I sat perched on a crate like some gaudy gargoyle that had wandered into the wrong cathedral, one leg crossed over the other, skirt fluttering just enough to scandalize the poor sods who happened to glance my way.
From my vantage point I could see the whole room being remade piece by piece, as if a nest of ants had suddenly decided to play at civilization.
Men were dragging in massive vats, the kind you could drown an ox in, sloshing and groaning with the weight of them. Long iron tables followed, their legs screeching against the stone like tortured banshees as they were shoved into a neat, rigid array across the chamber.
The clang of metal, the bark of orders, the grunt of effort—ah, music to my ears. This was empire-building at its most vulgar.
Freya was in her element, stalking between the fresh recruits like a lioness sorting cubs into whichever pile looked least likely to embarrass her. Her eyes gleamed as she shoved men into lines, arms crossed with a deep, penetrating scowl.
Dregan was less subtle—he barked orders in a booming voice that rattled the rafters, occasionally cuffing some poor idiot across the ear when they tried to sneak out of formation.
Together they were terrifying, like mismatched parents corralling a brood of unruly children. Malrick’s men, once the loyal rats of their fallen master, obeyed with all the zeal of dogs who’d just realized their old owner had been declawed.
The equipment came next.
Vials, flasks, burners, and other contraptions that looked suspiciously like props from a mad alchemist’s theatre show. They clattered onto tables, their glassy bellies waiting to be filled with promise or poison depending on who held the ladle.
Brutus lumbered between the groups like a disapproving schoolmaster, arms folded, jaw tight, his mere shadow enough to straighten the backs of every trembling initiate. Atticus, meanwhile, glided silently at his side, murmuring corrections and doling out carefully wrapped bundles of powder with the air of a surgeon distributing scalpels.
Between the brute and the scholar, there was no room for excuses.
It started as a mess. These men were no chemists. They fumbled the delicate pours, spilling half the powder across the floor like clumsy children dumping sugar. They stirred too fast, too slow, too erratically, ruining entire batches like drunken bakers.
The vats hissed, foamed, and occasionally belched smoke that sent the nearest prisoners coughing into their sleeves.
Brutus roared at them for their incompetence, his voice like thunder cracking across the chamber.
"Are you blind, or just brainless?! You don’t dump the whole bag in at once! Do you want to choke the whole bloody room?"
One man stammered, waving uselessly at the smoking vat. "I—I thought—"
"You thought?" Brutus’s voice landed like a hammer against stone. "Saints preserve me, if you had a thought in that skull of yours it would’ve died of loneliness years ago. Start again. Slowly this time, before I feed you to the furnace."
Atticus drifted in behind him, voice soft yet sharpened to a point. "Fascinating. Truly, I’ve never seen someone manage to ruin powder, water, and fire in a single motion. It’s like watching a man juggle and set himself ablaze at the same time."
The men flinched, some glaring, others ducking their heads. Atticus adjusted his glasses with deliberate calm, then tapped the edge of the ruined mixture with one pale finger. "Try again. This time with the revolutionary technique known as ’listening.’ I assure you it works wonders."
Slowly—painfully—the rhythm began to form.
One batch survived without spilling. Another mixed correctly, glowing faintly at the rim. A few more, shaky but passable. I watched as the chaos found its beat, the fumbling motions syncing into something almost graceful.
The vats bubbled with promise instead of disaster, the burners glowed steady, and the vials began filling in neat rows. What had begun as a farce started to look, gods help me, like a factory.
Malrick noticed it too. The bound little wretch stood hunched over, ropes still cutting into his wrists, horror widening his eyes as he watched his empire being rebuilt without him.
His lips quivered as if to protest, but Freya was on him in an instant. One sharp jab of her elbow into his ribs stole his breath, and he sagged forward, wheezing, his glare snuffed by her molten scowl.
Saints, I adored her style. Nothing silences an ex-boss quite like a golden amazon with no patience for your whining.
I stretched luxuriously atop my crate, arching my back until my spine popped, and hopped down like a cat deciding it was time to toy with the mice.
I wandered through the rows of tables, weaving between sweating men as though I were some visiting queen surveying her court. They tried to focus on their work, saints bless them, but my presence was distraction incarnate.
