The Sunseeker, guided by Cara's steady hand, touched down just beyond the outskirts of Cora.
Carlo moved straight to the stern, spade already in hand, and wedged its tip beneath the tracking device embedded in the hull. With a sharp snap, the metal tore free, wood splintering as he levered it loose.
The tracker sat in his palm like a guilty thought—small enough to hide, heavy enough to ruin them.
Cara climbed down a heartbeat later, boots thudding softly into the grass, cloak whispering against the hull. She didn't look at the device. She looked at the sky first. Then the road cutting through the valley below. Then the faint smear of lanternlight marking Cora's outer fences.
"Plant it somewhere away from us," she said. "Somewhere obvious. Make them commit."
Carlo's jaw tightened. "If they're tracking this, they'll notice the moment it stops moving."
"That's true," Cara said calmly. "Alright—new plan. I keep the ship moving. You secure the target."
Carlo stared at her. "That's your plan? You fly in circles like a confused gull while I go in alone? You know exactly what we're looking for."
"Which is why you go," she replied. "If things turn violent, I trust you more to make it out. You're calmer in a fight than you are before one."
He exhaled through his nose. "Alright. Alright. I'm going. Quit trying to butter me up."
Cara didn't wait for anything resembling approval. She turned and climbed back into the Sunseeker, already tightening straps, checking lines, opening the sails.
Carlo stayed low as he descended the slope toward Cora, letting the midnight shadows guide him.
The valley held fog the way a fist held a secret—tight, unkind, refusing to let the night breathe freely. Lanternlight from the village fences cut thin paths through the mist, turning faces into suggestions and shadows into guesses.
Carlo moved through tall grass and broken stone, letting the wind cover the soft scrape of his boots. He didn't rush. Rushing was how you let the land remember you.
Ahead, Cora's outer fence rose in uneven timber and patched iron—old fortifications built by people who never had enough metal, never had enough time, and always had enough fear.
Two Practum soldiers rounded the perimeter, a lantern swinging between them like a pendulum measuring boredom. Their armor was scuffed but cared for—the kind worn by men who expected to stay somewhere longer than promised.
"…heard they're sending more help to the Azule Sovereign…"
"…don't care what they do, long as they keep their word…"
Carlo waited for the lantern to swing wide.
Then he moved.
He slipped forward and ducked beneath a loose wagon tarp stacked against the fence—canvas stiff with old rain and dust. It brushed his shoulders as he crawled through, breath slow, counting heartbeats instead of seconds.
On the other side, Cora opened up.
The village slept poorly.
Windows were shuttered too tight. Doors barred from within. The square lay quiet, but not empty—tracks in the mud told a story the silence didn't want to share. Too many boots. Too recent.
Carlo kept to the edges, moving between sheds and low walls, breaking his outline whenever he could. He crouched behind a barrel in a narrow alley, eyes fixed on the road.
"Now we wait," he murmured.
Far above, drifting along the cloud line, Cara guided the Sunseeker in slow, circling arcs—patient as a vulture waiting for something to slip.
She rolled the tracker between her fingers, watching its dull surface catch the starlight.
"You've got this, Carlo," she said quietly.
Elsewhere
A ship tore across the planet's surface, skimming low and fast, kicking up a roiling plume of dust in its wake.
Ray sat behind the yoke, posture loose, eyes fixed on the secondary display hovering beside him. A single ping pulsed steadily across the screen.
He tapped a control.
"Targets are approaching position."
Static crackled before a voice answered, smooth beneath the distortion. "Perfect. All we need is an attempt on their end. That'll be enough to route them straight to MissanHam." A pause. "Once you're finished, the Order wants you back. Some adjustments to make."
"Got it," Ray said. "Thanks, Reef. How far out's the caravan?"
"Hold on—checking now." Paper rustled over the channel. "Ah. Looks like… any minute."
Ray frowned. "You serious?"
"Yeah. Sorry about that."
Ray leaned back slightly, fingers drumming once against the yoke. "Don't get your gears rusted. As long as they get caught, we're good." He glanced at the moving ping. "Let me know if anything changes."
"Will do. Out."
Ray cut the transmission.
The screen dimmed.
"Well," he muttered, nudging the throttle forward, "guess we're doing this loud."
The ship dipped closer to the ground, engines growling.
"Shame," Ray added, almost wistful. "I do enjoy the look on their faces when they don't see it coming."
The dust plume stretched longer behind him
Elsewhere
Sound stirred in the distance.
Not voices.
Not footsteps.
Hooves.
CLOP. CLOP. CLOP.
