POV: Sera
The guards don't touch me.
That's the first sign that something has fundamentally changed. When they burst through my cell door, weapons drawn, they stop dead in their tracks. They see the golden light still coating my skin, the ancient symbols still glowing faintly on my palms, and fear ripples across their faces.
"Don't move," one of them whispers, though I'm not moving. I'm frozen, staring at my own hands like they belong to someone else.
"The Offering ceremony," another guard says, his voice shaking. "It's time. The settlement is waiting."
They keep their distance as they escort me through the hallways. People jump out of our way. Servants press themselves against walls. I can see their fear now—not just feel it, but perceive it, the way I perceive hunger and desire. Their fear tastes like copper.
My golden light fades completely as we step into sunlight, but the symbols on my palms remain. I hide them in the folds of the white funeral dress.
The town square is packed.
Thousands of people have gathered—families, workers, settlement leaders all dressed in formal clothes like this is a celebration. The platform sits in the center, elevated so everyone can see. And on that platform stands her—the Marker, the old woman who cut my hair. Her cruel smile hasn't changed.
Neither has her equipment.
The branding iron sits in a brazier of coals, heating until it glows orange-red. Even from a distance, I can feel the heat radiating off it.
The guards force me up the wooden steps. I climb them slowly, feeling every eye in the settlement on me. I hear whispers, some sympathetic, most not. Some people are actually excited to watch this.
The Marker grabs my wrist and spins me around, tearing the white dress off my back with no ceremony. The crowd gasps. I'm exposed—vulnerable—standing half-naked in front of thousands of people who decided I was disposable.
"The Offering Mark," the Marker announces loudly, speaking to the crowd instead of to me, "binds you to the mutants now. It marks you as their property. You are no longer human. You are no longer Ashford. You are no longer anything except what they decide to make you."
I find my family in the crowd.
Father stands with Margaret on one side and Marcus on the other. He's not watching my face—he's watching the crowd's reaction, calculating how this affects his status. Margaret has her hand on his arm, and she's smiling. Actually smiling. Like this is the best day she's had in years.
Blake is there, too. He's holding Lyanna's hand. My sister is crying, but she's leaning into him, drawing comfort while I'm about to be burned. She meets my eyes across the square, and instead of shame, I see something worse—relief. Relief that she's not me. Relief that she survived.
That's when I understand the truth:
They didn't just accept this. They wanted this. They chose this. Every single one of them chose for me to die so they could keep living comfortably.
The Marker doesn't ask if I'm ready. She just lifts the branding iron from the fire.
It's so hot I can feel it before it touches me. The pain is immediate and absolute—white-hot agony that steals my breath. I scream. I can't help it. The iron burns into my spine, searing flesh, and the smell of my own burning skin fills the air.
I don't beg. I don't cry for mercy. I don't ask them to stop.
I just scream and scream and scream until the pain becomes a sound, becomes something separate from myself. The iron lifts away, and I'm left gasping, my back on fire, my spine branded with a mark I'll carry forever.
"The Offering is complete," the Marker announces to the crowd.
Cheers. I hear actual cheers from the people below.
The guards pull me down from the platform. They wrap something around my eyes—a blindfold—and I'm thrust into darkness. My back is agony, every movement sending new waves of pain through my body. They force me into a transport vehicle, something with metal sides and hard floors.
"Don't try to escape," one guard says, and I hear the click of restraints locking around my wrists.
The transport lurches forward.
Hours pass. I don't know how many. The vehicle bounces over rough terrain, and each bump sends fresh pain radiating through my back. My wrists are bleeding from the restraints. My mouth is dry. I'm shaking from pain and shock and something else—something electric beneath my skin that wants to burst out.
Finally, the transport stops.
The back doors open. Hands grab me roughly and pull me out. They remove the blindfold, and I'm blinded by sunlight. I squint, trying to make out where I am.
The edge of the Crimson Waste stretches before me. The ground is red—deep crimson, like dried blood—and twisted crystalline formations jut from the earth like broken teeth. The sky above is wrong somehow, tinged with colors that don't exist in the human settlements. Purple. Gold. Strange.
And beyond it, impossibly far away but somehow visible—a massive black structure that touches the clouds.
The Obsidian Citadel.
Where the mutants live. Where I'm supposed to die.
"Supplies," one guard says, and something hits me from behind. A pack with basic provisions. Not enough to survive long, but enough to prolong the terror. "You have a week's worth if you ration it. You won't need more than that."
Because I'll be dead long before then.
The guards don't say goodbye. They don't wish me luck. One of them just shoves me forward, and I stumble into the Crimson Waste. I hear the transport door slam shut behind me. I hear the engine start.
Then I'm alone.
I turn back to watch them drive away, and I see something in the rear window. My father's face. He's watching the transport depart, and on his face is an expression of pure satisfaction.
He got what he wanted. He's free of me.
I turn forward and take my first step into the Waste.
The ground pulses beneath my feet.
It's not my imagination. The crimson earth literally pulses, like it's alive, like I'm walking on the back of something ancient and sleeping. The twisted plants around me move without wind, bending toward me like they're watching.
I walk forward because there's nothing else to do. The Obsidian Citadel is impossibly far away. The Waste stretches on forever. Everything is wrong—the colors too bright, the air too thick, the temperature fluctuating between freezing and burning.
Hours pass. The sun moves across the wrong-colored sky.
Darkness falls, and with it comes the sounds.
Heavy footsteps. Clicking, grinding noises. Growls that vibrate through the earth itself.
I stop walking.
Something massive is moving through the Waste toward me. Multiple somethings. I can hear them breathing—ragged, hungry breathing.
My golden light flares to life on my palms.
The ancient symbols glow brighter than before, and they're spreading—crawling up my arms, burning across my chest, appearing on my face. The golden light illuminates the darkness, and for the first time, I see what's been stalking me.
Three creatures emerge from the crystalline forest.
They're massive—towering over seven feet tall, covered in scales and spines and appendages that shouldn't exist. Too many eyes. Too many mouths. Teeth that shimmer like metal. They're exactly what nightmares are made of.
And they're coming directly toward me.
I should run. Every instinct screams at me to run.
Instead, I step forward.
The lead creature hisses, a sound like gas escaping from a ruptured tank. It raises a clawed limb, and I can see the hunger in its alien eyes. It's been waiting for this. Waiting for prey that can't fight back.
The golden light on my skin burns brighter.
And then something impossible happens.
The ground erupts.
Golden energy explodes upward from beneath my feet, surrounding me in a pillar of pure light so intense that the creatures scream. They throw their clawed limbs over their faces, backing away from the power radiating from me.
My eyes snap open, and they're no longer human eyes.
They're molten gold—burning with power I don't understand, perceiving things I didn't know existed. I can see into the creatures' minds, perceive their desires, their hunger, their need for something they can't name.
And I can see something else—something ancient and royal stirring far beyond the Citadel, waking up, turning its attention toward me.
Something that's been waiting for me my entire life.
The creatures stop attacking. They bow.
One of them, the largest, speaks in a voice like grinding stone: "You... see us?"
And that's when I truly understand:
I'm not prey.
I never was.