The journey to the Northwest Territory was a funeral procession for a man who refused to die.
The carriage groaned under the weight of its own iron plating, its wheels churning through the thick, black mud of the Outlands before hitting the first flurries of snow.
Inside, Zaliyah lay on a suspended bed designed to absorb the shocks of the road, but every jolt of the carriage made his "mummy" bandages leak fresh, blood.
He was a statue of linen and trauma, his breathing was so shallow that Iruna often had to press her ear to his chest just to confirm he hadn't slipped away in the night.
The twins were his only sentinels. Iruna sat at his head, her eyes rimmed with red, her fingers mindfully tracing the runes on the carriage walls to keep the internal temperature stable.
Harun sat at the foot, his hand resting on his sword, his gaze fixed on the small, unmistakable swell of Zaliyah's abdomen. It was a cruel irony: the body was a ruin, but the womb was alive and active.