The rhythm cut through the fog like knuckles rapping against a coffin lid—too steady, too fast, wrong for midnight.
Carlo leaned forward behind the barrel, peering down the road through the narrow gaps between stacked crates.
Moonlight spilled across the cobblestones in thin, uneven sheets, catching fragments as they passed: the blur of horse legs, the flash of harness rings, the swing of lantern hooks. Shadows stretched long and jagged behind them, twisted into shapes the mind didn't like to name.
The soldiers along the road stiffened.
Carlo saw it immediately—not in words, but in posture. Heads turned in unison. Rifles shifted. A hush rippled down the line like an order no one had spoken aloud.
The officer stepped forward, eyes narrowing.
Something was wrong.
The caravan was supposed to arrive quiet.
This wasn't.
Then it broke through the fog.
An armored transport lurched into view—metal plating cracked and scorched, dragged forward by two exhausted horses. One wheel wobbled like it was arguing with reality. The left side of the wagon had been torn open, not splintered by impact, but peeled back—as if something had ripped it apart with contempt.
At the reins, the driver sagged forward.
Blood soaked his shirt so completely it looked like a second garment. His hands still clutched the straps, but Carlo couldn't tell if it was life or momentum keeping them there.
Lanterns hung along the wagon's sides, their flames weak and trembling—burning like they wanted to go out but had forgotten how.
The officer's voice cut through the night.
"The caravan's been hit! MOVE!"
The street exploded into motion.
Soldiers broke formation in practiced arcs—diving behind crates, crouching behind overturned carts, rifles snapping up to cover every shadow. Their earlier boredom vanished, replaced by the cold arithmetic of survival.
Carlo didn't move.
"What the hell is happening…" he whispered.
"Take cover!" the officer barked. "Heads on a swivel—this wasn't an accident!"
Carlo's gaze lifted.
High above the rooftops, a silhouette stood motionless.
It hadn't moved during the chaos.
That made it worse.
Moonlight brushed the edge of armor for half a heartbeat—just enough to suggest metal, mass, intent. Not enough to give a face.
Carlo swallowed.
That's not a soldier.
The wagon dragged closer—
Then—
BOOM.
Fire erupted to the right, violent and sudden, turning fog into a screaming wall of light. Carlo recoiled on instinct, heat kissing his cheek even from this distance.
The blast knocked the transport off balance.
CREEEEAAAK—
Wood groaned. Metal shrieked. The left wheels lifted. The horses screamed—high and desperate, like creatures who already knew they were dead and were only now being told.
WHINNY—
The wagon tipped.
CRASH.
It slammed into the cobblestones and disintegrated—splinters, sparks, twisted iron scattering across the street. One wheel snapped free and rolled away like a panicked animal. Harnesses yanked tight. The horses collapsed, bodies tangling into a broken heap.
Dust and ash surged outward.
Carlo tasted grit. Smoke. Iron.
The wreck settled into stillness.
Lanterns continued to flicker, their light trembling across blood-slick metal like a dying pulse.
The horses didn't move.
Not a twitch.
Carlo's stomach dropped.
They were dead before the fall.
"Eddy! Burke! Graham!" the officer shouted. "You three—check the caravan! Everyone else, stay alert!"
Three soldiers broke from cover, rifles raised as they approached the wreckage. Their steps were careful—like the cobblestones might bite back.
Carlo shifted, inching for a better angle.
Something jutted from the shattered hull at an impossible angle—
A greatsword.
Not lodged like a weapon thrown in panic.
Embedded.
The metal around it looked wrong—warped, curled inward, as if the blade hadn't pierced the wagon so much as melted through it.
Graham—Carlo caught the name by chance—leaned toward the sword, then stopped. Even from here, Carlo saw the hesitation. The hand that hovered, then refused.
Burke forced the wagon door open with a groaning pull.
Inside, something glinted.
"The chest is still here!" Burke called. "What do we do with it?"
Carlo's heart slammed against his ribs.
That's it.
Good.
The officer's response came too fast. Too sharp.
"Secure the chest! We proceed without fail!" he shouted. "We will not go down in history as the downfall of Practum!"
Carlo's fingers tightened around the edge of the barrel.
He needed that chest.
He needed it before they moved it.
A whisper slid through the fog.
So soft Carlo almost dismissed it as imagination.
"Ember Release."
The air bent.
Space above the wreckage shimmered, as if the night itself recoiled—pulling away from what was about to happen.
Then the fire came.
Not a burst.
Not an explosion.
A wave—wide and ravenous.
