Smoke lingered in the air like a ghost that refused to leave. The sky had turned a heavy grey, and though dawn was supposed to rise, no light came through. Only ash fell—ash from the burning remains of Sector Four.
Ezrah stood, his knuckles cracked and bloodied, fists trembling at his sides. The Hollowborn they fought weren't like the ones before—they were different now. Smarter. Faster. Some even laughed when wounded.
He glanced sideways.
Aira wasn't speaking.
Since Kaien's death, she had stopped looking at anyone. Even when she moved, she did so like a shadow — barely there, and never lingering. But Ezrah saw it. The way she'd clench her hands. The way she sat facing the same wall he used to lean on.
She was trying not to forget him.
The squad gathered around the newly drawn map inside an abandoned chapel. Their numbers had dwindled. Hirata was injured, Shino limped, and a third of their unit was gone. Killed. Taken. Or worse—turned into Hollowborns themselves.
Aira finally spoke, her voice a thin blade.
"They're not coming for the wall anymore," she said. "They're coming for us."
Everyone went quiet.
"What do you mean?" Shino asked, adjusting his bandage.
"They've learned how to follow names," she muttered, eyes flicking toward Ezrah. "Not scent. Not territory. Names. Those who fight hardest. Those who resist. They remember our names."
Silence. Then Hirata, weak but steady, spoke up.
"Then let's give them new ones to remember. Ones they'll fear."
Ezrah finally looked at her. "What are you planning, Aira?"
Aira looked back, her eyes no longer dim, but alight with something ancient.
"I want to bury them in the ashes of what they've broken."
She turned the map over, revealing what she had drawn beneath—a route straight into Hollowborn territory, through the corrupted ridge called The Echoing Vale. A suicide mission… unless they made it a message.
"This is where it ends," she said. "Where we drag their silence into the light."
Later that night,
Ezrah sat alone outside, watching the distant glow of firelight on the horizon. Aira walked up behind him, sitting beside him in the dirt.
"You didn't say anything during the meeting," she said quietly.
"I didn't have to," he replied. "You already knew what I'd choose."
Aira nodded. For a long moment, they sat in silence.
Then she whispered:
"Kaien was the only one who ever asked me what I liked. He didn't treat me like a weapon."
She pulled something from her cloak. Kaien's old blanket. Still torn. Still stained.
Ezrah reached out and touched it.
"You're not a weapon, Aira," he said. "You never were."
She looked at him, really looked this time, and for the first time since Kaien's death, her eyes softened.
"Then help me prove it."