Arianda stepped carefully over cracked stone, her breath still uneven. Zariel stayed close, his shoulder brushing hers with every step. The air smelled wrong—burnt wood, metal… and something hollow beneath it. Human bodies lay scattered through the streets.

As she gazed around, her eyes skimming over still forms, she glanced at their faces and froze. “…Simon.”

He followed her gaze. The man lying ahead wasn’t bleeding. There was no wound she could see. But his eyes—they weren’t empty. They were wrong. Flat. Depthless. Like something had been taken and nothing had filled the space it left behind.

Simon didn’t say anything. For once. They kept moving. Checking. Watching. Trying not to look too long.

They found another a few paces away, fallen against a collapsed cart. Same flat stare. Then another near a doorway. And another. A pattern in the ruin. Arianda stopped counting. Zariel’s low, troubled hum vibrated through the ground behind her.

“It’s the quieting,” Simon said finally. His voice was quiet, stripped of all its usual edges. “Isn’t it?”

Arianda just nodded. She traced the rough edge of a broken wall with her fingertips, the stone gritty and real. She needed the texture to steady herself. This wasn’t a wound. It wasn’t something her fire could cauterize.

Raphaela, who had been flitting nervously behind Simon, let out a small, clicking chirp. She nudged his hand, but he didn’t move to pet her. He was staring at the hollow-eyed soldier.

*Something is missing,* Zariel’s thought entered her mind, heavy and mournful. *It... Shouldn’t be like this.*

“Is this something new?” Arianda whispered. The word tasted like ash.

Silence.

They moved deeper into the ruin, the task of searching for wounded now shadowed by this new, silent horror. Every body they turned over, Arianda braced herself for those eyes. Some were just dead—bloodied, broken, their faces slack in ordinary finality. Those were almost a relief.

Simon knelt beside a man whose leg was trapped under a beam. He felt for a pulse at the neck, his fingers careful. After a moment, he shook his head and stood, wiping his hand on his pants. The gesture was quick, automatic. Arianda saw the faint tremor in it.

She wanted to say something. To ask if he was okay. The question felt stupid, impossible, lodged in her throat. He looked at her, and his brown eyes weren’t flat. They were full, terribly full—of the same revulsion and fear churning inside her. He gave her a single, short nod. An acknowledgment. They kept going.

The smoldering town seemed to press in, the silence between the cracks of falling debris louder than any battle cry. They were checking the husks of people, not saving them. The purpose had curdled.

They reached a small, open square where the caravan was slowly regrouping. Diego and Swan stood over a map spread on a fallen door, their faces grim. Others sat slumped on stones or tended to minor injuries. The sharp energy of the fight had completely drained away, leaving behind a thick, exhausted dread.

Arianda’s eyes found Sage, his side bandaged where she had sealed his wound. He was speaking quietly with Sherief, but his gaze swept the square, missing nothing. It landed on her, held for a second, and she saw the same heavy understanding there. He had seen this before.

Simon sank onto a low piece of wall, Raphaela curling at his side, her now lumbering body taking up a sizable spot. He rubbed a hand over his face. “What do we even do with them?” he asked, his voice muffled by his palm.

Arianda sat beside him, not quite touching. She watched Zariel settle his silver bulk in the dust before her, a living shield between her and the rest of the ruin. “We remember,” she said softly. It was the only thing she could think of that wasn’t a lie.

The wind shifted, carrying a colder breath through the shattered streets. It whistled through the hollow places, through empty windows and the vacant eyes of the dead, a low, mournful sound that promised nothing at all.

Arianda noticed it.

At first, it didn’t register. Her mind was still tracing the hollow-eyed faces, the ordinary dead. Then it did. And it wouldn’t let go.

“…Where are they?”

Simon glanced at her. “What?”

“The dragons.” Her voice caught in her throat and her hands trembled.

He frowned slightly. “What about them?”

“I don’t see any.”

Simon followed her gaze.

There were bodies. Humans. Debris. Blood.

But—no dragons. Not one. Not a single scaled limb, not a fallen wing, not a hulk of inert flesh among the wreckage.

Her stomach tightened.

Arianda continued her sweep. Burned stone. Broken bodies. Blood. No dragons. Her breath caught, not from what she saw but from what she didn’t. “…Simon.”

He turned, already tense. “What?”

She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes were moving. Rechecking. “Sigma,” she said finally.

Simon frowned. “What about—” He stopped. Because he saw it too. They had seen dragons fall. They had watched Zudrok tear through them. They had fought through scale and fire and wind— And there was nothing left.

Arianda’s stomach dropped. Not just the battlefield. Not just the enemy. Leo.

