The three of you crawl into the cliffs like wounded animals. Your breath is still ragged from the run, your legs aching from the climb. The air is thin up here, the rocks sharp beneath your palms as you scramble over them, pushing deeper into the mountainside. Behind you, the ruined and abandoned mining outpost is swallowed in shadow, its broken walls glowing faintly in the moonlight.


    Landera hasn’t spoken since you fled. She moves mechanically, her body still operating on pure instinct. But her mind is clearly elsewhere. You see it in her eyes when she turns to search the valley below, that hollow stare of someone looking for something that isn’t there anymore.


    “Here,” Iker mutters, bringing your attention back to the present. He ducks under a rocky overhang, where the stone juts out just enough to form a natural alcove. “It’s not much, but it’ll keep us out of sight.” After inspecting the location, you nod in approval. You drop onto the dirt, pressing your back against the stone, as your heartbeat still hammers against your ribs.


    For a long moment, none of you speak. The wind howls through the canyon below, carrying the distant sounds of execution. Gunfire. Screams, cut short.


    The last remnants of the resistance are being hunted down. Or maybe not the last—just the ones who weren’t fast enough to run like you did.


    Landera exhales sharply. She buries her face in her hands, fingers pressing against her temples as if trying to keep something from breaking loose.


    “I… I really thought we were fighting for something.” Her voice is hoarse, almost lost to the wind. “Turns out they just wanted a bigger share of the spoils.”


    Iker exhales, rubbing a hand down his face. “Yeah. That’s usually how it goes.”


    You glance down toward the valley below. You didn’t climb that high, you think, but even from here, you can see a hint of Criato’s forces moving in the distance.


    Torchlight bleeds through the ruins, flickering against the jagged remains of the mining outpost. Men sift through the wreckage, some stripping bodies of weapons, others checking for survivors. Not to save them, of course, but to make sure they’re dead.


    The wind slips its fingers through the rocks above, colder now. You press your palm to the warm curve of stone beside you, trying to steady the spiraling. One of Criato’s men had said something earlier—Check the ridge. Make sure the fire caught. Was it just a phrase? Or did they light something? Signal something?


    Then the horn again. This time, there’s no answering call.


    “You think it’s Criato?” Iker asks. “Calling in more men?”


    “No,” Landera says quietly. “That horn was too far away. That came from the sea.”


    You all look up. Not toward the coast—you can’t see it from here—but to the mouth of the canyon, as if sound could leave footprints. The horn was deep, too slow to be alarm, too solemn to be celebration.


    You wait until the last of Criato’s men disappear from view, vanishing like termites into the canyon’s edge, kicking through ash and bodies. Their laughter fades, muffled by distance, but not the sound of armor clanking and boots scraping against stone.


    Landera kneels beside the ledge, arms resting on her knees, chin dipped low. Her face is a jagged mosaic of grime and sweat, all while trying to mask her grief. “They’re heading for Xiatlazán,” she mutters.


    “So, what do we do now?” Iker asks. He’s still catching his breath, but his shoulders slump from the realization that you’re all helpless. That, perhaps, this was all for nothing.


    You glance down the path where the resistance once stood—if you can call them that. Where the bodies lie still. Most of them didn’t even fight. Some didn’t even run.


    “That horn wasn’t random,” you ponder aloud. “Something’s happening out there.”


    “Something usually is,” Landera mutters. But she stands, wiping her hands on her shirt, eyes flicking between the broken trail of footprints left by Criato’s soldiers and the cliffs that rise to the east. “We could go the other way. Try to reach the other side of these peaks. Maybe find the ones who got away.”


    Iker’s brow furrows. “And then what? Hope we stumble into a village that hasn’t been burned down yet?”


    “We should find out what that signal meant,” you say. “If someone’s arrived—someone else—we–“ you wave your hands around this abandoned mining outpost, “might be the only ones who know about it.”


    Landera snorts. “If we could hear that horn and cannon from here, I’m sure every settlement on this new land could hear it.”


