Turnip made a sound. Low. Warning.
I spun.
Three of them. Coming through the smoke from the east. They hadn’t seen us yet, but they would. Another three seconds. Maybe four.
I stepped into their path and started shooting.
The blood losswas catching up.
The world came in flashes. A muzzle flash. A body falling. Pain in my thigh that meant I’d been hit. Movement to my left that I met with a knife I didn’t remember drawing.
When it was over, bodies lay in the ash and I was on one knee, breathing in smoke and tasting copper.
“Kallum.”
Anhara. Close. Her hands on my face, turning me toward her.
“We need to keep moving,” she said.
“How many left?”
“I don’t know. Less than there were.” Her fingers found the new wound in my thigh. I watched her face tighten. “This is bad.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Stop saying that.”
I let her pull me up. Let her guide me forward.
The field was close now. Empty ground through the thinning smoke, right where I’d set down less than a week ago. A lifetime ago.
I fumbled at my wrist. Pressed the release. TheTuretsalashimmered into view, dark hull cutting through the haze. Right where I’d left her.
We were going to make it.
The clearingaround the ship was empty.
No hostiles. No movement. Just the ship and the cart and the burning world behind us.
Anhara stopped beside the cargo ramp. Her chest was heaving. The cart’s handle had worn blisters into her palms. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Can you fly this thing?”
“Yes.” I limped past her. Slammed my palm against the hull sensor. The ramp lowered. “Get Turnip inside. Secure him in the cargo bay. There’s strapping in the left compartment.”
She moved quickly. With determination. No questions. No hesitation.
I turned to look back at the farm.
And that’s when I understood what they’d been doing all along.
The farmhouse wasa column of fire.
Not the outbuildings anymore. Not just the orchard. The farmhouse itself. The place she’d lived for years. The place Torek had built with his own hands. The place where she’d raised Turnip from infancy and buried her only family and waited alone for three years.
Burning.
I watched the roof collapse inward. Watched sparks spiral up into the dawn sky. Watched everything she’d built disappear into smoke and flame.