Embers spiraled outward with intent, clinging to armor like living malice.
Carlo's breath caught.
The three soldiers vanished inside orange.
Not fell.
Not were hit.
Just—gone.
Screams ripped out, sharp and raw, then drowned beneath the roar of heat.
Behind cover, discipline shattered. Someone gagged. Someone shouted. Someone fired blindly into smoke.
"Fire rune user!" the officer screamed. "Activate defense runes—NOW!"
Sigils flared across the street—small lights blooming along armor and shields, fragile attempts at safety.
Carlo pressed himself lower.
That fire hadn't come from street level.
His eyes snapped upward.
The silhouette on the rooftop finally moved.
Not rushed.
Not dramatic.
Like the world had simply granted it permission.
Above the street, something began to glow.
Too steady to be lanternlight.
Too high to be a spellflare.
The soldiers noticed too late—like prey looking up only when the shadow is already upon them.
"There's something glowing above us!" someone shouted.
Carlo's mouth went dry.
Through fog and distance, details were lost—
but the shape wasn't.
Wings.
Not feather, but flame.
The officer whispered, horror stripping the authority from his voice.
"…Are those wings?"
Carlo stared, unable to look away.
The wagon was fully engulfed now, flame crawling over metal and wood alike.
His voice barely escaped him.
"Is… is that a demon?"
Carlo's eyes snapped back to the wagon.
It was a burning carcass now—flames gnawing through canvas and splintered ribs, lanterns swinging uselessly on their hooks like they were trying to flee.
The chest is in there.
Heat pushed into the alley, turning fog into wet steam. Carlo's lungs tightened. He pulled his collar up over his mouth and counted.
One breath.
Two.
Three.
The soldiers were shouting over one another now—panic trying to pass itself off as command.
"Scatter!" the officer screamed. "SCATTER—he's herding us!"
Carlo's stomach dropped.
Herding?
He leaned just enough to look back toward the street.
Above the road, the glow sharpened—wings of fire spreading wider, stretching like a predator before the kill. Embers drifted down in slow, lazy spirals, beautiful in the same way poison could be beautiful.
Gunfire cracked upward.
POP—POP—POP—
Muzzle flashes strobed through the fog like lightning trapped in fists. Bullets vanished into smoke and distance, swallowed whole.
Then the glow moved.
Not fast like a man.
Fast like gravity.
A streak of heat tore downward through the fog.
The air shuddered.
Dust leapt. The barrel beside Carlo rattled violently.
A scream cut loose—sharp, close—
then stopped, as if the sound itself had been pinched shut.
Carlo's mind raced, assembling the pieces without asking permission.
If the fire-wing thing wanted the chest, it would have taken it already.
So why destroy the caravan?
Why make this harder?
His gaze snapped to the officer.
The man was shouting into his wrist—rune-comms crackling beneath the heat and noise. Carlo caught fragments as they bled through.
"…hit—unexpected—this wasn't planned—HellFire—"
The word hit Carlo's chest like a dropped stone.
And suddenly, everything made a terrible kind of sense.
The officer's eyes flicked again.
To the wreckage.
To the chest.
To the rooftops.
Then to the streets behind him.
Carlo's fingers tightened.
They'll move it.
Drag it out. Get it somewhere secure.
"Damn it all," Carlo breathed, squeezing his eyes shut for half a heartbeat.
Then he moved.
He slipped from the alley, keeping low, threading himself through the shadow between two overturned carts. The street had dissolved into chaos—soldiers scrambling in conflicting directions, some firing blindly upward, others retreating from the blaze as if it might leap and sink its teeth into them.
The heat hit harder with every step.
Like walking toward the mouth of a forge.
Carlo kept his eyes locked on the wreck.
The wagon lay on its side, one wheel still turning lazily, stubbornly, as if it refused to accept it had nothing left to do. The horses were reduced to blackened shapes. The air reeked of burned hair, hot iron, and something sharper beneath the smoke—chemical, metallic.
Rune residue.
Then he saw it.
The chest.
Half-buried beneath collapsed planks and torn canvas, iron bands locking it tight. Even through soot and flame, faint light bled from its seams—runes crawling along the metal like pale veins beneath skin.
"There you are," he whispered.
He took one step.
Heat slapped him back. He hissed, blinking tears from his eyes. The fog around the blaze wasn't fog anymore—it was steam and ash, thick with embers that clung to the air like gnats.
Another step.
Something crunched beneath his boot.
Carlo froze.
He looked down.
A soldier's helmet lay split open like a cracked bowl.
Inside—no blood.
Just blackened bone and a hollow that still smoked.
