Year 850, Ravkaess 15th
Vahnari saw the other car only seconds before it struck—a white blur under the moonlight, barreling toward her at impossible speed. Her breath hitched, and instinct snatched her voice before thought could catch it. "Seneca!" she screamed, but her cry was drowned in the cataclysm that followed. The world didn't just move—it shattered. An explosion of noise, force, and motion flung the car like a ragdoll, the shriek of tearing metal mixing with the raw, unfiltered violence of impact.
Time slowed and splintered. The forest lining the road blurred into streaks of green and black, and the stillness of the night was obliterated by chaos. Tires shrieked across pavement before lifting from it entirely. Trees twisted around them in a carousel of color and shape, branches cracking in protest. The scent of burnt rubber and leaking fuel clawed into her throat.
Glass erupted like hail in a thunderstorm, sparkling under the headlights before slicing through skin. Splinters of it embedded in her face like ice knives. She felt each one, felt the warm sting as blood raced to the wounds. Her body slammed sideways, bones straining against the belt cinched across her lap. Her head whipped into the passenger seat with a dull, muffled thud—a sound more felt than heard. A bolt of white-hot agony shot through her collarbone, and then another as the belt crushed it. Her scream twisted into something primal.
The car struck the ditch with a punishing jolt, the nose rising before the rear slammed down, jarring everything still. The spin ended. The silence returned—but it was no longer peaceful. It was the quiet of devastation. Of aftermath. Wind whispered through broken glass.
Vahnari hung in her seat, head bowed, blood dripping from her chin in slow, steady plinks. She blinked as the world returned to her, broken and charred. Her chest heaved with ragged breaths, reminding her of where she was. Iron coated her tongue, thick and metallic. Pain blossomed like wildfire through every joint, every muscle. Slowly, with numbed fingers, she reached behind her seat—her arm trembling, shoulder screaming—and found her daughter's foot. She clung to it like it was a rope out of the abyss.
"Hey baby, you okay?" Her voice cracked under the weight of pain and panic. She tried to make it sound gentle, but her teeth were clenched and her words shook.
A soft whimper answered her. Just a sound—but enough. Tears flooded her eyes, stinging her already gashed cheeks. She hadn't known she was holding her breath until that moment. Relief washed over her, fierce and all-consuming.
"I need you to use your big kid words, okay? Does anything hurt?" she asked, swallowing her fear.
"M-m-my arm…" Seneca's voice was high and tight, strained through sobs. "And my head."
"Okay, good girl. You stay put, alright? Don't move, no matter what. Mommy's gonna get you. You understand?"
"Yeah…"
Vahnari looked down—and the air left her lungs.
Her leg was pinned grotesquely between the steering wheel and what used to be the door. The bones beneath the skin had been crushed into unnatural angles, the flesh already turning a sickly shade of purple. Blood seeped in pulses from just above her knee, where shattered bone had torn free of muscle. The smell was coppery and raw. She fought the bile rising in her throat, her whole body trembling.
Her head lolled, heavy as stone. The stars she saw weren't just the result of concussion—they were real. Out of the warped windshield, the night sky spread wide and endless, more vivid than she'd ever seen. Constellations shimmered like ice crystals, and a dusting of nebulae painted the horizon with soft blues and purples. The galaxy opened above her like a wound in space.
"Mother… please," Vahnari murmured, her lips barely forming the words. She spoke in the Old Tongue, the sacred language she'd once sworn to forget. "Even if I don't make it… save her. Save my Seneca. Please."
She knew there would be no answer. The goddess she once served had gone silent long ago. But if any power still watched… if any debt could be forgiven… let it be for her daughter.
A flicker of movement pulled her gaze back to earth.
Figures. Two of them. Emerging from the darkness, silhouetted by the SUV's headlights, ghostly against the haloed beams. Their walk was slow, deliberate. As they stepped closer, the light revealed them: a man and a woman, draped in layers of ragged fabric that hung from their bones like smoke. The woman's hair was a matted curtain of dull red. The man's head was patchy with grease-slick strands, one slipping free to reveal a raw, bald patch beneath.
They wore silver collars. Tight against their throats. A red light blinked rhythmically at the center of each, like heartbeats that didn't belong to them.
Despite their skeletal thinness, they radiated strength. Not the strength of health, but the strength of something unnatural. Something used to pain. The man leaned toward the woman and whispered something. She jerked her head toward him, hair swinging, lips tight with unspoken tension.
They reached the mangled car.
The woman leaned in, her pale face ghost-like in the half-light. She reached for Seneca.
Vahnari's scream was sharp and raw. "No—No!"
She clung to her daughter's foot with ferocious desperation. Her fingers were slick with blood, but they held fast.
The woman paused, startled. Her dark eyes flicked downward, then widened as they took in the wreckage, the crushed limb, the pool of blood. Her face paled. A human reaction, a moment of recognition. Horror. And then—it vanished. Erased behind a mask of regret.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. Her voice was smooth as velvet, but laced with sorrow. Her fingers moved quickly, cutting the twisted straps that held Seneca in place.
"Don't fucking touch her!" Vahnari screamed, her voice breaking on the edges of rage. She clawed at the woman's face, her nails raking across skin, but her reach was short, too short. The door's metal bit into her thigh as she thrashed, trying to wedge herself free.
The woman flinched—then forced herself forward. She was shaking. Almost crying. Vahnari could see it in her eyes.
"What the fuck are you?" Vahnari thought, mind spiraling. "Why are you crying?"
"No, no—Seneca!" she wailed, as they pulled her daughter away. The child's tiny gray shoe slipped from her foot and remained in Vahnari's palm. She stared at it, her hand trembling.
She pushed again, harder this time. The door's twisted edge shredded deeper into her leg, tearing through muscle. A sickening rip filled the air. Blood sprayed against the frame of the truck. But she didn't stop. She couldn't. She wouldn't.
She dragged herself toward the backseat, her body spasming, limbs barely responding. Her hands left streaks of red across the torn upholstery. Her vision was going, black creeping in like ink spilled on a page. But she heard Seneca scream again—and that anchored her, gave her one last surge of fury.
"NO! NO! Take me! Take me instead!" she sobbed, desperation ripping her throat raw. "Do what you want to me—I don't care! Kill me, torture me, just don't take her!"
Her bloodied hand rose, trembling, reaching toward the SUV as the child was loaded in.
"Seneca!"
The door slammed shut.
Her daughter's screaming stopped.
Vahnari collapsed, her hand falling limply to the floor. Her blood soaked into the seat, into the metal, into the earth. The light faded. Even the stars seemed to dim.
And in the last breath before darkness took her completely, she whispered words not for the goddess, not for fate, but for her daughter.
"I love you, Seneca…"