They smelled smoke before they saw the settlement.
It drifted low across the dunes, bitter and chemical, clinging to the back of Kael's throat. Not wildfire smoke. Not fuel. This was something cooked too fast and burned too thoroughly.
Mira stopped walking.
"Settlement fire," she said. "Recent."
Rae's scanner chirped weakly, then went silent. "Resonance interference everywhere. Like the air's been… chewed."
Kael didn't answer. His shard was warm. Not pulsing. Not screaming.
Listening.
Ashveil spoke softly.
"They followed you."
Kael's stomach tightened. "No. We broke line-of-pattern. We moved erratically."
"You broke pursuit," Ashveil corrected. "Not attention."
They crested the ridge and saw what remained.
The settlement had been built into a shallow basin — prefabricated domes, solar cloth strung between steel pylons, water condensers half-buried in sand. Or at least, that's what it had been.
Now the domes were split open like shells. Light still flickered inside some of them — emergency systems running without owners. The ground was carved with long, smooth cuts, as if something had tested sharpness against the earth itself.
Mira exhaled slowly. "This wasn't a raid."
Rae swallowed. "It was a demonstration."
They moved carefully through the wreckage.
No bodies.
That was worse.
Kael knelt near a collapsed shelter and pressed his fingers to the ground. The shard flared — gently, reluctantly.
Sound returned.
Not screams. Not panic.
Routine.
People eating. Talking. Laughing in short bursts. Then confusion. Then silence being pushed inward, compressed until it snapped.
He pulled his hand back, breathing hard.
"They didn't fight," he said. "They didn't even understand what was happening."
Mira's jaw clenched. "Civilians."
Ashveil's voice was unreadable.
"They were not the target."
Kael looked up sharply. "Then why—?"
"Because predators teach by example."
They found survivors near the water rigs — six of them, huddled under a half-buried condenser, eyes hollow and unfocused.
One man stood when he saw them. His hands shook, but he didn't reach for a weapon.
"You're late," he said.
Kael froze. "We didn't know—"
"They asked for you," the man interrupted.
Mira stiffened. "Asked who?"
The man's gaze locked onto Kael. "The one who bends the quiet."
The words landed like a blow.
"They didn't kill us," the man continued. "They said killing was inefficient. That suffering teaches faster."
Rae's voice was barely audible. "What did they want?"
The man laughed once — dry, broken. "They wanted to know how far the sound travels."
That night, the survivors told their story.
Figures made of warped light. Calm voices. Questions asked without emotion.
"How long have you heard the silence?"
"When did the ground begin to respond?"
"What does he feel like when he speaks?"
One hunter had pressed its hand to the settlement's central tower and listened. Then it had nodded.
Satisfied.
"They left a message," the man said. "For you."
Kael's chest tightened. "What message?"
The man swallowed.
"If you continue to speak, the world will answer louder."
Silence followed.
Mira stood abruptly and walked away, boots crunching hard against the sand.
Rae stared at Kael, expression unreadable. "They're using you as a calibration point."
Kael's hands curled into fists. "I didn't ask for this."
Ashveil responded immediately.
"No. You only taught it how to hear."
Later, Kael sat alone at the edge of the camp, watching emergency lights flicker in empty shelters.
Mira joined him after a while, dropping down beside him without a word.
"You thinking of running?" she asked.
Kael snorted weakly. "I was thinking of hiding."
"Same thing."
He didn't argue.
"If I stop using resonance," he said quietly, "maybe they'll lose interest."
Mira shook her head. "You already changed the pattern. Predators don't forget food that fought back."
Kael stared at the dark horizon. "Then people will keep getting hurt because of me."
Mira's voice softened — just a little. "People get hurt anyway. The difference is whether someone stands in front of it."
Ashveil spoke, uncharacteristically restrained.
"You are not the cause. You are the variable."
Kael closed his eyes. "That's not comforting."
"It shouldn't be."
Before dawn, the silence shifted again.
Kael felt it before the others — a tightening, like a held breath across miles of sand.
Rae shot upright. "Something's wrong."
Mira grabbed her rifle. "They're back?"
"No," Rae whispered. "Something else is listening now."
Kael stood slowly.
Far away, beyond the ruins, the ground began to glow — faint, geometric lines spreading outward like veins. Not hunter patterns. Not mimic echoes.
Something older.
Ashveil's voice dropped to a murmur.
"You've attracted attention beyond the silence."
Kael's heart pounded. "From what?"
"From those who remember what the world sounded like before it broke."
The light flared once — then vanished.
Kael swallowed.
Whatever came next wasn't hunting him.
It was answering