The children followed Sylus through the Whispering Forests like ghosts—silent, hollow-eyed, too traumatized to even cry.
Twenty-three of them. She'd counted three times to be sure. Ages ranging from maybe five to fourteen, each one marked by The Covenant's cruelty in different ways. Brands on wrists. Scars on backs. The kind of emptiness in their eyes that came from watching hope die slowly.
Sylus had seen worse. Had done worse, if she was being honest with herself. But something about the way the smallest one—a boy with burn scars covering half his face—clutched her hand made her chest feel strangely tight.
She didn't like it. Feelings were liabilities in her line of work.
"How much further?" asked the oldest girl, maybe thirteen, with brown hair and a fighter's stance despite her emaciated frame. Her name was Kessa—not the dwarf's wife, just unfortunate coincidence. She'd appointed herself the group's protector during the two-day journey from the Thornback Hills.
"Another hour," Sylus said, pushing aside a curtain of bleeding vines. The Whispering Forests earned their name—every tree seemed to exhale secrets, every shadow whispered promises of madness. "Try not to touch anything that glows. Or moves. Or breathes."
"What if it does all three?"
"Run."
The forest had been dangerous when Sylus first discovered this route fifteen years ago. Now it was worse. The Cataclysm's corruption spread slowly but inevitably, turning normal woods into nightmare galleries. She navigated by memory and instinct, following paths that shifted daily, trusting her elven blood to sense the safest route.
Behind her, the children stumbled over roots and tried not to look at the things watching from the trees. Things with too many eyes. Things that hadn't been animals in a very long time.
The scarred boy squeezed her hand tighter.
"What's your name?" Sylus asked him, surprising herself. She didn't usually do small talk with cargo.
He didn't answer. Just stared ahead with those dead eyes.
"He doesn't talk," Kessa said from behind. "None of the youngest ones do. The Covenant... they did things."
Sylus's jaw tightened. She'd dealt with slavers before. Had sold information to them, even. But there was selling information and there was this—children deliberately broken like training animals.
She'd made a deal with Eclipse to save them. Professional curiosity, she'd told herself. A chance to watch a legend work. Study his methods.
But watching him slaughter those mercenaries with cold precision, seeing the void-corruption eating him alive while he fought to save children he didn't even know...
That had been something else. Something she hadn't expected.
"Almost there," she said, more to herself than the children.
The trees parted onto a clearing that shouldn't exist. In the center stood a building that defied physics—walls of living wood and stone, windows that showed different views depending on who looked through them, a door that appeared solid until you needed to walk through it.
The Sanctuary.
One of the oldest safe houses in Valthor, built back when elves still practiced architecture instead of slow suicide. It existed in the spaces between spaces, anchored to reality but not quite part of it. The kind of place The Covenant's scrying couldn't find and their enforcers couldn't breach.
Sylus had bought it five years ago from a dying oracle who'd used it to hide political refugees. Since then, she'd expanded it. Reinforced the wards. Added escape routes and weapon caches and enough supplies to survive a siege.
It was her insurance policy. Her escape plan.
And now it was a children's shelter, apparently.
"Is this... safe?" Kessa asked, eyeing the impossible architecture with justified suspicion.
"Safer than anywhere else in a thousand miles." Sylus approached the door, pressed her palm against the living wood. It recognized her blood, her magic signature. The door shimmered and opened. "Inside. All of you."
They filed through, some hesitant, others too exhausted to care. The interior was larger than the exterior—spatial magic at work. The main hall stretched impossibly far, with corridors branching into rooms that changed configuration based on need.
Currently it resembled a manor house. Fireplaces burning with curse-flame that gave heat without smoke. Furniture that adjusted to whoever sat in it. Food stores that regenerated slowly from preservation runes.
"There's bathing rooms down that hall," Sylus pointed. "Clean clothes in the chests. Food in the kitchens—help yourselves, but don't eat the blue bread. That's for emergencies only."
"What kind of emergencies require blue bread?" Kessa asked.
"The kind where normal food would kill you. Now go. Get cleaned up. I need to make arrangements."
The children dispersed, some rushing toward the promise of hot water, others moving more slowly, as if afraid the sanctuary would disappear if they showed too much hope.
The scarred boy stayed close to Sylus. Still holding her hand. Still silent.
She looked down at him, this broken thing that wouldn't let go, and felt that uncomfortable tightness in her chest again.
"You need a name," she said quietly. "Can't just keep calling you 'boy.' How about... Ash? For the scars?"
He blinked. Once. It might have been agreement.
"Ash it is." She gently extracted her hand from his grip. "Go wash up. I'll be here when you're done."
He hesitated, then shuffled toward where the other children had gone.
Sylus waited until she was alone before allowing herself to feel the weight of what she'd just done. Twenty-three children. Twenty-three mouths to feed, minds to heal, futures to somehow salvage.
She'd taken contracts that paid in kingdoms. Had blackmailed nobles and sold secrets that toppled dynasties. She was an information broker, not a damned orphanage operator.