    Resigned, you all descend. The wind picks up again, howling between rocks like a furious beast. The sun presses down, baking dust to your necks and drying the blood to rust-red streaks on Landera’s sleeves.


    Landera leads, while Iker follows her like a nervous shadow. You bring up the rear, ears straining for any sounds from below—Criato’s men, maybe doubling back, maybe smelling unfinished business in the dust. The cliffs grumble beneath your boots. Gravel shifts. Every few steps, the mountain threatens to betray you, sending a pebble bouncing, echoing down the face. Somehow, Criato’s men never notice you, too consumed with their jokes and scrapping over scraps from the outpost.


    The emergence of the city from between the statuesque mountains couldn’t have come any sooner. Xiatlazán yawns like a cracked bowl—jagged rooftops and ragged market tents, a dozen voices arguing through a hundred different walls. From this height, as the rocky path descends toward it, the city looks almost peaceful. But when you step into its outer fringes, the noise returns in full.


    Murmurs. Everywhere. You pass a cluster of settlers—two men, a woman, a child with a reed doll in hand—and they barely glance at you. Eyes pointed east, toward the square. Their faces are taut with curiosity, lips barely moving.


    “What’s going on?” Iker whispers.


    You don’t answer. Because you don’t know. But you feel it. The air is swollen. Like something’s trying to press its way out of the lungs of this place. Even the livestock have gone quiet. Could this be the result from the horn and cannon fire you heard from the peaks?


    Landera keeps her hood low, eyes darting to the gathering knot of people ahead. “They’re heading for the square,” she mutters. “Something’s happening.”


    And then you see them: A procession of men in dirtied clothing walking with purpose. But these aren’t the hollow strides of Criato’s lapdogs. These ones cut through the crowd with an air of detachment. And at the center of the procession—


    Gartzen.


    Your heart stutters. He looks older. More sun-burnt, more tattered. If that is even possible. A new scar across the left brow. But it’s him. His posture, proud as ever. That slight limp in the left leg. Alive.


    You feel your breath catch—joy snarled up in disbelief. You almost call his name.


    But then your gaze drops to what they’re carrying. Six men, three on each side of an iron-handled crate. The thing is massive, wrapped in canvas that sags low from its weight. Behind them, more crates—different shapes, but just as heavy-looking. One jolts over a loose cobblestone, and the fabric slips. A glint flashes—gold, unmistakable, sunlight caught on a jagged edge of something bright and shimmering.


    Another crate is splitting at its seams, sloppily repaired. A slash along its edge weeps red silk in a long coil, like a cut throat unspooling a tongue. From within, glimmers of of ochre and topaz, and something that looks like a rolled parchment, capped with silver.


    You hear the crowd inhale in unison. Not gasps. Not awe. But in hunger.


    All around you, settlers press closer—Legido workers in soot-streaked garments, merchants gripping their belts, children standing on crates just to glimpse the spectacle. A man near you licks his lips. Another grips his child by the arm, hard. Whispers ripple like a breaking wave.


    “Treasure,” someone whispers.


    “From the sea.”


    “From the new land.”


    Landera stiffens beside you. “That’s not Criato’s banner,” she says.


    You follow her gaze to the rear of the procession. One of the men in the rear holds a long standard—a tapered pennant of sapphire and bronze, stitched in a style that mimics Legido military banners, but without the insignia of any known house.


    A new flag? New power?


    Iker leans in. “That man in front. That’s Captain Lema, isn’t it?”


    You spot him now, emerging from the middle of the column. Captain Uxío Lema , cutting through the heat and clamor like a blade in its own scabbard. Taller than you remember. Weathered. Worn. But carrying himself like the tide itself answers to him. His eyes sweep the crowd, and he moves not like a man who’s returned home—but like one who intends to carve a new one, here, with what he’s brought back. His attention drifts toward the center of the square, toward the polished steps of Xiatli’s perch.


