BAMBI

Blood in the Roots

Bambi didn’t speak for hours after they left the monastery.

The forest had grown darker, quieter. The kind of quiet that didn’t mean peace, but a warning. The kind that came before storms.

She walked several paces ahead of Calder and Samson, jaw clenched, hands buried in her coat pockets to keep from trembling. Her thoughts were a wildfire of betrayal, guilt, and anger.

Elena.

She could still see her standing in that ruined corridor, smirking as if they’d just bumped into each other at a café and not during a theft.

They’d been inseparable once. Late-night talks, stolen books from libraries, and matching compass necklaces when they were sixteen. Elena had been there when her mother died. When her grandfather disappeared from her life. Through it all, she had stayed.

And now? She was leading the rival crew and had stolen the journal that might be the key to everything.

“She planned it,” Bambi finally said, stopping in her tracks. “Elena didn’t just show up by accident. She was watching me. Waiting for the right moment.”

Samson nodded slowly. “I think she’s been following you since before the funeral.”

Calder raised an eyebrow. “That’s one hell of a long con.”

Bambi turned to face them. “She doesn’t just want the treasure, she wants me out of the way. She wants to erase my name from my grandfather’s legacy.”

“You won’t let her,” Samson said.

Bambi studied him. “Won’t I? What makes you so sure?”

“Because you’re not just doing this for the treasure. You’re doing this for the truth.”

“And maybe revenge,” Calder added with a smirk. “Don’t forget revenge.”

She didn’t smile. “She knows me better than anyone. She knows where I’m going, what I’ll risk.”

“That’s why we change the game,” Samson said.

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

He pulled out a folded parchment, the copy of the journal entries he’d managed to transcribe before the theft.

“There’s more than one path to the Hollow,” he said. “The direct route is fastest, sure. But your grandfather left behind alternate trails. Less obvious. More dangerous. But we’ll get there before her crew if we go through the old mining ravine.”

Calder frowned. “The ravine? That place is a graveyard.”

“Exactly,” Samson replied. “No one sane would take that route. Which is exactly why we should.”

They veered east at sunset.

The terrain changed quickly. Lush greenery giving way to jagged cliffs, collapsed mine shafts, and broken rail tracks barely visible beneath decades of rot and moss.

It was dangerous terrain. More vertical than horizontal in places but it cut time off the journey. If they made it through, they could reach the Crimson Hollow before Elena and her crew.

The first night in the ravine was cold. Bambi sat close to the fire, huddled in her coat, the map open across her lap. Samson was sharpening a blade nearby. Calder returned from scouting with a grim expression.

“Fresh tracks up ahead. Could be wildcats. Could be worse.”

“Define worse,” Bambi asked.

He dropped down beside her. “Rival hunters. Or scavengers. Plenty of desperate people still roam these ruins. Some would gut you for a pair of boots.”

Bambi didn’t flinch. “Let them try.”

Calder watched her in silence for a moment, then asked, “What would your grandfather think if he saw you now?”

She looked at the fire. “I don’t know. I spent so long resenting him, I never thought I’d be here following in his footsteps. Trying to understand what he left behind.”

“You think this treasure is really what it’s cracked up to be?”

“I think,” she hesitated. “I think it’s not about gold. It never was. It’s about something deeper. My grandfather believed the Carmine wasn’t treasure. It was a test.”

Calder raised an eyebrow. “A test of what?”

She looked at him, and for the first time that day, her voice softened. “Loyalty. Sacrifice. Maybe love.”

Calder’s gaze held hers for a beat too long.

And then Samson spoke, cutting through the tension.

“You should both get some sleep,” he said, still not looking up. “We move before dawn.”

They slept in shifts. Bambi took first watch, sitting high on a rock outcropping where she could see the surrounding ravine. The stars were obscured by low clouds. Somewhere in the distance, an animal shrieked. Something being hunted.

She rubbed her fingers together to fight the chill.

Then a voice behind her.

“You okay?”

She turned to see Samson climbing up beside her. He didn’t sit too close, but his presence was steadying.

“I don’t know what ‘okay’ feels like anymore,” she admitted.

He looked out over the dark cliffs. “It never really goes back to normal after something like this. You lose people. You question yourself. You get betrayed. But you keep going.”

“Is that what you did?”

He didn’t answer right away.

“When I was younger,” he said at last, “I led a dig team into the ruins of Uraveth. I thought we were chasing history. Turns out, we were being used. Three of my team died. I never forgave myself.”

Bambi studied him. “You never told me that.”

“I don’t tell many people. But I figured you’d understand.”

She looked at him, his shadowed face worn but calm, his voice low and honest.

And for the first time, she wondered: Was he the one her grandfather warned her about? Or was it someone else?

“Why are you really here, Samson?” she asked.

He looked at her then. “Because I believe in this. In you. And because I owe your grandfather more than you know.”

Before she could ask more, Calder called from below. “Movement! East slope!”

They scrambled down the rock and joined him.

A fire, recently snuffed, still smoked near a ruined rail cart. Bambi crouched and touched the ground, warm. Too recent.

Then she saw it.

A symbol, etched into the dirt with a blade.

The same crimson hourglass.

But this time. It wasn’t Elena.

Samson crouched beside her. “This symbol’s old. Really old.”

“Older than the monastery?” Calder asked.

“Older than the language it’s written in,” Samson replied. “I’ve seen it once before. On a clay seal in the Forbidden Archives. It predates recorded civilization.”

Bambi’s skin prickled. “So what does it mean?”

Samson hesitated.

“It means we’re not just chasing a treasure.”

He looked up at them both.

“We’re waking up something that was buried for a reason.”

They moved with increased caution. The landscape around them seemed to pulse with unnatural quiet.

By mid-morning, they reached the final ridge before the Crimson Hollow. The cliffs dropped away to reveal a sprawling crater-like valley, misted over, dense with trees and fog. At the center: the ruins of an ancient temple, its spire broken in half like a snapped bone.

And at the edge of the valley, distant figures moved.

“Elena,” Bambi breathed. “They made it.”

Calder swore. “We lost the lead.”

Samson pulled out the map again. “There’s a secondary path. A shortcut through the lower caves. Dangerous, but it’ll bring us to the heart of the Hollow before they reach the main altar.”

Bambi didn’t hesitate. “We take it.”

“Even if it’s a trap?” Calder asked.

She looked at him. “Especially if it’s a trap.”