I brushed against shoulders, leaned in close to peer at mixtures I didn’t understand, cooed in mock approval whenever someone managed not to blow up their table.
At one point, I slipped behind a trembling boy, wrapping my arms around him from behind, chin resting on his shoulder as I whispered sweet encouragement into his ear. His whole body stiffened like a lute string pulled taut, and I swear the men at his table nearly fumbled their own work from the sheer envy burning in their eyes.
Brutus cleared his throat from behind me.
The sound was less a cough and more a miniature earthquake, rattling through my ribs. I spun around, eyes wide, lips already forming an excuse. "It’s for morale!" I chirped, hands raised in mock innocence. "Do you know how vital morale is to industrial production? A happy worker is a productive worker! I’m basically doing your job for you."
To my utter shock, Brutus didn’t grunt, didn’t scowl, didn’t lecture. Instead he gave me the smallest smile—soft, tired, but genuine—and waved it off as if I were a child caught sneaking sweets.
My jaw nearly unhinged. Brutus, smiling at my antics? Clearly the apocalypse was nigh.
But then his expression hardened again, solemn and weighty. He stepped closer, voice low. "You should get some rest."
I rolled my eyes. "Rest? Oh please. Look at me. Do I look tired?" I spun in a circle, arms flung wide, skirt twirling with theatrical vigor. "I’m radiant. I’m thriving. I’m the living embodiment of stamina and grace. Rest is for corpses and cowards."
Famous last words.
The pounding hit me like a hammer throughout my skull, sudden and merciless. My vision swam, the room tilting violently as my knees buckled.
I gasped, clutching at air, the laughter on my lips swallowed by a searing wave of pain that exploded behind my eyes.
And then I was falling, collapsing in the center of the factory like some tragic opera star fainting at the climax of her aria. Gasps rose around me, shouts echoed dimly, and then darkness swallowed me whole.
I woke to dampness.
The air was thick with it, clinging to my skin, soaking into the sheets—or rather, the pathetic excuse for sheets—spread beneath me, a few ragged blankets with no mattress strewn across the cold stone floor.
My head throbbed with the dull, heavy ache of too much drink, though I’d touched nothing stronger than Brutus’s porridge earlier.
A weight pressed gently against my forehead, steady and warm.
I fluttered my eyes open.
Brutus’s face filled my vision, shadowed by the glow of a single lantern swaying overhead. He sat behind me, one massive hand cupping my head with the tenderness of a man holding something far too fragile for his own size.
And oh, saints, it wasn’t just his hand—my head was in his lap as well. The thick slab of muscle and warmth that was Brutus’s thighs had apparently become my pillow, and I wasn’t sure whether to swoon, scream, or start charging rent.
His eyes, usually so cold, were softer now, though lined with exhaustion.
I tried to move, to push myself upright with some witty remark about waking up in his lap, but my limbs refused to obey.
My arms felt like lead, my legs like stone, every muscle slack and useless. Panic flared for a heartbeat before I forced it down, shaping it into a wry smile instead.
"Well," I croaked, voice rasping, "this is new. Usually when I wake up in a strange room surrounded by people staring at me, there’s at least one broken chair and a lot more nudity."
The rest of the room around me came into focus. Half-empty crates lined the walls, their splintered wood stacked haphazardly like the skeletons of past conquests.
The lantern above cast everything in flickering amber, shadows pooling in the corners like waiting wolves. And there they were—my crew.
Freya stood there in silence, her eyes sharp, her jaw clenched, though there was something else behind the anger—something softer, almost worried.
Dregan hovered near my makeshift bed, scratching his beard, his usual booming laughter stilled into an uncharacteristic silence.
Atticus lingered in the background, glasses flashing as he studied me like a physician with a particularly curious patient.
All of them watching. All of them waiting.
For me.
I swallowed, forcing another crooked grin, though my lips trembled at the effort. "You all look like mourners at a funeral. Who died? Don’t tell me it was me—that would be terribly inconvenient."
Nobody laughed. Not even Dregan.
For the first time in what felt like forever, silence pressed down heavier than chains. And saints help me, I had no idea what was waiting for me on the other side of it.