    The procession slows. Seemingly out of nowhere, Criato himself steps from the stone corridor, flanked by Ulloa and two men you recognize from the forge. One gestures toward the crates. Criato shakes his head. No words loud enough to hear. Just dismissal, which causes looks of confusion between Captain Lema, Gartzen, and their crew.


    Ultimately, Lema doesn''t flinch. He nods once, turns, and speaks to his men. A few break formation, heading toward the hastily-constructed storehouse—the one with the iron-banded doors that’s been quickly erected. Within moments, the crates are being carted in. One after another.


    And then Lema vanishes into the inner sanctum. Leaving the treasure behind. Exposed. Vulnerable.


    You feel your heart flutter in your ribs. It’s not excitement. It’s not fear, either. It’s that space between knowing something’s a mistake—and doing it anyway.


    “We have to get into that storehouse,” you say.


    Iker chokes on a laugh. “No. No, we don’t.”


    Landera doesn’t answer at first. Just stares at you. Then, at the crates. At the doors now swinging shut behind them.


    “He’s right,” she says, eventually. “We could go anywhere else. Literally anywhere else but there.”


    But she’s still staring at the crates. At the slip of silk caught on a splintered edge. At the shimmer of something too bright to belong here, like an ill omen of what’s to come.


    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    “We could,” you say. “But we wouldn’t learn a damn thing.”


    Iker shifts beside you, eyes glimpsing over at the storehouse. He exhales sharply through his nose, the way he always does when he’s trying not to scream. “How do you even know there’s anything in there worth learning?”


    “I don’t,” you admit. Landera glances at you, surprised by the honesty.


    You shrug. “But I know there’s something in there someone wants to keep hidden. Criato didn’t even pretend to play diplomat just now. And Captain Lema… he didn’t argue. Just handed it off and disappeared.”


    “He didn’t hand it off,” Iker mutters. “He put it away. There’s a difference.”


    “Exactly,” you say. “He didn’t offer it. He stored it. Quietly. Away from the crowd.”


    “And here we are, deciding we should do what?” Iker throws his arms wide. “Break into the most secure-looking building in town?”


    There’s a pause before Landera—bless her bone-deep deadpan—says, “Didn’t we already do that once before?”


    You blink. “Once?”


    “I was being generous.”


    You can’t help it. You laugh. Just once, sharp and dry. “So let’s not get caught and chased out of town this time.”


    “Good plan,” Iker mutters. “Why didn’t we think of that last time?”


    “Because last time we thought the people here might still be human.”


    Landera doesn’t laugh. She just keeps looking at the crates. That hunger in the crowd hasn’t faded. It’s shifted, become something meaner. Quieter. People are dispersing, but their eyes linger. You can feel it. The want. The tension under their skin. A storm before the looting begins.


    “We wait until nightfall,” she says. “That storehouse won’t be left unguarded forever. But if Criato’s dragging Captain Lema to Him, and Lema’s men are told to stand aside, there might be a gap. Just enough for us to slip in.”


    “I can’t believe we’re doing this again,” Iker grumbles. But his hands are already fidgeting—checking pockets, feeling for his dagger. “You realize if we get caught, we’re not getting chased this time. We’re getting flayed.”


    Landera’s eyes flick toward him. “Then let’s not get caught.”


    You glance back toward the storehouse. The doors have been shut now for quite some time. No guards posted yet. But they will be. The plaza’s emptying fast. The spectacle is over. For now.


    “Tonight,” you whisper, mostly to yourself. “We find out what Lema brought back.”


    <hr>


    Even under the hush of night, Xiatlazán shifts like something dreaming in its unrest—shadows curling behind adobe walls, murmurs leaking through slats and cracks, the smell of cooked millet and rusted metal tangling in the damp wind. You crouch behind a low wall just off the main square, the stone still warm from the day’s sun.


    The storehouse squats across the plaza, a makeshift thing hastily constructed from scavenged timber and nailed iron. It wasn’t there a week ago. Already, it looks like it’s always been. Ugly, functional, imperial.


