Another flash lit the far ridge, this one white-hot, blinding for a heartbeat. A ledge fractured, the crack tearing through the air, followed by the grinding avalanche of stone surrendering to gravity.
Mira’s head snapped toward Kazuma. “With Mana—can they bring down a ledge like that anywhere?”
“Most likely, yes.”
“Then move my second squad higher,” she barked to the nearest runner. “Above the southern shelf before they’re crushed.”
The runner bolted.
Aimee’s eyes tracked him, body leaning before she even knew why. She read the pattern of the fight, darkness seeping like oil down a channel of stone. The shinobi were testing, probing, waiting for theWatch to make a mistake. Her body lunged forward before she realized she was speaking.
“They’ll attack there next.” She pointed, pulse racing. “The notch below the western ridge. They’ll funnel through. It’s wide enough for a full push, but too narrow to defend from above.”
Mira turned to her, eyes narrowing. For a beat, silence stretched, punctuated only by the groan of the earth where elements collided. Then she nodded once. “You just saved fifty of mine.”
She raised her hand, signaling. “Third squad—move to the west ridge! Seal the notch. Now!”
The Watch moved as one, fire already sparking between their palms.
Aimee’s chest swelled, satisfaction tangling with the ache tojoin them.Her blood sang with the Pattern’s hum and the power she had been told to leash. To stand back felt wrong, unnatural, her whole body trapped between the demand to obey and the hunger to leap into the blaze.
“Hold, Aimee.” Mira caught her watching. “Not yet.”
The words pressed like iron across her skin, but Aimee held as the battle moved closer.
Then the cries started—high, sharp, and far too near—followed by silence, more brutal than the noise. Aimee knew what it meant before the report even came running up the slope. A whole squad—gone.
The mountain seemed to swallow their absence. Wind rushed through the ridges in a hollow roar, carrying with it the acrid bite of smoke and something fouler, a rot that clung in her throat.
Mira’s face hardened, but the mask faltered, her eyes pinching shut.
“Let me go!” Aimee stepped forward, but Mira’s hand shot out, seizing her sleeve.
Twisting, Aimee searched for Kazuma. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t even lifted his head. Sadness weighted his gaze, steady and unblinking.He didn’t need to speak, neither out loud nor in her mind. She recognized the look, had worn it herself more times than she cared to remember. A soldier’s resignation.
“We will win this day,” Mira whispered, more to herself than anyone else.
Her spine straightened as another runner stumbled up, words tumbling over his tongue.
Mira jerked her chin, forcing strength back into her voice. “Their advance is slowing.”
“But at what cost?” The words ripped free before Aimee could swallow them. “Let me help!”
“You will remain here.” Mira watched the horizon, scanning for the next blow.
Aimee’s mouth opened, ready to strike back, but the moment fractured when a young member of the Watch staggered up the slope. Barely more than a boy, he stumbled into the clearing and pitched forward. Blood slicked his lips, and a black cut split his gut. The wound oozed a greasy, inhuman slick that drew long, writhing threads across the stone.
Aimee could see the intestine then, pale and glistening, clamped back by the boy’s hands as he heaved himself toward them, each exhale a frayed, impossible thing.
The Watch froze, and all other sound died away until the only thing left was that wet, awful noise of torn flesh and the boy’s rasping attempts to move.
“Healer!” Mira moved before anyone else thought to. “Healer—!”
She ran, feet pounding, as he flung himself at her knees, choking blood that stained her pants.
“Seisho—” he coughed, black froth splattering across her skin. “The village—” He forced the words up between spasms. “A second force…nearly there.” Tears cut clean tracks down his gray cheeks. “My little brother. My grandfather. Please—”
Mira sank with him, knees crashing to the rock, one palm on either bloody cheek, and for a second the commander’s mask broke.
