A Glimpse of Sunlight

Before the rain, before the blood, before Graywatch taught me how to fight and lie and drink hard truths straight, there were days like this…

The sun was shining.

Not just glinting through cloudbreak like it does now, but really shining. Pouring down from a sky so blue it looked like it had been painted by someone who still believed in wonder. The grass was warm beneath my legs, soft and sweet-smelling, and I could hear the river humming to itself as it wound around the low stones, just a few yards away.

The Verdant River. Wide and slow-moving this far outside the city. Its banks framed with wildflowers and willow trees that trailed their fingers across the surface like they were lazy and content, just like we were.

I sat with my legs stretched out long in front of me, knees scuffed, fingers stained with the juice of ripe berries. I was seven years old and already nearly up to my father’s chest, which didn’t sit too well with the tailors in town, but he just laughed it off.

“Don’t slouch, kid,” he’d say. “You were made to look down on people. Might as well do it with dignity.”

He was lying beside me on the blanket now, his arms folded behind his head, one boot crossed over the other. His hair caught the sunlight like copper wire, and his eyes were half-closed, but I could tell he wasn’t asleep. Mikael Blackthorn never really slept. Not unless he was sure of the ground beneath him.

“You’re thinking again,” he said, voice low and lazy.

I plucked a petal from a daisy and twirled it between my fingers.

“Am I not allowed?”

He smiled, just slightly, and turned his head to look at me.

“You’re allowed. But it’s a picnic, not a war council.”

“I wasn’t thinking about wars.”

“No?”

“I was thinking… this is the kind of place where stories come from. The kind with dragons. Or buried treasure.”

He let out a soft hum of agreement and closed his eyes again.

“Then let it be a story,” he said. “We’ve earned at least one.”

The breeze stirred the grass. A kite flitted in the distance, its tail catching on a gust as some distant farmer’s kids whooped in delight. Bees hummed. A butterfly landed briefly on my arm, then lifted off again, as if I’d passed some kind of inspection.

We had bread, cheese, and something that might’ve once been a roast but had long since gone cold in the shade. I didn’t care. It tasted better out here, with the sun on our shoulders and nothing urgent to get back to.

That was my father’s gift. People always talked about the battles, the medals, the strategies that saved cities and shamed kings. But they didn’t know what it was like to see him like this. Calm. Barefoot in the grass. Telling stories in low tones while pointing out cloud shapes like they meant something more than weather.

He could make the world feel still.

I looked over at him, watching the wind brush his coat where it had been tossed over a stump. His swordbelt rested beside it, unbuckled and forgotten.

“Papa?”

He lifted one brow without opening his eyes.

“Will you teach me how to fight?”

He chuckled, deep and quiet.

“I thought you were still thinking about dragons.”

“I want to know what you know.”

“You will,” he said. “But not today.”

I looked down at my knees, picking at a scab that had half-healed. “Why not?”

He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at me fully now, serious but not stern.

“Because you don’t fight for fun, Lena. You fight to protect. You fight when there’s no other way.”

His hand reached out and brushed a stray curl from my cheek.

“And on days like this? We learn how not to fight. We learn how to rest. That’s part of the lesson, too.”

I didn’t really understand it then. Not the whole of it. But I remember how he said it. Soft, like he was teaching me a spell that could hold back the dark. And for that moment, sitting there in the sunlight with berry-stained fingers and a belly full of warm bread, I believed him.

The sky was blue. The river was laughing. And my father was alive.

In the back of my mind, I knew it wasn’t real.

Dreams have that soft edge. The colors too warm, the light too golden, the air too still. You know, somewhere deep behind your ribs, that this moment doesn’t belong to the present. That it's something borrowed, something remembered so vividly it borrowed shape and sound just to visit you again.

But knowing didn’t make me want to leave.