    The guards are sparse. Not many. Two at the front, one pacing the east side, his lantern a swinging dot of flame in the dark. They’re not expecting trouble. But they aren’t careless, either.


    You track the rhythm of their steps, the way their boots scuff against gravel, the moments they pause to light a pipe or scratch at their collars. Every beat is a door waiting to be pried open.


    Landera taps your shoulder and points. A supply cart that’s been long empty is parked near the back wall of the building. Its wheel is cracked, one of the spokes bent like a snapped bone. But it’s tall enough to obscure movement, and near enough to a loading platform that you might slip behind it and up the rear side of the building without being seen.


    “That’s our way in,” she murmurs.


    Iker squints at the shadows. “You two ever consider just not doing the incredibly stupid thing?”


    “You’re still here,” you say, glancing at him.


    He grumbles something under his breath. “Fine. But if I get stabbed, I’m bleeding on your boots.”


    You nod. “Understood.”


    The wind shifts. You catch a scent of dried, brittle stalks—something like straw or parchment—as well as burning oil, and the faint brine of something metallic hidden too long underground. It’s the same smell that clung to the ships that brought you here. Same smell that seeped into your hair during the crossing. You don’t realize you’ve stopped breathing until Landera nudges you.


    “Now,” she whispers.


    You move, low, quick, following the gaps between moonlight and movement. A pause behind a broken stack of bricks. A scurry across hard-packed clay. Iker stifles a cough with his elbow as dust kicks up. Your palms scrape against rough stone. Every step is louder in your mind than it probably is in the air.


    You reach the cart. Duck behind it. Wait. A guard coughs, mutters something, then continues his round.


    Another beat.


    Another pause.


    Then you slip along the side of the platform, fingers skimming the edge of a warped plank. There’s a window here—half-boarded, too high for anyone normal-sized to use. Yet Landera shimmies up with practiced ease. She glances down, hand extended. You grasp it and haul yourself up beside her.


    The window leads into a narrow catwalk above the main floor of the storehouse. No one below. The crates are there—dozens of them. Some familiar from the parade earlier. Others new. Sealed. Stamped with the wax crest of Legido’s expansion office. A few broken open, their contents barely covered by stray linens.


    One crate yawns slightly ajar, its lid askew. Something glints inside. Gold. Coins. Trinkets. A circlet with sapphires too large to be ceremonial.


    Another crate is torn at the corner, where something spilled—a heap of deep crimson fabric, too rich for a settler’s wardrobe, too gaudy for trade.


    This is a haul. Plunder. Wages for betrayal. Rewards for conquest.


    There’s a sound of scuffing from below. A muttered voice. You drop into a crouch, heart thudding hard against your ribs. But it’s not a guard. It’s rats. Or something like them. Their brief, scurrying movement behind barrels.


    You exhale, slow. Iker bumps your shoulder. Points down.


    There. A smaller crate, tucked behind the others. Not gaudy. Not gilded. Simple. Marked in Legido script. The paint is smudged, but you catch one word—or what you think is a word—barely legible in the flickering lamplight:


    Sanko.


    Landera leans in. “What in the nine hells is that?”


    You shake your head. “I don’t know. But Captain Lema brought it back.”


    You edge along the catwalk, eyes searching for a way down. A ladder, maybe. A stack of barrels.


    But then somewhere, something creaks. Footsteps. Boots. Real this time.


    Down below, near the main doors, the latch shifts. Metal scrapes wood.


    And then—voices.


    You don’t hear them at first amidst the soft scrape of movement, the shuffle of feet. Then a single low voice speaks with irritation.


    “—you think I don’t know that?”


    You halt, making yourself as small as possible in the hopes of not being seen, listening. Landera and Iker stiffen beside you.


    A second voice answers, raspy, tired.


    “I know what I’m saying.”


