Page 155 of When Sisters Collide
Phoebe was already moving through the wreckage, checking mud-brick homes that had endured better than the wooden huts. Alena splashed after her, sandals striking muddy puddles streaked with ash and blood. Bodies littered the ground—every one of them a man, faces slack, eyes glassy, staring at the smoke-stained sky.
Where were the women and children?
She scanned the wreckage, her heart pounding. Then—a faint cry. “Help…”
She froze, head swivelling towards the sound, and sprinted for a collapsed brick wall. A flicker of movement showed through the rubble. Half-buried in the debris lay a pregnant woman, curled on her side, her face drawn tight with pain. Soot streaked her cheeks, one arm and half her chest pinned beneath the fallen wall. Her lips parted in a silent, desperate plea.
“I’m here!” Alena dropped to her knees, forcing steadiness into her voice even as panic clawed at her throat. “I found you!”
Brick by brick, she began clearing the rubble, careful not to bring more down.
Phoebe appeared moments later, her expression hardening at the sight. Without a word, she joined in, their movements quick and precise. Together, they freed the woman from the last of the debris.
“Get one of the healers,” Alena urged. Phoebe hesitated, eyes flicking towards the chaos beyond, then nodded and sprinted off.
The woman’s gaze darted to Alena, wide and shining with fear. Her free hand clutched her swollen belly. “My baby?—”
“Don’t move,” Alena murmured, pressing a hand to her shoulder. “A healer’s on the way. You’re going to be all right.”
With practised care, she tore strips from a discarded garment, the fabric fraying under her fingers. She wound the makeshift bandage around the woman’s broken arm, just below the elbow. As Alena worked, she spoke in low, soothing tones until the woman’s breaths evened out.
“My husband…” the woman rasped, eyes drifting to the smoking ruins. “They killed him. We saw smoke on the horizon and then—soldiers on horseback. They tore through the village, pillaging, burning, killing all the men.” Her voice cracked, urgency surging beneath the grief. “My children—they took my son and daughter. I have to find them, I have to?—”
“Please, don’t move,” Alena said softly, brushing the woman’s soot-streaked hair from her face. “Think of your baby. Let the healer see to you.”
Just then, one of the healers arrived, flanked by two soldiers. Without hesitation, she knelt beside the woman and placed her hands on the swollen belly. A bright yellow light bloomed from her palms, warm and radiant as the sun, spreading calm despite the devastation around them.
The Archer’s Gift, Alena recalled from the healer who’d treated the frostbite on her jaw.
“The baby is strong,” the healer said with a reassuring smile. “But you must stay still. We’ll take you back to Tiryns, and there you’ll be safe.”
“But my children—” The woman shook her head, voice fracturing into a desperate sob. Dust and ash clung to her skin, streaked with tears.
Alena clasped her trembling hand, speaking with as much steadiness as she could summon. “We’ll find them.”
The woman’s gaze dropped to Alena’s hand, where the shimmering Omega Mark caught the weak light filtering through the smoke. Her eyes widened, disbelief and hope flickering in their depths. “It’s you… you’re the Omega. They said… they were looking for you.”
A cold wave rolled through Alena’s veins, numbing her limbs. For a moment, the world seemed to close in, the chaos muted to a whisper beneath the pounding of her own heart.
The woman lunged forward, clutching Alena’s arm with desperate urgency. “The rumours were true. My husband heard whispers in the east. He said the Omega was chosen by the gods, that you would help us. But the Twelve have forsaken us—they’ve?—”
Alarmed, the healer grabbed the woman’s shoulders, gently pressing her back down. “Please, don’t exert yourself.”
“My children!” The woman’s nails dug into Alena’s arm, drawing blood. “I beg you. Please! They came here looking for you. You have to save them!”
Alena flinched, heavy guilt crashing over her. At the healer’s quiet command, a soldier carefully lifted the trembling woman into his arms, while another steadied her head, murmuring comfort. But her pleading sobs sliced through the smoke like blades.
“Please!” she cried as they carried her towards the cluster of injured survivors. “Please!”
Alena stood frozen, surrounded by ruin, the survivors’ sobs and screams echoing through the devastation. None cut deeper than a mother’s cry for her children. She couldn’t help butremember San’s raw anguish back at the slave market—her panicked shrieks when she’d seen Kaixo locked in that crate.
How could the Rasennans do this? How much war and death had they endured themselves to become numb to the devastation they now inflicted? Alena couldn’t comprehend such cruelty.
War is horror,Damocles had once said. But in her mind, war had always been two armies clashing on open fields. Soldiers against soldiers.
Notthis.
Not the slaughter of innocents. And for what? Petty revenge? To send a message?