Her mind jumped back— Not cleanly. Fragments. Leo on his back. Her hands over the wound. Blood. Heat. Not enough. No dragon. Her hands twitched— remembering something they couldn’t finish.

“I didn’t see him,” she said, quieter now.

Simon didn’t answer, because he hadn’t either. And somehow— that felt worse.

“That’s not right,” she said quietly.

“I saw at least three go down,” Simon added, voice low now. His brown eyes swept the battlefield with new urgency. “Zudrok tore through them. There should be—”

He stopped. Because there weren’t. Anywhere.

Arianda looked toward the wardens. Balor was hauling a beam off a trapped cart. Serena and Christofer moved together, checking a row of fallen soldiers. They were organizing. Calm. Unbothered.

Like nothing was missing. Like nothing was wrong.

Around them, the other trainees kept working. Some moved with the heavy slowness of exhaustion, too tired to notice. Others, like Kira, moved with a sharp, deliberate focus that felt like choosing not to see.

*They are gone,* Zariel’s thought entered her mind, a quiet confirmation.

The question hung in the air, thick and unasked.

“…Serena?” Lilith’s voice cut through the grim quiet, impossible to ignore.

She stood a short distance away, her arms folded tight across her chest. Her expression was steady, analytical, in a way that didn’t match the shell-shocked haze clinging to the rest of the group. Her gaze was fixed on the empty spaces where dragon bodies should have been.

Lilith looked up from the absent dragons and directly at Serena. “Why are there no wounded or dead dragons?” Her tone was flat, stripped of its usual sly edge. “They’re all gone.”

Now the silence changed. It became a held breath.

Serena stopped. She didn’t turn immediately. Christofer straightened beside her, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Balor paused, the beam halfway lifted.

After a moment, Serena turned. Her face was carefully neutral, but her blue eyes were hard. “They retrieve their fallen,” she said, her voice carrying clearly across the ruined square. “It’s standard protocol. Deny the enemy intelligence. Deny them trophies.”

“During a retreat?” Lilith’s eyebrow arched. “They were routed. They ran. And they stopped to collect… all of them?”

Simon shifted beside Arianda. “She’s got a point,” he murmured, just for her. “That’s a hell of a cleanup job with people chasing you.”

Serena’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Their discipline is not our concern. Our concern is securing this area and aiding our own.”

But the explanation landed wrong. It sat in the air like a bad smell. Arianda watched Christofer exchange a glance with Balor—a flicker, there and gone. Something unsaid.

“So we just ignore it?” Lilith pressed, unfolding her arms. “We ignore that they can vanish their dead in the middle of a battle? That they have the means, or the magic, to do that?”

“Lilith.” Diego’s voice came from behind them, weary but firm. He walked into the square, Sebastian a silent shadow at his shoulder. His clothes were stained with soot and darker things. “Stand down. This isn’t a debate.”

“It’s a question,” Lilith shot back, though her voice lost some of its steel under Diego’s gaze.

“It’s a distraction,” Diego corrected, his eyes scanning the group, lingering on Arianda and Simon for a heartbeat. “We have living people to attend to. Real, immediate threats. Not ghost stories about efficient retreats.”

He moved past them, toward Serena and Christofer, effectively ending the discussion. The moment broke. The wardens returned to their work. But the air had shifted.

Arianda looked at Simon. His wide smile was nowhere to be seen. His face was pale beneath the grime, his lips a thin line. He gave a tiny, helpless shake of his head.

*Something is wrong,* Zariel thought to her, his mental voice grave. *Even they feel it.*

Raphaela let out a low, uneasy warble, pressing her red-scaled body against Simon’s leg. He absently reached down, his fingers tracing the ridge above her eye, but his gaze was distant.

Arianda turned back to the empty field. The absence was more frightening than any corpse. It was a blank space where an answer should be, a silent scream in the landscape. They could vanish their own. They could vanish their dragons. What else could they make disappear?

The coal of resolve in her chest, banked after Leo’s death, glowed hotter. It was no longer just a resolve to fight. It was a resolve to see. To not let anything else be silently erased while everyone chose not to look.

She took a slow, deliberate breath, tasting the burnt air and the hollow silence beneath it. Then she turned away from the empty field and followed Diego further into the ruins, her steps more certain now. She would help the living. But she would not forget the missing.

The low groan cut through the heavy air, a human sound of pain from a pile of rubble to her right.

Arianda’s head snapped toward it. She broke away from Diego’s path, her boots crunching on broken slate as she ran. A man lay half-propped against a collapsed wall, his tunic dark and wet over his chest. His eyes were squeezed shut, his breath coming in ragged hitches.