I wanted to stay. Right here. On the bank of the Verdant River with the sun on my face and the grass itching the backs of my legs. I wanted to keep watching the water slip past like it had all the time in the world. I wanted to keep hearing my father's voice, low and steady, telling stories no one else knew.

It was just the two of us that day.

Mother had stayed behind in the city. Something about sore feet and needing silence, which I hadn’t quite understood at the time. But Papa had grinned when she said it, kissed her cheek, and told her he’d bring me back in one piece.

Now we were here. Just us. No armor, no officers, no books to sort, no neighbors to smile politely at. Just a blanket, some bread, and a man who’d once carried the weight of war now stretched out like he belonged to the land.

I shifted next to him, chewing on a blade of grass I’d plucked a minute ago. Then I sat up straighter.

“Please, Papa, please will you teach me how to fight?” I asked again, still wanting him to teach me.

He blinked one eye open, that knowing smile already forming. “What happened to dragons and buried treasure? Why not learn to be a treasure hunter?”

“I want to know both,” I said. “But I want to fight, too.”

He pushed himself up onto his elbows, his copper-brown hair ruffled by the breeze. “And why is that, my fierce girl?”

I hesitated. Thought about it. “So I can protect people. Like you did.”

His smile dimmed, just a little. Not gone, just… tempered. Like he was remembering something I wasn’t old enough to understand.

“There’s a time for fists, and swords,” he said. “And there’s a time for something sharper.”

He tapped my forehead gently with one calloused finger.

“This. Right here. This is the strongest weapon you’ll ever carry.”

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I frowned at him, not quite pouting, but close. “But you had a sword.”

“I have a sword,” he said with a chuckle. “Most days it’s under the bed, and your mother hates that I won’t hang it up somewhere. I wear it when I feel I need to protect you or your mother, like today while we are outside the city.”

I smiled, because I knew it was true. I’d seen how he cared for it, the blade wrapped in oilcloth, clean but most days… sleeping.

He leaned back again and plucked a daisy from the ground. Twirled it once between his fingers.

“I could teach you to fight. I will, one day. But before that, I want you to learn how to see.”

“See what?”

“Everything.”

He let the daisy float onto my knee and pointed toward the river.

“See how the current pulls harder near the bend? That’s because the rocks underneath are uneven. Water takes the path of least resistance. Just like people. Learn to watch where things gather. Learn to notice what’s missing.”

He turned and pointed up, toward a hawk wheeling high overhead.

“See the wings? Broad and slow. That’s a hunting glide. Means it’s searching. Probably a hare or a snake.”

I followed his finger, squinting up into the light. I nodded.

“And look there.” He pointed behind us. “The old tracks through the grass. Too wide for a deer. Too even for a wandering dog. That’s cart wheels. Days old, maybe. Someone came through, maybe a tinker or a traveler. No horseshoes in the dirt, so they pulled it themselves.”

I blinked. “You saw all that?”

He looked at me, that familiar sparkle in his eye.

“I didn’t see it, Lena. I observed it. There's a difference.”

He sat up then, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

“You’re going to be strong,” he said, looking at me like I was made of something rare and half-miraculous. “Taller than me by the time you’re ten. You’ve got your mother’s stride and my temper. You’re a storm wrapped in skin.”

I grinned. I liked the sound of that.

“But what makes you dangerous won’t be your fists,” he went on. “It’ll be your mind. Your questions. That curiosity. You’ll see things others miss, and you'll know when to keep quiet and when to speak. That’ll make people nervous. That’s a good thing.”

He reached for a berry from the basket and popped it into his mouth.

“You’re brilliant, Lena. And you can do anything you want when you’re older. Not because you’re lucky. Not even because you’re strong. But because you think. Never forget that.”

The wind stirred the leaves again. The water whispered. I looked at him then, really looked.

In the dream, he hadn’t aged. No gray in his hair. Just my father. Whole. Calm. Watching me with that look only a parent can give, the one that says you are everything I never knew I needed.