But Eclipse's words echoed in her memory: Help me save them.
Not "dispose of witnesses." Not "get them out of the way."
Save them.
Like their lives actually mattered. Like they were worth the risk.
Sylus moved to the sanctuary's communication chamber—a room lined with mirrors that showed reflections of other places, other people. She activated the one connected to her network in Greyhaven, waited for the image to resolve.
Grimm's scarred face appeared, looking annoyed at being summoned.
"This better be important," the dwarf growled. "I'm in the middle of inventory."
"I need supplies. Food. Medicine. Clothes for children aged five to fourteen. And a healer. Discreet. Someone who won't ask questions."
Grimm's remaining eye narrowed. "Children? Since when do you run a charity operation?"
"Since I made a deal with a void-touched assassin who's apparently infected me with his stupidly noble ideals." She rubbed her temples. "Can you get what I need or not?"
"I can get it. Going to cost you."
"Everything costs me. That's how commerce works."
"Three hundred gold. Plus a favor."
"Highway robbery."
"You're buying silence along with supplies. Covenant's already sniffing around about the Thornback massacre. Bodies everywhere. Captain Vex Tallow dead. They're offering five thousand gold for information leading to the killer." Grimm's expression was unreadable. "Lot of people might be tempted by that kind of money."
"Are you tempted, Grimm?"
"If I was, you'd already be dead. But I'm just one dwarf. Can't vouch for everyone in my network." He leaned closer to the mirror. "Whatever you're doing with Eclipse, it's stirring up a hornet's nest. Covenant's putting together a response team. Real monsters. The kind they usually keep leashed."
Sylus felt ice in her stomach. "Who?"
"Don't have names yet. But the word is they're pulling from the Pillars' personal enforcers. Elite killers. The ones who make the Crimson Jackals look like children playing with sticks." Grimm's voice dropped. "Your friend Eclipse better be as good as the legends say. Because what's coming for him won't stop. Won't negotiate. Won't show mercy."
"He's not my friend. He's a business associate."
"Right. And I'm the King of the Heartlands." Grimm snorted. "Get me the gold by week's end. I'll have your supplies delivered through the usual channels. And Sylus? Watch yourself. You're crossing lines even you can't uncross."
The mirror went dark.
Sylus stood alone in the communication chamber, processing the information. The Covenant was mobilizing. Eclipse had hurt them badly enough to warrant serious retaliation.
Which meant he'd either go into hiding or escalate.
She'd bet everything she owned on escalation.
The question was whether she wanted to be anywhere near him when the hammer fell.
Footsteps behind her. She turned to find Kessa standing in the doorway, cleaned up and wearing new clothes that were still too large for her skeletal frame.
"The others are eating," the girl said. "Ash is still in the bath. Won't come out."
"Give him time. Water's probably the first safe thing he's felt in months."
"Are we really safe here?" Kessa's eyes were hard. Older than thirteen. "Or is this just a different kind of cage?"
Sylus could have lied. Could have offered comfortable platitudes. But this girl had earned honesty.
"You're as safe as I can make you. But safe is relative. The Covenant has long arms and longer memories. Eventually, they might find this place. When that happens, you run. You survive. You remember what they took from you and you make sure it costs them."
"Like Eclipse did?"
So the girl had been paying attention during the ambush. Had watched while pretending to be terrified.
Smart kid.
"Eclipse is fighting a war he probably can't win," Sylus said. "But he's fighting it anyway. That makes him either the bravest man in Valthor or the most suicidal. I haven't decided which."
"My brother died in the blood-pits," Kessa said quietly. "He was twelve. They made me watch. Made all of us watch, so we'd know what happened if we didn't cooperate." Her hands clenched into fists. "When I'm old enough, strong enough... I want to fight too. Like Eclipse. I want to make them pay."
Sylus studied the girl. Saw the rage. The determination. The kind of focused hatred that could forge a weapon or destroy a soul.
She saw a younger version of herself.
"Then you'll need training," Sylus said. "Revenge isn't something you stumble into. It's a skill. An art. And it requires patience."
"Will you teach me?"
The question hung in the air. Sylus had never taken an apprentice. Had never wanted the liability. But looking at Kessa, seeing that fire...
"We'll see," she said finally. "First priority is keeping you all alive. Learning to kill comes later."
Kessa nodded, satisfied with the non-answer that wasn't quite a refusal.
As the girl left, Sylus returned to the main hall. The children were scattered throughout the sanctuary, some eating ravenously, others just staring at food like they'd forgotten how. Ash sat in a corner, still damp from the bath, clutching a blanket like armor.
This wasn't what she'd signed up for. This wasn't the life she'd built.
But watching these broken things start to remember what safety felt like...
Maybe Eclipse's infection was worse than she'd thought.
Or maybe she'd just been numb for too long and was finally starting to feel again.
Either way, the Sanctuary of Broken Things had new residents.
And Sylus, information broker and professional cynic, had apparently become a protector.
The world had definitely gone mad.