The journey to the sea took two weeks.
Two weeks of walking through ash and ruin. Two weeks of burying the dead they found along the way. Two weeks of watching Seri hold herself together by threads, of watching the survivors stumble and fall and get up again because getting up was the only thing they knew how to do.
Ash flew overhead, scouting for danger. The ikran had lost her mate in the attack—a younger male Kaelen had trained himself—and she flew now with a grim determination that mirrored her rider's.
They passed through territories that had once been friendly. Empty now. Burned. The humans had been thorough.
They passed through territories that had once been hostile. Empty too. The humans didn't discriminate.
On the twelfth day, they smelled the sea.
It came as a whisper at first—salt on the wind, a change in the air. Then stronger, until they could taste it, feel it on their skin. The forest began to thin, replaced by coastal scrub, then by sandy cliffs, then by—
Water. Endless water, stretching to the horizon, blue and green and alive.
Kaelen had never seen an ocean. Not on Earth—he had grown up in the industrial zones, far from any coast. Not on Verath—the forest had been his whole world. He stood at the edge of a cliff and stared, speechless.
"It's beautiful," Seri said quietly.
"It's terrifying," he replied. "There's so much of it."
"That's the point." She almost smiled. "Plenty of places to hide."