I sit with him for a long moment. His hand falls away from my wrist, fingers uncurling.
Another body. Another warning no one else will hear.
I close his eyes and leave him in the dark.
The scouts findme at sunset.
I’m crossing the eastern edge of the settlement, heading for the road that leads toward the Ash Wastes, when the airchanges. That particular stillness that means I’m being watched. Evaluated for whether I’m worth chasing.
I don’t run. Running triggers the chase instinct in these things, and they’re built to be faster.
Instead, I keep walking. Steady pace. Even breathing. Power coils beneath my skin, ready but not reaching.
The first scout breaks cover from behind a collapsed watchtower. It doesn’t attack immediately. It circles, watching me with eyes that hold too much intelligence.
A second appears to my left. A third behind me.
They’re herding. Testing my responses. Mapping my capabilities before they commit to the kill.
I stop walking.
The lead Ssout tilts its head. A series of clicks emerges from its throat—communication, maybe. Reporting.
It lunges.
My magic surges before conscious thought, slamming into the creature mid-air. The Anchor power catches it like a fist, and I feel the death that wants to happen, the ending the universe has been denied.
The scout dies.
White-hot pain lances through my skull. Blood floods from my nose, copper-bright against my lips. My knees buckle, and I hit the ground hard enough to scrape skin from my palms.
The other two scouts freeze.
They’re not supposed to do that. They’re not supposed to hesitate. But the finality of what I did—it’s disrupted their programming.
One of them makes that clicking sound again. Urgent. Alarmed.
Then they run.
Not toward me. Away. Back into the ruins, disappearing between collapsed buildings with a speed that leaves me blinking at empty streets.
I stay on my knees, breathing through the agony in my skull. The power feels thin, scraped raw, like I’ve used a blade too many times against too hard a surface.
Years. I burned years to kill one scout.
But it stayed down.
TWO
SOREIA
Night falls before I can make it out of the settlement.
I find shelter in another ruined building—this one stable enough that I can barricade the door and wedge myself into a defensible corner. My body aches. The Anchor aches worse. The blood has dried on my face, crusty and uncomfortable, but I don’t have enough water to waste on cleaning it.
Sleep comes in fits and starts, disrupted by dreams that show the same thing over and over: claws, failing magic, silence.
But this time is different.