I wanted to hold onto that look forever. But even then, even in the warmth and the quiet, I felt the edges begin to blur. The sun grew too bright. The breeze lost its weight.

The river started to fade.

And I knew. The dream was ending.

“Selena…”

The name floated toward me, muffled and strange. Like it was being shouted underwater. I heard it again, but it felt distant, hollowed out by echo and static.

“Selena… Selena!”

It clawed at the edge of the dream, pulled at the seams of something warm and fading. The river slipped away. The sun vanished behind a sheet of gray. The grass, the laughter, the voice of my father telling me I was brilliant… all of it unraveled like smoke from a dying fire.

Then the pain arrived.

I came back to myself slowly, like rising from a grave no one remembered digging. My breath caught, sharp and shallow. My body ached all over. My head throbbed like a war drum.

I reached up with shaking fingers, half-expecting to feel blood. But my hand came away dry. Just sweat. Just dirt. But the pain was real enough. Deep and pulsing.

I blinked hard. The world was blurred, shaken. Dust hung thick in the air, dancing in shafts of dim magical light like ash at the end of the world.

And then it hit me.

The memory slammed back into my chest with the weight of a charging beast. We were still in the House, or maze or whatever.We were trying to get out.

Brelga had been pacing near one of the doors, frustration rolling off her like steam. The goblin, Darrin, had crouched beside the other near me, fiddling with the blank metal plates where locks should have been. No keyholes. No tumblers. Nothing to work with. Just dead slabs of metal. Useless.

Edda had been barking orders, trying to organize chaos like she was born for it. Her voice had the crack of command. Cold, clipped. Familiar.

Then Brelga, that broad-shouldered slab of orc stubbornness, had stepped up and grunted that the door looked weak enough. Said she could put her foot through it, no problem.

Edda had hesitated. Just for a breath. Then nodded.

“Do it.”

The last thing I remembered before the flash was the way Brelga’s jaw tightened. Then her boot struck the iron.

The room exploded. Not fire… light. Pressure. Force.

I remembered flying. Not falling. Flying. Like I’d been scooped up and thrown across the room by something angry and unseen. My back hit stone. Hard. The breath ripped out of me.

And then… Darkness. The dream. My father’s voice.

And now, this.

I blinked again, tears welling in the corners of my eyes from the pain and the dust and the fury of being back.

The first thing I saw was Brelga. She lay crumpled like a dropped puppet, her body twisted wrong. Blood trickled from her ears. One leg bent at an angle that shouldn’t exist. Her face was slack, unreadable.

I didn’t know if she was breathing.

The elven girl, Miri, was standing over her, lips moving, panic written in the fine lines of her dust-covered face. She kept saying my name. Over and over.

“Selena! Selena, are you awake?”

She was shaking.

I sat up slowly, biting back a groan. My ribs protested. My spine joined the chorus.

Edda was standing near the wall, arms folded, her face grim. She wasn’t looking at me. She was watching Brelga. Shaking her head like this was exactly the outcome she feared but hadn’t known how to stop.

Darrin lay nearby. Curled up like a broken marionette. His hat had been blown off. His tiny form still and quiet, except for the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

Alive. For now.

And the door?

Gone.

Whatever had been behind that slab of metal was no longer hiding. The doorway was nothing but splintered stone and glowing embers, as if the wall had swallowed a blast and tried to spit it out but choked on the bones.

I forced myself to stand, one hand against the wall for balance. The air stank of smoke and scorched iron. The taste of the dream was gone now, stripped from my mouth like someone had scrubbed it clean with ash. And all that remained was pain, dust, and a terrible quiet.

Something told me this house wasn’t done with us yet. Not even close. That was when the voice came in loud, bright, and grinning like a drunk at a funeral.

“Well, that’s certainly one way to do it…”

His voice echoed through the room, bouncing off scorched stone and broken bodies with a joy that didn’t belong in a place like this.

