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My throat tightened, a sickening dread creeping over me as I glanced toward the source of the voice.

But it wasn’t Elias.

What stood there, at the edge of the firelight, was something twisted, something... wrong.

A grotesque, hollow-eyed version of Elias—with limbs too long, fingers that twitched unnaturally, and a face that stretched into a grotesque mockery of my son's sweet, round features. Its skin was a sickly, pallid color, almost translucent, like a poorly drawn imitation of a child carved from nightmares. The eyes, though—those hollow, empty eyes—bore into me, devoid of any warmth. Devoid of my child.

“Mama...” the thing rasped again, its mouth—Elias’smouth—curling into a sickening, too-wide smile that split its face like a cracked doll.

I jerked back, bile rising in my throat. “No,” I whispered, voice hoarse. “That’s not him. That’s not...”

Dregor’s rumbling laughter filled the air, the sound dragging like gravel as he finally stood and sheathed the blade. He took a few slow steps toward me, his hulking shadow bending over me like a vulture circling its prey.

“No? Are you sure?” His golden eyes gleamed, almost playful in their malice.

“I know my child,” I snapped, surprised by the raw fierceness that surged from me. “I know Elias.”

“Mama…” The mimic twitched again, taking a slow, deliberate step closer, its movements jerky, like a puppet dangling from invisible strings.

I recoiled, my chest tightening with fury and terror. “Where is my son?” I rasped.

Dregor shrugged one massive shoulder. “Home, probably. Sleeping soundly under the traitor's watchful eye.”

The traitor. Vorgath. Relief flooded through me, but it didn't last.

“Since the charmstone in your home and the runes on your forge wouldn't let me near, I had to find a way to bring you to me.It might have been better to have the boy. More symbolic. But,” he trailed off, eyes lingering on my neck where I knew Vorgath's mark was still visible. “You will do.”

“Where are we?”

Dregor gave a slow, cruel smile. “An old haunt. A place where warriors fought, bled, and died—just as you will, eventually. But not yet.”

I glanced around, my heart still pounding, taking in the unsettling space. The walls were thick, ancient stone, worn smooth in some places and pocked with scars in others. Rusted iron chains hung from the walls, their links thick and heavy, swinging slightly in the draft that seeped through the cracks in the stone. The air was damp, filled with the smell of mold and something metallic—like blood, soaked into the stone and never fully washed away.

It had to be one of the abandoned outposts left behind after the war. There were several scattered in the woods around Everwood, relics of a conflict that had only ended a few years ago. Both sides had used them as temporary fortresses, hastily built and then forgotten. I hadn’t seen one up close before. Most people avoided them—too many bad memories, too much death.

And now, I was inside one, my hands bound, and Dregor sitting across from me, watching with that cold, cruel smile.

“Why am I here?” I finally managed to ask, biting down the fear crawling up my throat.

“You?” he repeated slowly, voice like thick, grating gravel. “You’re just a means to an end.” His gaze flickered lazily to the mimic still jerking at the edge of the firelight, garbling up another twisted version of Elias’s voice. My stomach roiled at the sound.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means,” Dregor’s smile widened, his tusks gleaming in the firelight, “that this village’s gentle green giant took somethingfrom me. Something irreplaceable. Something—” He clenched his fists, the tendons in his forearm flexing under the dim light—“precious.”

“Your son,” I ventured, my voice barely a breath.

That smile was gone now. “Throk,” he hissed. His hands tightened around the blade he was sharpening earlier, fingers tense, white with strain. “Throk was the future of our clan. A warrior—a true orc, unlikehim.” Dregor growled. “Vorgath let his brother live. After everything Gorkath did, Vorgath couldn’t finish the job. And because of that...” His grip on the weapon tightened. “I lost my son.”

The weight of his words hung heavy in the cold air, the grief behind them undeniable. Despite everything, I felt a pang of something almost like sympathy. I could see it—the twisted logic that drove him, the pain that he let consume him until there was nothing left but vengeance. Nothing left but rage and a raw, unyielding grief.

“And he thinks he can just walk away from it all,” Dregor snarled, his voice growing louder, fueled by the rising flames of his fury. “Start a new life. Forget the blood. Forget the loss. Forgetmy son!” His hand slammed into the crumbling stone wall next to him, the impact violent enough to send dust and small rocks tumbling down.

I flinched but kept my eyes on him. His pain was palpable now, a living, breathing thing that filled every inch of the space between us. It was dangerous, volatile.

Still, I had to say something. Anything that might buy me time. Time to figure out how to get back to my son, to escape this nightmare.

“I... I lost someone, too,” I whispered. “My husband. Kald. The war took him from me, just like it took Throk from you.”