The morning was gray, but not silent. A humming hung over the shards of the Glass Field, as if the sky itself had begun to breathe. Fine dust lifted from the ribbed concrete surface with each step, floating like ash that could find no fire.
Rhea was the first one up. She knelt in the wind shadow of the collapsed switching station, dismantling the radio module as if trying to convince it to reveal a different secret. Alaric checked magazines, safeties, and straps with short, snapping hand movements. And Lina stood a little apart, hands open, palms upward, as if listening for whether her skin was speaking to her again.
It was. Very quietly.
Under the thin layer of healed scars pulsed something that was neither light nor pain. More like a memory. Since the night when Sabine's voice had flitted through the field, the throbbing had a direction. Not outward. Inward.
"You're awake," said Alaric without looking up.
