They did not let the slaves rest after the ship docked.
Chains were cut only to be replaced with orders.
Shouted commands cracked across the pier as slavers drove them forward, boots thudding against wet planks slick with brine and old blood. The air stank of salt, rust, and something older—iron that had known too many wrists. Somewhere down the line, someone stumbled. The sound of a body hitting wood was followed by a cry that ended too quickly.
Hikaru was shoved hard between the shoulder blades, a rough hand forcing him forward until his feet tangled and he nearly fell.
“Move.”
The word was unnecessary. The line was already moving.
He caught himself, straightened, and stepped into place just as a broad figure blocked his path.
Garrick Holt stood at the head of the cargo line, sleeves rolled to the elbow, a scar pulling one side of his mouth downward into a permanent sneer. He didn’t shout like the others. He didn’t need to. The men around him watched his hands instead.
“Here, boy.”
Two crates were thrust into Hikaru’s arms without warning.
The weight hit him like a hammer.
Wood slammed into his chest, knocking the breath from his lungs in a sharp, silent burst. His vision flared—colors breaking apart into bright, useless streaks as his knees buckled. For half a heartbeat, the world spun.
Then instinct took over.
He tightened his grip, forced his feet under him, and locked his jaw as the dizziness faded to a dull throb behind his eyes.
Garrick was already turning away.
“Next.”
The crates were passed down the line—into Liora’s arms, then on again. Hikaru followed, pace steady now, breath controlled. Complaints earned the lash. Silence earned survival.
Toren stepped into line just as Hikaru moved past him.
“Try not to swing at anyone today,” Toren said under his breath. “Wouldn’t want another misunderstanding.”
Hikaru didn’t look at him.
He adjusted his grip, shifted the weight with practiced efficiency, and kept moving.
Garrick Holt’s voice cut through the rhythm again.
“Faster. You’re not paid by the hour.”
As Hikaru passed, Toren let out a dry snort, eyes fixed ahead.
“Didn’t know we were getting paid.”
A nearby slaver barked a short laugh.
Garrick turned his head just enough for Toren to see one eye.
“Careful,” Garrick said. “I decide how long you get to keep breathing.”
Toren’s jaw tightened. He said nothing more. The line moved on.
As Hikaru worked, he watched.
The camp unfolded inland from the docks like a wound that refused to close.
Canvas tents sprawled to the south, packed in tight, uneven rows, their stained fabric snapping in the wind. Those were the slavers’ quarters—guarded, busy, loud. Smoke curled from cookfires, and the clatter of armor and shouted orders never seemed to stop. Behind the tents, a river cut its way through the land, winding lazily as it slipped past the camp before bending eastward toward the sea.
Beyond that river rose the Thornsreach.
A black bricks of stone and ward-stamped pylons loomed in the distance, half-shrouded by heat haze and mist. Even from here, it hummed faintly—an almost-subtle vibration that made Hikaru’s teeth ache if he focused on it too long. He didn’t stare. He didn’t need to. Nothing passed through that.
To the east, the land opened toward water. A river flowed away from the camp, crossed by a single stone bridge before disappearing into the treeline. Farther still, he could just make out the surface of a lake, pale and reflective beneath the sky. A few trees clung to its edge. People gathered there—free, careless, unafraid. Slaves were kept well away from that direction, and Hikaru understood why immediately. Open ground. Nowhere to hide.
He dismissed it.
To the west, behind him, stretched the sea—wide, cold, and empty. No ships waited. No currents promised escape. Only jagged rock and endless water that would swallow him long before it carried him anywhere useful.
His gaze shifted north.
The forest pressed close to the camp’s northern edge, dark and dense, its trees rising where the land sloped downward toward the roots of something far larger.
A wall.
Stone blocks stacked ten meters high and three meters thick cut across the land, stretching as far as Hikaru could see. The wall was reinforced with metal forged by magic that coursed through it like veins. Parts of it stood complete—solid, seamless, crowned with a narrow walkway and iron-braced parapets. Other sections were still skeletal, gaps yawning where blocks had yet to be set, scaffolding clinging to raw stone like broken ribs.
Closest to the sea, the wall was finished.
Farther inland, it wasn’t.
That was where the slaves worked.
No fires burned near the forest. No tents were pitched beneath its canopy. Everything stopped at the wall, as if even the slavers understood there were lines that should not be crossed. Wardens stood watch along the construction, stationed atop the finished sections and at the broken edges alike—fewer in number than those guarding the Thornsreach or the tents, but unmistakably heavier armed.
Their insignia marked them as B-rank.
Elite.
Not posted to watch slaves.
Posted to watch the forest.
They moved with the calm confidence of men who had already survived what lurked beyond the trees. The slavers worked beneath them without looking up, assured by the presence of power rather than numbers.
At the center of it all, a massive gate was taking shape—stone teeth rising slowly, inch by inch, where the road met the wall. Unfinished. Vulnerable.
Hikaru’s gaze lingered there.
Walls weren’t built unless something on the other side demanded it.
That mattered.