    A dim lantern glow seeps through the crack of the half-open door ahead. Beyond it, two figures stand in the narrow space between stacks of supply crates, backs half-turned, their shoulders hunched in quiet, secretive conversation.


    Dorez and Benicto.


    Dorez’s posture is tight, arms folded as she listens. Benicto, however, is unraveling. You can see it in the way he moves from side to side, in the way his hands twitch, restless, as if itching to grab something, to lash out.


    “You don’t get it, do you?” Benicto mutters, seething.


    Dorez doesn’t respond right away. She just tilts her head, studying him with that cold, assessing gaze—the one that used to make your skin crawl whenever she watched you struggle, the way a child observes an insect pinned beneath glass.


    Finally, she exhales. “Oh, I get it,” she says, exasperated. “I just don’t see the point of talking about things we can’t change.”


    Benicto lets out a short, bitter laugh. “Of course you don’t. You never do. You just keep on, like there’s some plan that’ll make it all work.” His hands clench at his sides, nails digging into his palms. “But this time—this time there is no way out.”


    She narrows her eyes, her fingers flexing slightly. “So that’s it?” she murmurs. “You’re giving up?”


    Benicto flinches like she struck him. “That’s not—Dorez, come on.”


    He steps closer, lowering his voice, and suddenly the venom is gone, replaced by something you’ve never heard from him before.


    Pleading.


    “You and I—we always had something. We always had a plan. But look at us now.” He gestures around them. “Look at where we are. Look at what we’ve done.”


    Dorez tilts her head slightly. “And what have we done?”


    He only stares at her. “You know,” he says. Soft. Almost a whisper. “You just won’t say it.”


    Dorez shifts slightly, her gaze flicking to the crates, to the sealed orders, the stacks of letters, the weight of everything unspoken between them.


    For the first time, you think she looks tired. Not exhausted, not afraid—but worn thin. Like a blade that’s been sharpened so many times there’s barely anything left.


    Benicto steps closer again. His voice drops lower, his frustration cracking into something else—something closer to fear.


    “They sent us across the world, Dorez. Across the damn world for this. And what do we have to show for it? What do we have left?”


    Dorez goes still, exhaling slowly, closing her eyes for a second longer than necessary. Then she opens them and meets his gaze, steady and unreadable.


    “Each other,” she says simply.


    Benicto sucks in a sharp breath. He looks away, rubbing a hand down his face, like he wants to say something, like he has something more, but can’t bring himself to push past the truth of that statement.


    Dorez rolls her shoulders, stretching, as if shaking off the moment. Her face hardens again, back to business. “Let’s go,” she mumbles. “We don’t have time for this.”


    Benicto hesitates, jaw set tight. But then he nods in silent agreement.


    You flinch back just as Dorez moves toward the door. She pauses, searching the dim corridor. For a single, agonizing moment, you think she sees you. Then—


    A dismissive voice outside leaks in through the cracked shutters of the storehouse. Both Landera and Iker look toward the sound. But you don’t wait. The moment the distraction takes their attention, you urgently grab Landera’s sleeve and duck low, scurrying down as quick as you can, and slip behind the nearest stack of crates.


    Iker is right behind you, panting short breaths in your ear as the three of you ghost deeper into the structure’s ribcage, threading through narrow paths between crates too tall and too haphazardly stacked.


    The clutter gives way to a larger chamber. The air changes. Cooler, drier. Dusty. Smells of cordite and oil hang thick in your nostrils. In the dim lantern light hanging from a rusted bracket, you make out row upon row of muskets and military provisions. Crates stacked to the ceiling, their lids branded with military insignias, each one marked for transport. Some crates are sealed. Others hang open like split fruit—inside, glints of metal, bundles of powder-caked cloth, musket barrels stacked with methodical care.


    Landera moves to one of the open crates, pulling the lid fully aside. Inside are neatly arranged rows of lead shot, packed tight, prepared for war. She exhales slowly, her fingers skimming the edges of the box before she glances at you. “There’s enough here to level a city,” she mutters.


