.
It was evil. in and simple.
“Your father,” Cassian said quietly, his voice t as he inspected the locks on one of the cages. “Isn’t just hiding secrets from the King.”
1 slowly turned to him, my throat dry, my voice barely holding. “What… what do you think he was doing with them?”
Cassian didn’t look at me as he answered. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “But it’s not good.”
Slowly, my legs began to move, driven more by instinct than thought. I approached one of the lower cages, my steps cautious, careful not to startle the child inside. He looked to be about five or six years old, curled on his side with his back against the bars. A deep, angry gash ran across his chest, dried blood crusted over torn skin. His breathing was shallow,bored, and his brow glistened with sweat. His lips were dry and cracked, and his skin had the pallor of someone on the verge of copse.
He didn’t respond to my approach. He didn’t even flinch when I knelt beside the bars and
<b>80 </b>
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gently reached through to ce my hand on his thin arm. His skin was mmy to the touch, and within seconds, I felt it.
“There’s poison in his system,” I said, my voice strained as I turned to look at Cassian. “Not a lethal dose, but it’s still there. It’s making him weak.”
Cassian’s gaze snapped to the boy, his jaw tightening. “Check the others,” he said quickly. “All
of them.”
I nodded and stood, moving from cage to cage, crouching beside each child, touching their arms or shoulders where I could reach. My chest grew heavier with each one I checked.
Poison. All of them.
Different ages,
different wounds, different levels of consciousness, but the same steady presence of something unnatural in their blood. It wasn’t enough to kill them outright, but it was enough to keep them weak, barely coherent, unable to stand or fight back.
“They’ve all been dosed with it,” I said, rising to my feet and facing Cassian. “Every single one. They’ve been poisoned deliberately.” I nced back at the cages, my voice rising slightly. “We need to get them out of here. We can’t leave them in this ce-”
“To where?” Cassian interrupted, his tone sharp but not unkind. “Out into the miasma–filled forest? You may be immune, but they’re not. If we drag them out now, half of them will suffocate before we even make it out.”
I opened my mouth, ready to argue but stopped.
He was right. <ul><li></li></ul>
The poison outside the boulder hadn’t dissipated. The air beyond the hidden entrance was thick with it, and these children, wounded, starved, already weak from whatever they’d been forced to endure, wouldn’t survive long in that kind of environment. There were more than ten of them. Carrying them all at once would be impossible, and even if we did, it wouldn’t guarantee survival.
Unless I healed them.
Without saying a word, I turned toward one of the cages, this time choosing arger boy who looked to be around eleven or twelve. His arms were scraped, and a bruise darkened one side of his face. But more than anything, he looked exhausted. He was awake, barely, his head resting limply against the bars.
I reached through the cage and touched his chest, closing my eyes.
The moment I focused, I could feel the strain in his body, the sluggish pulse, the fog in his
…
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blood, the low hum of toxin clouding his system. But unlike Cassian’s lieutenants, whose strength and resistance made healing them a prolonged, energy–draining effort, this boy’s body responded quickly. It wasn’t fighting me. It weed the healing.
Within minutes, his breathing steadied. The color returned to his face. The swelling in his eye reduced. And then–he blinked.
His gaze sharpened slowly, shifting from confusion to focus, and then to realization.
“You…” he whispered, his voice hoarse and dry. “You healed me?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have time to exin.
“Cassian,” I called instead, gesturing quickly. “Open the cage.”
He didn’t hesitate. With one strong pull, he broke the lock and swung the door wide.
As the boy slowly sat up, still trying to process what was happening, I had already moved on to the next child. I dropped to my knees and ced both hands on her arms. This one was younger, limp in the corner of her cage, barely breathing.
One by one, I worked through them, ignoring the sting of fatigue beginning to crawl into my limbs. Each healing took a small piece of my energy, but I couldn’t stop.
“Someone’sing…” Cassian suddenly hissed. His expression turning ugly.
<b>AD </b>