B-rank was not a warning—it was assurance. Veterans. Killers. The kind of wardens assigned only when something worth fearing prowled beyond the perimeter. The slavers worked with an ease that came from confidence, not ignorance. If the forest held monsters, then these were the men trusted to keep them there.
Hikaru noted how the guards stood—relaxed but alert, weapons carried with familiarity rather than tension. No one hurried them. No one checked on them.
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The message was clear.
Whatever lived in those trees, it had been measured.
And contained.
Hikaru filed that away.
Hikaru passed another crate along the line, muscles burning as he absorbed its weight. He adjusted his grip automatically, angling the crate to spare the slave beside him some strain. The man gave him a brief, startled look, then nodded once before turning away.
Noted.
Near the forest’s edge, a river cut through the land, its waters dark and steady as they flowed out toward a lake to the east. The lake shimmered faintly in the distance, ringed by sparse trees and dotted with people laughing, sitting, drinking. Free people. Slaves were kept well away from that direction. The ground between the docks and the lake was open and flat, with nowhere to hide and nowhere to run.
Hikaru eliminated it as an option instantly.
A shout snapped his attention back to the present. A slaver barked at a group of slower slaves, striking one across the back with the flat of a blade. No one intervened. Hikaru memorized the man’s face anyway.
He shifted another crate. This one smelled faintly of wet wood and river moss. Not sea-salt. River.
Good.
The wood creaked softly at his side as Liora moved into the line beside him. She didn’t look at him at first. Her face was pale, eyes unfocused, breath shallow as she struggled under the weight she was carrying.
Liora carried the crate with both arms locked around it, the wood pressed tight against her chest. A metal bucket sat on top, its weight shifting with every step. The rope handle slid back and forth across the crate’s surface, scraping softly as the contents sloshed inside.
Hikaru noticed the problem immediately.
The bucket slipped as Liora stepped over a rut in the planks, tilting hard enough that she had to hitch the crate higher to keep it from falling. Her breath hitched, shoulders tightening as she tried to correct without slowing the line.
His own crate filled his arms. Letting go would earn a blow.
Hikaru leaned toward her without breaking stride and caught the bucket’s rope between his teeth.
The weight dropped instantly.
The sudden pull wrenched his neck downward, pain flaring along his jaw and the lower back of his neck as the bucket lifted clean off the crate. It swung once before he steadied it by lowering his head, keeping the rope taut as he moved.
Liora froze mid-step.
“Hikaru—” she whispered, panic sharp. “Stop. Please. It’s fine, I can—”
He shook his head once, carefully, the motion small enough not to jolt the bucket. The rope bit into his gums as he took another step.
“You don’t have to,” she murmured, walking beside him now. “You’re already carrying—this is too much.”
“It’s almost there,” he said around the rope, words rough but clear.
They separated slightly, each keeping pace with the line. Hikaru walked a half-step behind now, head angled down to balance the weight. His jaw burned. A dull pressure crept behind his eyes as the bucket pulled harder with each step.
The ground sloped upward.
His vision swam.
He counted steps instead of distance.
Liora kept glancing sideways, guilt tightening her grip on the crate. “You can drop it,” she whispered. “Really.”
He didn’t answer.
The unloading point came into view—a rough stack near the half-built wall. Hikaru forced himself through the last few steps, then lowered his head and let the bucket slide free, metal clanging softly as it hit the ground.
He straightened too quickly.
The world tipped.
He steadied himself before it showed.
“Done,” he said quietly, working his jaw.
She stared at him. “You’re going to hurt yourself one day.”
“Not today,” he replied.
A shadow fell across them.
“No talking.”
The slaver’s voice was cold. “You’re here to work.”
Hikaru dropped his gaze immediately. Liora turned away, heart still racing as she moved back into line.
But as they separated, she glanced back once—just long enough to see him testing his jaw, face already composed, eyes back on the work ahead.
Something was wrong with that forest.
A long pole slid across the planks nearby as two slaves struggled to maneuver it. One lost their grip, and the pole rolled away, clattering against the ground before coming to rest near a half-built wall that bordered the camp. The wall rose unevenly along a low hill, its stones stacked but unfinished.
Hikaru noticed the slope.
Not steep.
But enough.
A slaver cursed and waved the incident off. “Leave it. Get back in line.”
The pole was forgotten.
Hikaru stored that away.
By the time the sun dipped lower and the ship’s belly was empty, his hands were raw and his arms trembled with exhaustion. But his mind was calm, methodical, already assembling paths and probabilities.
North was dangerous.
East was exposed.
South was sealed.
West was death.
Which meant there was only one real choice.
And it would cost him.
He passed the last crate forward and straightened slowly, eyes lifting once more to the forest as the river glinted faintly beneath the fading light.
The sun had it’s last embers left in view right above the sea’s edge.
The stone rose like a gray horizon, ten meters high where the finished segments stood, skeletal scaffolds climbing its face in a lattice of wood and rope. Shadows bled through the framework, stretching long and crooked across packed earth. The unfinished sections showed the future—raw foundation trenches, piles of quarried stone, mortar pits, cranes fashioned from timber and iron hooks.
The wall did not look defensive.
It looked inevitable.