    Iker, lingering by the musket racks, scratches the back of his neck, his discomfort almost palpable. “Why store it all here? If Captain Lema’s waging war, shouldn’t this be at the front?”


    You exhale through your nose and step toward the next passage. “Come on,” you whisper. “There’s more ahead.”


    You enter a chamber where the air is different. It smells of ink and aged parchment, of candle wax melted into wood. The walls are lined with maps, scrolls, and stacks of documents, some pinned haphazardly, others neatly rolled and tucked into shelves. Notes and manifests are layered like molted skin across the central desk.


    Landera drifts toward the maps, her fingers trailing over the edges of the pinned documents. You move toward the desk in the center of the room, where stacks of parchment are spread out, marked with figures and routes.


    You then retrieve a map, though different from the others. The coastlines are unfamiliar, the names scribbled in Legido script, but the words feel wrong. And then, you notice that word again.


    Sanko.


    You whisper the name aloud, testing the way it feels in your mouth, and it doesn’t sit right.


    Landera’s gaze sharpens as she leans over your shoulder, studying the map. “Where is this?”


    You shake your head. “I don’t know.”


    Iker hesitates before stepping forward, his brow furrowed as he picks up one of the scattered documents. He skims the lines of text, his expression darkening. “This doesn’t look like battle orders.”


    You take the page from him, searching the inked words, the carefully penned notations along the margins.


    ”The territory of Sanko is pacified.”


    ”The native houses have been made to swear fealty, though some holdouts remain.”


    ”Reinforcements are required for the next stage of integration.”


    Your hands tighten around the parchment. The ink is dry, the paper worn. These aren’t plans for conquest. It’s already happened.


    Your stomach churns. You look back at the map, at the twisting coastlines, at the scribbled routes leading toward something larger. Plans for further conquest.


    Landera exhales slowly. “How many places are they prepared to do this to?” she asks, though you’re not sure any of you want to know the horrifying answer.


    Iker swallows, rubbing at his arms as if suddenly cold. “More than we thought,” he mutters.


    You move to the next stack. Another rolled scroll, marked with dates. Supply chains. Shipment tallies. Gold. Cloth. Ivory. Lives.


    Your gaze flicks to another stack of documents, more lists, more names. You skim the ink, searching for something that might tell you what Captain Lema’s next move is.


    Then, a sound. Wood under strain. A creaking footfall. Not above, but close. Within the structure.


    You stop in place, fingers still on the page. Landera glances at the lantern. One breath. Then she snuffs it with a twist of cloth.


    The room vanishes. All that remains is breath and heartbeat and the dark.


    A door creaks somewhere in the structure. The hinges are loud in the absence of light. A voice follows, muffled by timber.


    “…he already knows, doesn’t he?”


    The words float within the darkness, muffled by the distance, but clear enough. The voice doesn’t belong to Criato. It belongs to Captain Lema.


    Another voice—flat and formal. “He does. But he will hear it from you.”


    They’re close. Walking just beyond the chamber’s entrance.


    You slip back into the shadows, spine pressed against splintered wood. Landera is already crouched behind the map table. Iker has disappeared into a nook between two support beams. Your breathing slows. Slows more.


    Lema speaks again. “Then let’s not waste any more time.”


    Footsteps recede. A creak of hinges. Then silence.


    You wait. Ten breaths. Then twenty.


    A shuffling of feet. Coming from inside.


    A voice murmurs.


    “…thought I heard something back here.”


    You search the darkness. No shadows left to vanish into. No crates tall enough to hide behind. Only stillness, breath held, limbs tense.


    Another footstep.


    The shuffling of more feet. Closer now.


    Landera’s hand finds yours in the dark, fingers steady, grounding.


    “Probably nothing,” a second voice mutters. “Just the rats again in this infernal place.”


    And then—silence.


    Your fingers twitch, a slow flex, a readiness you can’t act on. There’s nowhere to run. If they step any closer—if they so much as glance toward the wrong shadow—you are caught.