Carlo swallowed hard and stepped around it.
He reached the wreckage, crouched low, and slid his hands beneath the canvas near the chest.
The fabric sizzled against his gloves.
He pulled.
The chest didn't move.
Carlo glanced back—fear finally clawing its way up his spine.
The officer who'd been barking orders stood face to face with the knight.
This is my chance.
Carlo hauled harder, praying neither of them noticed him.
The chest tore free.
The wagon answered by collapsing in on itself—burning wood giving way in a violent cascade. Carlo threw an arm up as smoke and ash blasted toward him, heat punching the air from his lungs.
The collapse sounded almost mocking—wood snapping, iron shrieking, lantern glass popping as fire swallowed it whole. Sparks sprayed across the cobblestones and died in the fog with soft, spiteful hisses.
Carlo blinked through stinging eyes until the world reassembled in fragments.
The chest was in his hands.
Its runes burned brighter now—blue-white lines pulsing as if the thing had a heartbeat, and Carlo had just closed his fingers around it. The iron bands scorched through his gloves, pain flaring up his palms and crawling into his wrists.
He didn't let go.
Behind him, the street erupted—shouts, orders, the frantic scrape of boots retreating or advancing, no one quite sure which.
Then—
silence.
Carlo risked a glance.
The officer—Kellon, if he'd heard the name right—was crumpled against a wall, soot-blackened and shaking. The HellFire Knight loomed over him, a verdict given shape, embers drifting lazily between them.
Carlo tore his gaze away.
"Not your fight," he muttered under his breath. "Not your—"
He froze.
Ray stood in the fog.
Close enough that the skull-face filled Carlo's vision.
Bone-white plating glistened with moisture, vents lining the mouthless face like something built to inhale smoke forever and never choke. A patch-stitched coat hung from its frame, cuffs frayed, a long scarf trailing through ash and embers. The body beneath it was compact—too dense for its size—like someone had built a child out of spare parts and bad intentions.
Its optics locked onto the chest.
Then Carlo.
Then the chest again.
"Looks like I got here just in time," Ray said.
Carlo's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He shifted anyway—chest braced against his hip, weight settling forward, feet finding balance by instinct rather than thought.
Ray tilted its head.
Almost human.
Almost curious.
"I didn't expect this," it went on, voice calm in the way predators stayed calm. "I knew you'd go for the caravan." The skull angled slightly, indicating the distant glow through the fog. "But the other guy?" A pause. "Ain't he something."
Carlo tightened his grip. The iron bands burned hotter, pain cutting through the haze and sharpening his focus.
"Move," he managed.
Ray didn't blink.
The silence that followed felt like a smile.
"Are you saying that for me," Ray asked, "or for yourself?"
Carlo's right hand slid to his belt.
The rapier's hilt met his palm.
Ray's shoulders shifted—just enough to matter. Its frame recalibrated, weight redistributing with mechanical precision.
The revolver arm clicked once.
Carlo didn't wait.
He barely moved his lips.
"Sound Step."
The rune etched into the inside of his boot flared once—white-blue—then vanished.
The world skipped.
Carlo was gone—
—and the chest struck the cobblestone with a heavy CLANG, a sound warped and distant, like a bell rung underwater.
Ray's optics snapped down on reflex.
A mistake.
Carlo reappeared on Ray's left flank, rapier already in motion, blade driving toward the soft geometry beneath the coat—where plating met joint.
Ray twisted.
Fast.
But not fast enough.
Steel kissed metal.
SHIIING—
Sparks spat like angry insects as the thrust skated along a curved plate and bit into fabric instead, tearing a clean line through the patchwork coat.
Ray's revolver arm clicked.
Carlo vanished.
"Sound Step."
Reality stuttered. Motion strobed.
Ray's arm clicked again, gears unfolding as a blade snapped free—an ugly bayonet of folded steel.
He swung early.
Predicting where Carlo should be.
Steel carved fog.
But Carlo wasn't there.
He was behind Ray—
already moving,
already committed.
The rapier's tip kissed the seam between shoulder plate and spine casing.
Not a stab.
A tap.
Like testing the ripeness of fruit.
Ray jerked, coat snapping as he spun. The bayonet-arm came around in a brutal backhand—
Carlo vanished again.
"Sound Step."
The air popped softly, like a candle snuffed between fingers.
Ray's optics whirred, tracking too fast, too precise—like a turret trying to swat a fly.
"Cute," Ray said. Calm—but sharpened now. "How long can you keep that up? I know your Prade eats at your body."
