“I’mleaning.”
“You’re leaning at approximately fifteen degrees. That’s listing.”
“I didn’t realize you carried a protractor.”
“I carry a rifle. I know angles.”
The landscape changed around mile four. Subtly at first—the road surface smoother beneath their feet, the undergrowth trimmed back from the shoulders. Then less subtly: planted trees in deliberate intervals, their canopies shaped to create dappled light patterns on the path and maintained stone borders. A wooden sign with gold lettering that readYOU ARE ENTERING A ZONE OF HARMONIOUS INTENTIONbeside a small, tasteful arrow pointing forward.
A warm ache and longing pulsed through Riot until his throat went tight and his eyes stung, like the feeling of being homesick for a place he’d never been.
“It’s beautiful,” Riot managed, and meant it, and hated that he meant it.
The maintained zone around Springfield Gardens was a sort of strategic beauty that made him feel like he was being welcomed rather than funneled, more invitation rather than chute. Flowering bushes appeared in color-coordinated clusters, and the air itself changed—cleaner, sweeter, scrubbed of the grit and diesel and blood-iron of the Static Zone until it carried nothing at all.
No pheromones. No sweat. No trace of the men he’d torn apart just hours ago except for the scent of blood on himself and Cass.
The absence hit Riot like a wall. After endless days of hypervigilance, tracking Cass’s state through pheromonal shifts, using Sage’s scentless void as a grounding anchor—the sudden neutrality was like going deaf and his sinuses ached with the nothingness of it.
The welcome center gates appeared through the trees like something out of a storybook with soaring white arches that drew the eye upward toward the sky, water features murmuring their calming frequencies, flowering trees positioned so all around was just white and gold and green. It was clean lines and organic curves. The kind of architecture that whisperedyou deserve thiswhile quietly noting his dimensions for the holding cell.
Two guards flanked the entrance in white robes, standing unnervingly still with gold pins on their collars, which Riot suspected were discreet communication devices designed to look more devotional than military, which meant they were very military indeed.
Cass straightened beside him, drew a breath, and became someone else.
Not someone different—that was the wrong word. He became the version of himself that lived here for twenty-four years. The sling and the bruises and the bare feet became evidence of a harrowing journey rather than a fight for freedom. Even his voice changed, becoming softer, almost younger, completely lacking the confident cadence Riot had heard him use over and over approaching strangers in the fucking Neutral Zone.
“Brothers,” Cass said. “May your path ascend.”
The guard on the left had a young, earnest face like he still believed in things and he went wide-eyed. “Brother Cassiopeia? You’re alive?”
“I have been so blessed,” Cass said gently. “Berserkers attacked us on the road. These seekers barely survived.” He gestured to Riot and Sage with his good arm, a graceful motion that managed to encompass their injuries, their exhaustion, and their desperate need for Elysian salvation in a single sweep. “This man protected me through the worst of it. He needs medical attention.”
“A seeker?” The guard’s voice held equal parts reverence and alarm. “Brother Cassiopeia, is he—”
“He’s been living too long in the shadow of his own violence,” Cass said, and the practiced phrase sounded completely different in his mouth here—not rehearsed but confessional, as if he were sharing a truth too important for plain language. “I believe we can help him.”
“And the woman?” the second guard asked, eyeing Sage, whose expression sat between spiritually curious and mildly constipated.
“A Null who witnessed his transformation,” Cass said. “She seeks what we have to offer.”
The guards exchanged a look—a Berserker seekeranda Null convert, delivered by a blood covered missionary in borrowed clothes.
“Brother Cassiopeia, this is—we need to…” the second guard’s gaze dropped to Cass’s chest and his eyes widened. “You have—?”
Cass turned his back to them, his face falling a bit as he seemed to realize what they were pointing out. Riot wanted to grab him and hold him close and tell the idiots in the white robes that there was nothing wrong with the scars on Cass, but he was also just a precariously balanced sack of potatoes on two legs at this point and liable to tip over if he moved too fast.
“Infirmary first,” Cass said, looking at the ground. “The seeker is injured. The convert should be taken to the Sisters’ Sanctuary for orientation while we—”
Riot stopped hearing words.
It happened like someone turned the volume knob to zero. One moment Cass was speaking and the next, the world was made of cotton and static. His vision narrowed to a bright point surrounded by gray. The five-mile walk, the blood loss, the twelve stitches, the adrenal crash, the post-episode depletion,the days of sustained hypervigilance—all of it presented its invoice simultaneously, and the total was more than his body could cover.
No, he thought clearly.Not here. Not now. Not in front of —
The ground came up to meet him like the old friend it was. He had time to thinkCass is going to panicand feel a spike of alarm behind his sternum so sharp and bright it almost had a taste before the world went dark and everything stopped being his problem.
He came back in pieces.
