Julie never imagined her life would end like this; collared, caged, and carted through a foreign wilderness like livestock. What was supposed to be a lighthearted journey home to Mesha had twisted into a waking nightmare in the span of a few days. She was supposed to be safe. She was a fourth-year student at Dorsehal Academy, a geokinetic with a real future. She was supposed to make her family proud and be someone who'd clawed her way out of the gutters of the River Quarter. All she had wanted was a breath of air that wasn't thick with incense and spellfire. A visit home to clear her head before the final push to graduation.
Now she wished she had never left the dorms. It seemed like the perfect time. Freja, her best friend, exiled and renamed Tanisha, had written to say she would be in Mesha, of all places. It was rare to get a letter from her, and rarer still to have a chance to meet up again. Julie couldn't afford the trip alone, not on scholarship stipends and borrowed robes, but Mat had offered to pay.
The thought of him brought tears to her eyes. He was ever generous, ever charming and apparently the wealthy heir of some Force Isles noble line. Even so he was slumming it with commoners like her because he hated the marble-and-gold cage his family had built for him. Yuhia was perfect for him. Wendigo didn't care about status as much as they cared about magic power. He was just like everyone else there.
Mat had even hired guards to escort them, eager to make sure their journey went smoothly. Julie knew part of that was because he was even more eager to see Tanisha than she was. He did have a crush on the girl after all. This was his chance to reconnect and finally make his move. It had all felt safe. Then the gnolls came.
The ambush had been fast and merciless. The guards were the first to die, gutted before they could draw steel. The screams hadn't lasted long. She had frozen at the sight of blood, she was a mage, a powerful one judging by her test scores but that didn't matter when combat was real. She remembered the heat of fire, the smell of blood in the air, and Mat's voice shouting her name, then silence. When she woke, her wrists were tied, and the cold-iron collar had already been clamped around her throat.
Now she sat in the back of a rusted slave cage, knees drawn to her chest, fingering the cursed metal like it might loosen if she wished hard enough. Her mana, her stone-sense, was gone, suffocated by the iron that drank magic like water. Her uniform, once a symbol of her hard-earned status, was a shredded husk barely clinging to her frame. They had shaved her fiery hair to the scalp, stripped her of any identity that hinted at dignity, and branded her when she fought back, three sharp lines burned into the side of her face barely missing her right eye.
She was lucky that was all they had done. Others didn't get off as easily. She had seen the gnoll war-merchants tear a man in half for whining too loudly. She had seen worse. One girl, barely thirteen, had been sold the moment they crossed out of Yuhia through some blackmarket tunnels. Foreigners fetched a high price, especially young humans.
Human meat was illegal, but illegal only meant expensive, not unavailable. That was what they were now: meat and labor. The gnolls didn't bother with wendigo slaves; they were too dangerous, too unpredictable. But humans? Especially mages with no magic? More than one of them referred to her as prime stock.
Julie closed her eyes, trying not to cry. She didn't know if Mat was alive. She didn't know if Tanisha ever made it to Mesha. The air was thick with the stink of fear and blood and fur. And the worst part? There was no rescue coming. No hero cresting the hill. No clever spell to save her. Not until the collar came off. Not until someone made a move. And if that never happened, she would die here in chains or as someone's dinner.
"Hey," A weak voice called. "Hey are you okay?"
She looked up and saw an elven boy not a few years younger than her. He was in the cage next to hers leaned against the bars. Julie lowered her head back to her knees, not bothering to answer. Of course she wasn't okay, nothing about this situation was okay.
"They didn't feed you yet, right?" The boy continued. "Take this. It's not much but."
Julie looked up again and he was holding out half a bread roll. In the distance she could hear the gnolls laughing about something around their camp. She looked back at the elf. He was skinny, his shirt had long turned to rags. It wasn't his first time offering her food. Julie had decided not to take it before she though starving might be better than whatever the gnolls had planned.
"My name is Thesis," he offered.
"Why do you keep talking to me?" Julie asked.
"Because… I don't know. We have to make it out of here."
Julie chuckled to herself the feeling making her nearly sob.
"We ain't getting out of here." Julie said.
"Someone will…"
"No one is coming. Not out here. Not ever." Julie started to shout.
Thesis still held out the bread. "I think someone will."
"Well, keep your thoughts to yourself next time." Julie turned away from him.
***
Julie didn't sleep that night. Not really. The gnolls' coarse laughter eventually died down into snoring and the occasional wet crunch that turned her stomach. She kept her eyes closed, feigning rest, her arms wrapped around her shivering body. Cold iron burned faintly at her throat, a quiet reminder of everything she'd lost. Magic. Freedom. Mat. Her future.
In the stillness, she could hear Thesis whispering to someone, probably himself or to her she couldn't tell. He was always whispering. Talking like the silence would swallow him whole if he didn't fill it. She didn't pay any attention to it any more. She just hoped it would all be over soon.
