CHAPTER 15
AMY
The air tastes different this morning.
Less like ash, more like… breath. Thin and dry and unforgiving, yeah, but not suffocating. Not anymore. There's a shift between us now—something tectonic, seismic, pulled from the earth under that cracked old shrine and pressed between our ribs where no one can see. We don’t talk about it. Not with words.
We don’t need to.
We move together, through a stretch of land that looks like someone tried to erase the planet and gave up halfway. A flat expanse of bleached stone, twisted rebar skeletons, and blistered earth. Sun beats down in punishing fists, and the wind has teeth again. But there’s rhythm now. A beat we share.
Darun adjusts his stride so it lines with mine. Doesn’t say a word about it, just slows a fraction every time I lag a step. I check his flank every few minutes. Watch the weak point in his left pauldron where the seal’s still scarred from that canyon blast. I do it without thinking. Like breathing. Like he’s mine to worry about now.
He catches me once. Just flicks those golden eyes in my direction.
I shrug. “You’re not invincible.”
“Getting tired of proving it,” he mutters.
A dry chuckle slips out of me. “Maybe stop throwing yourself in front of things with guns.”
“Maybe you stop running toward explosions.”
“Told you. I’ve got a flare for dramatics.”
“Yeah,” he grumbles. “I’ve noticed.”
The silence that follows hums low in my chest. It’s not awkward. It’s tuned. Everything is. Every movement. Every breath. I can feel his awareness like a tether between us. We’re not just moving in the same direction anymore.
We’removing together.
We crest a ridge around midday, sun baking the metal under our boots, and that’s when we spot them.
Patrol.
Four Ataxian soldiers, black-glass armor, lean and deadly. Not local militia—these are proper recon. Eyes like razors, scanners hot. They’re picking over a derelict hauler halfway sunk into the sand.
We hit the deck in a flash, low behind a collapsed solar rig. Dust clouds our vision, dry and stinging. My heart pounds like war drums in my throat.
“Too close,” Darun says, teeth bared.
“We’re not fighting them.”
“They’ll smell blood on me.”
“Then don’t let them get close enough to sniff.”
He shoots me a look. I shoot it right back.
I dig into my pack. Pull out a shredded old canvas cloak, dust-stained and ragged. It still reeks of iron and old oil. I shove it at him. “Put this on. Hunch your shoulders. Make yourself look half-dead.”
“Iamhalf-dead.”
“Then sell it.”
He mutters something in his native tongue that sounds like a curse and a prayer wrapped in barbed wire. But he throws the cloak over his armor, tugging it forward so it hangs like a scavenger’s rag. His helmet’s still off, his scales dulled with soot and grime.
I smear a streak of ash across my cheek, muss my braid, and stuff my recorder deeper into my vest. I step into the open first, keeping my movements jerky, off-kilter.
