I crossed the threshold between ruin and life just after dusk.
My boots cracked through scorched gravel, the ridge beneath me crumbling with every step as I descended toward the fields.
The green was real. Too real.
So vivid it almost hurt to look at.
After a month of nothing but ash and fire, it felt like stepping into a dream I hadn't earned.
Mist clung low to the soil, thick with life. Trees hunched over the path ahead, their limbs twisted not from decay, but age. Whatever had happened to the rest of the world hadn't reached this place the same way.
I didn't know what kept it alive.
But I envied it.
Beyond the rolling fields, I saw the walls.
Jagged metal. Cracked stone. Reinforced scrap welded together in layers of desperation.
A settlement.
Aurix.
I picked up my pace. Legs sore. Mind dull. Still steady.
Each step forward carried a strange pressure, like the land itself was watching me, waiting to decide if I belonged.
That's when I saw it.
A shimmer.
Not obvious. Not dramatic.
Just wrong enough to notice when you got too close.
A barrier.
I slowed.
Most barriers don't need to announce themselves. They exist to reject. To burn. To tear apart whatever doesn't belong.
This one just waited.
The air buzzed faintly as I approached, like something holding its breath.
I reached out.
Expected resistance.
There was none.
The air bent around my arm as it passed through.
The barrier didn't fight me. Didn't push back.
It shivered.
And I stepped through like it wasn't there at all.
That was a problem.
Because alarms erupted a heartbeat later.
Sirens screamed across Aurix, sharp and violent, like they hadn't been used in weeks. Lights flared to life along the walls. Search beams cut across the fields, frantic and fast.
I didn't run.
Didn't raise my hands.
I stood still.
Watched.
Waited.
Footsteps thundered behind the walls.
Heavy. Armed.
Six of them.
The first guard emerged with a rifle almost as tall as he was. Crude. Scarred. Effective.
It locked onto my chest.
"ON YOUR KNEES. NOW."
Another figure stepped out beside him, taller, calmer, eyes sharp in a way that didn't come from fear.
She didn't shout.
She didn't rush.
She studied me.
Two others flanked her, armor mismatched, old Dracus plating bolted onto human frames. Salvage. Survival.
And then she stepped forward.
Celest.
I didn't know her name yet, but I knew authority when I saw it.
"Hold," she said.
Not loud.
Just certain.
The rifle didn't lower, but it stopped shaking.
Her gaze never left me.
"You came through the veil," she said.
I nodded once.
"That shouldn't be possible," someone muttered behind her.
Celest didn't look back.
"Identify yourself."
"Matte."
"No family name?"
"No affiliation."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Not anger. Calculation.
"You're human."
"Yes."
"And you walked through my barrier."
"I walked," I said. "The rest just happened."
Silence rippled through the guards.
Celest stepped closer. I could feel something around her, not pressure, not power, just… presence. Like the air bent differently near her.
"That barrier kills Dracus," she said calmly. "It rejects anything tied to the systems they track."
"I'm not tied to anything."
She watched me for a long moment, then nodded once.
"Cuff him."
The guards hesitated.
"Do it," she said.
They moved.
I didn't resist.
Not because I couldn't.
Because I wanted to see what she'd built behind those walls.
Aurix wasn't a city.
It was a wound that refused to close.
Buildings leaned into each other like they needed support just to stay standing. Wires stretched between poles that barely worked. People watched from doorways and broken windows, eyes hollow but alert.
No panic.
No curiosity.
Just exhaustion.
Children didn't cry at the alarms. Old men didn't stop sharpening blades that had long since stopped being proper knives. Women moved with the confidence of people who knew exactly how fast they needed to run if things went wrong.
This place had survived by never relaxing.
Celest walked ahead of me, unhurried.
I caught sight of her shoulder plate as we passed beneath a light.
Her name was etched into it.
CELEST
She stopped near the center of Aurix, turning to face me.
"You came through the Mortar Zone," she said. "Alone."
I nodded.
"That means you're either lying," she continued, "or you're something my people don't have a word for yet."
"I'm just alive," I said.
A corner of her mouth lifted.
Not a smile.
Recognition.
"I run Aurix," she said. "Every decision. Every wall. Every death."
"I figured."
"My Interlogue's been cut off-grid," she added, watching my reaction. "No tracking. No signal bleed. No leash."
I didn't ask how.
She noticed.
"That's Morgan's work," she said. "She keeps me invisible."
The name settled into the air like something important.
Celest gestured, and the cuffs came off.
"You can walk," she said. "But you don't leave without telling me first."
"I wasn't planning on staying."
"Everyone says that."
She turned and walked away.
I found a quiet place near the back wall, between two wrecked transport frames welded into a shelter. Sat down. Let the noise fade.
Aurix wasn't safe.
But it wasn't fire.
And for the first time in months…
I wasn't running.
The quiet didn't last.
It never does.
I didn't sleep.
Couldn't.
Not because of the people.
Because of me.
The longer I stayed still, the more I felt that thing inside my chest stirring again.
Not Essence.
Not power.
The other thing.
The one that watched.
Waited.
Footsteps approached.
Light shifted.
A boy, maybe sixteen, stopped a few feet away. Scar on his cheek. Metal pipe strapped to his back.
"You're the one who walked through the veil," he said.
I nodded.
"They said it couldn't happen."
"It didn't."
He laughed quietly, then sat just outside arm's reach.
"Name's Kael."
"Matte."
"You really human?"
I looked at him.
He saw my eyes.
Didn't ask again.
"Thought so," he muttered. "You don't move like the others."
When he left, I leaned back and stared at the dim sky above Aurix.
Hope crept in.
Not for peace.
Not for safety.
But for motion.
Because standing still was dangerous.
And whatever waited beyond those walls…
Already knew I was here.