***
The next morning, the guards threw a few scraps into the cages. Meat of some kind, tough and gristly and probably not what it was supposed to be. There was also an old loaf of bread. Julie ignored it. Just the smell made her gag. She watched as Thesis picked up his share and then looked at hers.
She glared at him. "Don't you dare."
"I wasn't going to steal it," he said, defensively. "I was gonna bury the meat. Don't eat it, its people. If we leave it out, the smell gets worse."
She let out a bitter, humorless snort. "How thoughtful."
He didn't rise to her sarcasm. Just scooted back to his spot and resumed talking to the air.
***
On the third day listening to his constant talking, she cracked. It wasn't a big thing. Just a question.
"You really think someone's coming for you?" She asked.
Thesis looked over, surprised but hopeful, like she'd thrown him a rope. "Yeah. My family escaped. I think they did anyway. There was a raid, and I got taken, but my mom's smart. She probably got the others out. They'll look for me. Or send someone who will."
Julie chewed her lip. "You're an optimist. That'll get you killed."
He shrugged. "Maybe, but maybe in times like this we could use some optimism."
"What we could use is a way to take off these collars." Julie said.
She turned away from him and looked out to the camp. The gnoll were hustling about laughing and celebrating. It sickened her.
***
Julie would sit in silence, her back to the world, until Thesis started talking. And he always did.
He talked about his sister, who carved animals out of wood and lined them up on windowsills like little guardians. About his brother, barely older than a child, who once tried to fight off the raiders with a broom handle and a war cry that cracked halfway through. He spoke of the forests near his home in Postlumia, how the trees sang when the wind blew right, and the birds could mimic your voice so perfectly that you'd swear someone was calling your name from the branches.
One night, he laughed. Really laughed. She had said something probably sarcastic but didn't remember what she had said when she heard it. It was soft, almost shy, and it didn't belong here. Not in a cage stinking of blood, rot and shit, not under the moonlight where the screams still echoed if you listened too hard. But it didn't matter.
For a moment, the laughter was real. Julie hated how much she wanted it to keep going. How freeing just seeing him laugh was.
Apparently, he'd been with the gnolls for months. Captured not in Yuhia, like she'd assumed, but in Postlumia. Far from home. Far from anything familiar. Yet somehow, he still smiled and held on to hope that things would get better.
Eventually, she found herself answering him.
"My family's not like that," she said one night, her voice dry and cracking like parchment. "No carved animals. No forests. Ironic since it was called River Quarter but I don't even think that water was drinkable. We lived six to a room. Rats bigger than my baby cousin. Cold winters and worse summers. Dad worked year round in the mines brought back coppers to the golds the rich bastards made. I'm the only mage my family's ever had. First spark in a bloodline so dull we were practically invisible. I was supposed to be the one who got us out."
Thesis didn't interrupt. For once, he was silent. Not even a breath. Julie gritted her teeth. She almost wanted him to talk… cut her off, say something annoying so she could stop this stupid flood of words. But he didn't. And because he didn't, the dam cracked open wider.
"They were so proud," she whispered. "When I tested positive for magical aptitude, I thought my mom was gonna cry herself inside out. But we couldn't afford any of those damn academies in Mesha. Not even the city-sponsored ones. Probably the biggest scam are things they say are free. I studied every day to test into Dorsehal. Dirt under my nails, patchy robes, half my books were secondhand with pages missing, but I got in. I got the school uniform and made it look good."
She swallowed. The collar at her neck itched, or maybe it was just in her head.
"Scholarship kid with a dream. I was gonna graduate, get a guild post, maybe even land a tower contract. First paycheck? I was gonna buy my mom a real bed. One with springs. No more thin mats on the floor."
She paused, then gave a bitter smile, one without warmth.
"She didn't even want me to go. Said it was too far. Too dangerous. 'Wendigo eat people, Julie. What if you get attacked by something?' she said. I laughed. I told her the only thing to worry about was midterms."
Her voice cracked like ice underfoot.
"She was right. About the danger, at least. I never thought I'd get caught. Never thought I'd end up… here." Her gaze drifted out into the darkness past the bars. "Funny thing is, my best friend's a wendigo. She never ate anybody she didn't even recognize when Mat had the biggest crush on her. You could see it from the Ulidia mountains at night while blind."
Thesis shifted, the rustle of his ragged clothes barely audible. Then he said, softly, "Your mom'd still want you to live, Julie. You think she'd be proud of you wasting away in a cage? Starving to death just to prove something?"
Julie didn't respond. The words hung between them, too heavy to touch. But when the gnolls brought the next round of food, she didn't just ignore it. She buried the meat, same as always. She took the bread and sat with it in her hands for a long time.
Then, finally, slowly, she took a bite. It was stale, hard and almost tasteless but it was a start.