"Have you dealt with them?"
Dorothy was waiting in the room for them, asking nervously.
Caelan: "Most of them are dead. What are you hiding?"
"Nothing!" Dorothy's voice grew tense, rising involuntarily.
"You know I'll find it," Caelan said. "Whether you hand it over willingly or I dig it out myself makes a world of difference. You understand that, don't you?"
Curze stared at her coldly. His icy gaze filled Dorothy with fear, yet she refused to yield.
Her eyes fell on the third figure entering the room, the boy she remembered, the one who had joined the Bloodclaws not long ago: Kaz.
"He's not dead?" she blurted out.
Curze said, "I gave him a chance. He took it. Caelan is giving you a chance too."
A flicker of struggle passed through Dorothy's eyes. In the end, she compromised.
She walked toward the throne and twisted a hidden switch upon it.
With a rumbling sound, the walls of the room lowered, revealing a secret chamber behind them.
Inside the chamber huddled a group of trembling children. They were all young, none old enough to join the Bloodclaws yet.
Compared to Philly and her friends, these children were much healthier, because they had never needed to worry about food.
"They're Bloodclaw children?" Caelan asked.
Dorothy said softly, "Only the children of core members. Sevitalion gathered them here and had me teach them how to read."
These children were fortunate; they had a teacher, something considered a privilege among gang families.
But they were also hostages, leverage Sevitalion used to threaten other gang members into loyalty.
"And their mothers?" Caelan asked.
Dorothy: "Dead. In the underhive, pregnancy is dangerous. Those who survive childbirth don't live long afterward."
Curze asked: "And their fathers?"
Dorothy said nothing. Curze already knew the answer.
He gave a small "oh" and added, "That's right, I forgot. I killed them all myself."
He asked on purpose to watch the children's reactions.
As expected, in their eyes, he saw hatred and fear, hatred most of all.
They were too young to conceal it.
They had not witnessed Curze's slaughter firsthand, so their fear was less than their hatred.
"This won't do." Curze clenched the shard. "Evil must be rooted out completely. Leaving them alive will only bring disaster."
Caelan asked: "You hid them away because you feared we'd kill them? You really do have a soft spot for children."
Dorothy smiled bitterly. What else could it be?
Caelan asked, "Answer me one more question: what about the sorcerer?"
Dorothy's eyes flicked toward the children. A boy stepped forward, his body trembling with fear, but still mustering courage to shield the others.
"The one you're looking for is me," he said. "Spare Teacher Dorothy and the others!"
"Let me guess," Caelan said, studying his face. "He's Sevitalion's son, and a psyker. That's why you were afraid I'd kill him."
Dorothy nodded silently.
"You concealed his psychic nature? Planning to strike me with a fatal blow?"
Dorothy looked up in shock, quickly explaining.
"No! You saved Philly. I never wanted to kill you. I only wanted to protect them."
"Do you believe her?" Caelan asked Curze.
Curze nodded… then shook his head.
He could only believe halfway.
Curze asked: "Should we let them live?"
Caelan: "I told you, every life and death here is yours to decide."
Curze looked at the children. Countless futures surged into his mind like collapsing towers, visions of different times and places overwhelming him.
He shut his eyes in pain. He was beginning to hate his gift.
Why had his father given him this cursed ability?
Caelan was right, his father truly was no good.
Curze opened his eyes. He didn't smell sin on these children.
But they were still guilty, guilty of sharing in their fathers' crimes.
"Only once," Curze rasped. "They must let go of their hatred. I won't give them a second chance."
"I swear it!" Dorothy nodded rapidly.
Caelan didn't comment on Curze's decision, but he thought it would be simple enough. To let go of hatred, all they had to do was become Curze's children.
If they became Curze's children, what was patricide compared to that?
As for the girls, there weren't many of them. Their treatment here was clearly worse than the boys. Fear outweighed hatred in their eyes, for most had never known a father's love.
In the underhive, women were disposable. Even their fathers treated them as tradable goods.
Getting them to abandon hatred would not be difficult.
Caelan: "Go bring Philly and the others. From now on, this will be our home."
"You're not going uphive?" Dorothy asked.
"Not yet," Caelan said.
"Why?" This time, it was Curze who asked.
"Because your foundation isn't stable," Caelan answered. "If you want to rule this world, you can't do it alone. You'll need allies."
"And you?"
"I'll help you, but the two of us still aren't enough. The hive world has tens of billions of people. To govern it, to realize your ideals, you'll need many more who share your vision."
Curze smiled. That was enough.
He looked at the children. These were the ones Caelan meant. In them, he saw hatred and fear, but also hope and rebirth.
The future flickered in them, shifting and unstable. He would need to remain vigilant, to cull the rotten branches and guide the course of fate, ensuring the world's rebirth instead of its plunge into deeper darkness.
…
For Philly, the past few days felt like a dream.
Just days ago, she'd been chased into the trash heaps, nearly violated.
Now she was in the Bloodclaws' camp, with her own small house.
The air here reeked of blood, but there were no corpses in sight. She didn't care about those lives anyway; they deserved to die.
Philly had never been so happy. There was endless corpse-starch to eat, a safe house to live in, and even the very air seemed sweeter here than anywhere else.
She no longer had to struggle just to survive.
But what made her happiest of all, she could go to class.
"Teacher Caelan," Philly greeted nervously.
Caelan nodded at her. "Go sit down. Class will begin soon."
Philly beamed, hurrying to join the others in the classroom.
Curze sat in the first row.
The seats around him were empty; no one else dared sit near him, except for Philly and Ben, who managed to pluck up the courage.
Caelan stepped onto the lectern and cleared his throat.
"Today, we'll tell a story passed down from ancient Terra, the tale of a hero and a dragon."
"Legend says there was a hero named Neoth. One day, on a whim, he mounted his beloved steed, took up his lance, donned golden armor, and set out to slay a void dragon that plagued the land…"