Carlo reappeared near the chest.
He scooped it one-handed, muscles screaming, and dragged it a half-step toward the alley. The iron bands burned through glove leather, pain flaring bright and immediate.
Ray's head snapped to the motion.
Instinct.
Priority.
The machine's attention narrowed to the one thing it could not allow to leave.
Ray lunged.
A bullet of bone-white plating and stitched cloth.
Carlo dropped the chest again—deliberate—letting it strike the stones with another ringing CLANG.
"Sound Step."
Ray's optics didn't blink—but Carlo felt the focus tighten. Like a noose being measured.
"Cosmic Dance."
For a heartbeat, the world lost its color.
Fog drained to ash-gray. Flame collapsed into white heat without warmth. Sound thinned into a distant ringing, stretched so tight it nearly vanished. Carlo's breath disappeared. Even pain paused—caught mid-snarl, yanked back like a dog on a leash.
The runes inside his boots ignited.
Not a flare.
An event.
White-blue geometry crawled across the leather, etching itself into reality. The air around his ankles folded inward, rippling as if space itself had been seized by the throat and ordered to stay still.
Carlo moved.
Not like a man.
Like a decision being made.
He dropped through the fog in a straight, merciless line. Behind him, a ribbon of shimmering gas tore free—purple-blue, dusted with stars—a nebula smeared across the night, as if the sky had been cut and forced to bleed beauty.
Ray looked up.
Too late.
Carlo's rapier drove down.
Not a slash.
Not a thrust.
A perfect puncture.
The blade pierced the skull plating with a clean, hateful tink—and the rune-work inside screamed without sound as it met whatever lived behind Ray's optics.
For the briefest instant, Carlo felt it.
Resistance.
A shudder.
Then—
Time snapped back into place.
Color slammed into the world. Heat rushed home. Sound roared back like it had been waiting its turn. Fog flooded Carlo's ears, lungs, skull.
He hit the cobblestones with Ray.
Hard.
Knees. Shoulder. Chest.
Like gravity had been saving its anger just for him.
Ray's limbs jerked.
The bayonet-arm twitched once.
Twice.
Then stilled.
Sparks crawled out of the elbow joint and died in the wet air.
Carlo tried to inhale.
Knives filled his lungs.
He coughed, blood spraying dark against stone.
"Ugh—" His voice came out shredded. "My… body…"
His hand shook as he forced himself upright. Every nerve screamed like it had been flayed. The Prade rune still burned beneath his feet—but now it burned him, backlash crawling up his calves like fire running backward through his veins.
Ray lay still.
But his optics flickered—not bright, not steady.
A lantern failing.
From the seam around the puncture in his skull, a thick black coolant seeped out, glossy as oil.
Carlo didn't look at it.
He couldn't afford to.
He dragged himself to the chest, fingers slipping on soot and ash. He hooked the handle, the heat blistering his palm, the pain barely registering beneath the larger one roaring through his bones.
With shaking hands, he fumbled inside his coat and pulled out the disk.
Cold metal.
Familiar weight.
Barto's promise, pressed into matter.
Carlo crushed it in his fist, gripped the chest with the other, and forced the words out through blood and fire.
"Teleport: Other."
Then—
A sound.
Low. Deep. Resonant.
Felt more than heard.
Like a bell tolling far underground.
The air rippled.
The ground shimmered.
And then—
A flash.
Blinding.
Violet.
Wordless.
43rd Day of Fall, Year 13,499, Furrow, Third Moon of Planet Sekoiyah
[System: Rebooting]
[Optics…..Rebooting…..60s]
[Core: Stable]
Light slammed into him.
Not warmth.
Not relief.
Just brightness—sterile and invasive, the kind that didn't ask permission. A ceiling drifted into focus, its edges swimming as his optics fought to align. Lines sharpened. Grid overlays flickered, failed, recalibrated.
A silhouette leaned over him.
At first, it was only shape and shadow. Then the filters caught. Contrast locked. Color resolved.
A woman.
"Ray?" she said.
Her voice was careful. Familiar. The kind of careful reserved for things that had already broken once—and might do it again. "How are you doing?"
Leyla.
The name surfaced slowly, like a buoy rising through black water.
Ray tried to answer.
His mouth vents clicked uselessly. Static crackled through his throat.
"Oops—sorry," Leyla muttered, already moving. "Give me a second."
Two exposed wires touched.
A spark snapped.
"All right," she said. "Try again."
Ray inhaled. The motion felt simulated—data pretending to be breath.
"Where's Doran?" he asked.
His voice came out rough, threaded with static.