Around the perimeter, figures with torches moved. Methodical. Professional. Setting fires to anything that wasn’t already burning.
They weren’t trying to kill her anymore.
They were erasing her.
“Kallum.”
Anhara’s voice. Behind me. Quiet.
I turned.
She stood at the top of the cargo ramp, looking past me at the flames. Her face was blank. Empty. The kind of empty that came before breaking.
“We need to go,” I said.
She didn’t move.
“Anhara.”
“Torek’s grave is in the north field.” Her voice was flat. “I planted flowers. They bloom every spring.”
“I know.”
“I was going to be buried next to him. That was the plan. Stay here until I died, and then be buried next to him, and maybe someone would remember us both.”
I climbed the ramp. Slowly. Every step sending fire through my leg, my side, my entire body. But I made it to her.
“There’s nothing left,” she said. “Everything I built. Everything I was. It’s burning.”
“Not everything.”
Her eyes found mine. Wet. Red-rimmed. But still fierce.
“You have Turnip,” I said. “You have years of Torek’s training. You have everything he gave you.” I pulled the case from my jacket. Held it between us. “And we have this. His legacy. Safe.”
She looked at it. At the Sovereign’s seal, smeared with my blood.
“And you have me,” I said. I reached for her face. Cupped her cheek in my bloody palm.
“You’re bleeding out.”
“Yes. We should probably leave before I finish doing that.”
Her laugh was harsh. Broken. But it was a laugh.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Let’s go.”
She turned toward the cockpit.
I took one more look at the burning farm. The grave I couldn’t see. The life she’d built that was disappearing into ash.
Then I sealed the ramp and followed her inside.
We left the fire behind.
ANHARA
The cockpit controls were different from anything I’d seen.