“Really, I must say, that was... inventive! Explosive! Unforgettable! You all have such flair! Now, I can’t quite tell from up here if our brave little brawler is still among the living, but, if she is… hoo boy, that’s one tough break.”

I didn’t respond. Just spat blood and dust onto the floor and moved myself toward the orc.

Brelga hadn’t moved. She was twisted at the waist, one arm curled beneath her, the other splayed out like she’d tried to catch herself and failed. Her leg, what was left of it, was a wreck. Bone poking under the skin, twisted like an old tree root. Her tusks were bloodied, and her eyelids fluttered but stayed closed.

Still breathing. Unconscious, but alive. Small mercy… maybe.

I crouched beside her, ignoring the scream in my spine. My fingers went to her neck first. Pulse. Weak, but steady. I took the edge of her cloak, wiped the blood from her mouth, and then pressed my hand to her leg. Warm. Swollen. Broken in every damn way a limb could break.

Better that she was out cold.

I took a breath, bit it down, and started tugging her leg straight. The bones shifted with a wet pop, and something behind my ribs clenched like a fist. She moaned faintly, then dropped back into silence.

Behind me, I heard the shuffle of boots.

“Ironwood,” Grandmother Edda said, her voice as steady as the floor beneath us. “From the door. Still strong. Still useful.”

She handed me a few splintered lengths, each one scorched and jagged but solid.

I nodded, and she turned on Miri, who had backed herself into an edge of the room away from the rest of us, arms folded tightly across her chest like she was about to defend her last breath.

“We need ties,” the dwarf said simply.

Miri blinked. “What?”

“From your dress.”

Her eyes went wide, offended. “Why mine?”

Edda’s look didn’t change. Just carved the air between them like a blade.

Miri puffed herself up, her voice sharp. “That dress is a custom weave from Eluvien. Do you even know how much it cost? Why don’t we tear up hers?” She pointed a too-delicate finger at me. “Or his?” She glanced at the goblin, still unconscious near the wall.

“Because your dress is long, frilly, and already in tatters,” I said without looking up. “Also because she asked you.”

Miri opened her mouth again. Edda raised an eyebrow, slow and silent. And just like that, the memory of that earlier slap must’ve crept back up the elf girl’s spine, because she shut her mouth and took a shaky breath.

Then, muttering curses under her breath like a child told to clean her room, she knelt down and began tearing strips from the hem of her expensive, dust-covered gown.

“Happy now?” she muttered.

“No,” Edda said, not unkindly. “But it’ll do.”

Together, we wrapped the orc’s leg as best we could. Splinted it tight, bound with silk and soot and bitter practicality. It wasn’t perfect. But it would hold. For now.

We’d just finished tightening the last knot when Brelga groaned, louder this time.

She blinked up at me, her eyes hazy and wild, then settled into a grimace as the pain found her.

“You’re alive,” I said.

“Not... ideal,” she rasped.

The goblin stirred a few feet away, coughing and sitting up with a groan. He rubbed his temples like someone had poured a hangover directly into his skull.

“Well,” he said, voice hoarse, “that sucked.”

“Good to see you too,” I muttered.

And then the voice returned. The Director.

Clapping. Loud and clear, though we still couldn’t see him. His joy was untouched by the blood on the floor or the groans of broken bodies.

“Marvelous! Inspiring! A true display of grit and ingenuity! This is the kind of chaos we pay to see, darlings. But don’t get too comfortable licking your wounds.”

The air seemed to buzz around us, the walls humming with his pleasure.

“Because the game waits for no one. The next room is open. And deeper still lies your victory.”

A pause, then his voice dropped, slick with amusement.

“Remember… only one of you gets to walk out. But until then, by all means…work together. Bleed together. It makes the finale so much more… satisfying.”

The voice vanished. Silence fell again. Thick and heavy. The kind that tastes like dust and dread. I looked toward the ruined doorway, smoke still curling from its edges.

One room down. Too many left to count.