All day the labor had not stopped.
Even as smaller boats arrived from the harbor inlet—low hulls heavy with plenty of bodies—work continued. Slaves were unloaded in groups, assessed with quick glances, sorted, and pushed toward holding pens near the central clearing.
By late afternoon, the clearing was full.
Dust clung to sweat-slick skin.
Salt hung heavy in the air from the ocean wind.
Hikaru stood among the newest arrivals, Liora at his side. Dirt dulled its shine. Dried blood still darkened Hikaru’s sleeve from days before—never fully washed out.
He did not try to clean it.
He had stopped caring how he looked.
Liora stood close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed. Her purple hair caught the dying light, faintly luminous even beneath grime. Several eyes lingered too long on her before looking away.
Toren stood on Hikaru’s other side.
Back straight.
Jaw tight.
Trying very hard to look like something worth keeping.
Around them, the other slaves—already sorted into groups—formed loose semicircles. Twenty teams in total. Some wore matching strips of cloth tied around their arms. Others simply stood in tight formation, clearly accustomed to each other’s presence.
They were not a mob.
They were units.
Hikaru noticed that immediately.
Five stood at the very front.
Even without introduction, their rank was obvious.
They stood slightly apart from the others, arrogantly— confidently. Their clothing, though worn, was intact. Their boots were reinforced with extra stitching. Their shoulders carried no hesitation.
Ironbound.
Hikaru didn’t know the name yet.
But he understood the structure.
Behind them stood another group of four—broader, louder, competitive in posture. Stonewake. Toren’s eyes drifted toward them unconsciously.
Beyond that, the formations grew less uniform.
And at the very back, slightly separated from even the lowest-ranked cluster, stood only two figures.
A tall man.
And a girl beside him.
The man’s frame was immense—easily a head taller than most in the clearing, shoulders thick, arms corded with labor-earned muscle. He stood protectively, half a step in front of the girl as if it were instinct.
The girl’s hands were wrapped in cloth. Mortar burns scarred her fingers.
The girl may look weak but the man beside her surely made up for it.
A murmur rippled through the clearing as Garrick Holt stepped forward.
His boots crunched over gravel.
He did not raise his voice immediately.
He waited.
And the murmur died on its own.
“Welcome to Thornsreach,” Garrick said, hands clasped behind his back.
The word welcome earned no reaction.
“You’ve worked a day already. Some of you worked well. Some of you worked slowly.” His gaze drifted lazily across the new arrivals. It paused briefly on Hikaru.
Recognition.
Annoyance.
That troublesome brat from the ship.
The cheapest purchase of the lot.
A waste of coin so far.
Garrick moved on without expression.
“At Thornsreach,” he continued, “we do not believe in waste.”
He gestured toward the wall.
“That structure will encircle this forest. It will outlive all of you. It will stand because of production. Efficiency. Discipline.”
He began pacing slowly before the assembled teams.
“We operate on a ranking system.”
A faint shift ran through the grouped slaves. The ranked teams stood taller.
“Each week, total output is measured. Stone hauled. Foundation depth. Scaffold stability. Mortar consistency. Structural alignment.”
Hikaru’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Measured. Tracked. Categorized.
Garrick continued.
“The highest-performing unit receives elevated privileges.” He lifted a hand and counted calmly. “Freshwater baths in the lake instead of the ocean.”
A ripple. That mattered.
“Whole food rations.”
Another ripple.
“And full canopy shelter. No holes.”
Now even the newest slaves reacted. Not loudly. But enough.
Garrick’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
“The lowest-ranked unit…”
He paused.
“…is reorganized.”
The word landed heavier than if he had said punished.
Reorganized meant separated.
Reduced. Dispersed.
Or worse.
“There are currently twenty ranked teams,” Garrick said. “Five primary. Five secondary. Ten rotational.”
He turned slightly, gesturing toward the front group.
“The current first rank.”
The five did not bow. They did not speak. They simply stood.
“The current second rank.”
Stonewake shifted subtly. Toren’s chest rose.
“This evening, we expand.”
Garrick faced the unassigned slaves in the center.
“You will not be placed randomly.”
A deliberate choice of words.
“The highest-ranked team will select first.”
Murmurs spread.
“They may choose one individual.”
He looked toward the teams.
“No more. No less.”
Hikaru’s gaze flicked from group to group.
Not charity.
Drafting.
Optimization.
“They will evaluate you,” Garrick continued. “Strength. Endurance. Skill. Potential.”
His eyes passed over Liora briefly. Then Hikaru.
Potential.
He doubted either possessed it.
“The second-ranked team will choose next.”
He folded his hands again.
“This will continue until all unassigned individuals are placed.”
Silence thickened.
Liora swallowed quietly.
Toren subtly adjusted his stance.
Hikaru’s expression did not change.
They don’t need chains, he thought.
They’ve built something better.
Garrick stepped aside, giving space between himself and the assembled slaves.
“The order has been decided.”
He glanced once more at the white-haired boy.
Cheap. Thin. Dirty.
Trouble.
Then his voice rang clear across the clearing.
“Let the selection begin.”