She dropped to her knees beside him, the rough stone biting through her trousers. The gash was deep, running from his collarbone down across his ribs, but it was clean. The bleeding had slowed to a seep. Not immediately lethal, but bad. “Hold on,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady.

She placed her hands just above the wound, not touching. She remembered Swan’s teaching: the shape of the injury, the map of the flesh. She took a breath, and the fire answered—not a wild spark, but a focused point of heat in her palms. She exhaled, and let it flow.

The smell of searing flesh rose, sharp and acrid. The man jerked, a strangled cry escaping his lips. Arianda held her focus, her hands unwavering as she traced the line of the gash, sealing skin and muscle. Her world narrowed to the charred edges knitting together, to the control of the flame. It took less than a minute.

That minute stretched. The wound. Leo. Her failure—Her focus slipped. She forced it back.

Once finished she pulled her hands back, the fire winking out. The wound was now an angry, cauterized seal. The man’s breathing evened, the panic in his eyes receding into exhausted relief.

“Thank you,” he rasped, his gaze fixing on her face. “I thought… I was done.”

Simon arrived, skidding to a halt beside her. Raphaela hovered at his shoulder, her blue eyes wide. Zariel’s shadow fell over them, a silent, silver presence.

“Others,” the villager gasped, lifting a trembling hand to gesture weakly toward the northern edge of town. “Most of us… got out. Before they arrived. We scattered into the Wilds.”

“Why did they attack?” Simon asked, crouching down. His usual bravado was absent; his voice was quiet, intent.

“The Brood,” the man whispered, the name dripping with dread. “Their dragons… they came at dawn. We evacuated just before they arrived at the gates. We sent a party back. To negotiate. For the release of the town elders they took.” He coughed, wincing. “I was one. They were… waiting. Cut us down before a word was spoken.”

Arianda’s blood went cold. “Waiting?”

The villager’s eyes, glassy with pain, found hers. “Like they knew we’d come. Like they were posted not to guard the ruins… but to intercept anyone returning.” He swallowed hard. “It felt like they were here… waiting for something else. Or someone. I don’t know.”

The words hung between them, mixing with the smell of smoke and sealed flesh. *Waiting.* The empty field of vanished dragons gaped in Arianda’s memory.

Simon looked up at her, his brown eyes dark with the same dawning realization. This wasn’t a random raid. This was a trap with a purpose they couldn’t see.

“Can you walk?” Arianda asked the villager, her mind already racing ahead.

“I think… yes. With help.”

Simon nodded, sliding an arm under the man’s shoulders. “Alright, up we go. Easy does it.” Together, they got him to his feet. The man leaned heavily on Simon, his face pale.

Arianda stood, wiping her soot-stained hands on her thighs. Her hazel eyes scanned the shattered streets, seeing them anew. Not just a battleground. A staging ground. A place that had been waiting.

*Why here?* Zariel’s thought entered her mind, heavy with certainty. *Why this place?.*

“We need to find Swan,” Arianda said, mostly to herself. The resolve in her chest was no longer a quiet coal; it was a directed flame. Answers weren’t just about memory anymore. They were about pattern.

She took a final look at the villager, now steadier on his feet with Simon’s support. A living truth, in a town of absences. “Get him to the others,” she said to Simon. “Then meet me.”

Simon held her gaze for a moment, and in his silence, she saw his fear, and his trust. He gave a short, sharp nod. No joke. No deflection. Just agreement.

Arianda turned, and with Zariel at her side, she walked deeper into the ruins, not just following orders anymore, but following a thread only she seemed determined to pull.

Diego’s voice cut through the smoky air, low and final. “Serena, Christofer, Balor. Find the others. The villagers scattered into the Wilds. Bring them back to the caravan.”

The three wardens nodded, their faces grim, and moved off without another word, their companions flanking them.

Diego watched them go for a second, his jaw tight. Then he turned and strode toward the relative shelter of his undamaged supply wagon, the one that served as his mobile command post. Swan was already at his elbow, her silver curls matted with soot, her green eyes tracking his every movement. She followed him inside without a word, the green rabbit Salem hopping silently in after her.

The flurry of orders left a pocket of quiet. Arianda stood for a moment, unmoored. Then her legs gave out. She sank onto a large, flat piece of fallen masonry, the stone cold through her trousers. Zariel settled beside her, his warmth a solid line against her side.

Simon, Kira, and Lilith drifted over, a silent agreement pulling them into a loose circle around her. They sat. No one spoke.

Arianda stared at her hands. The soot was ground into the lines of her palms. She saw Leo’s face, his smile during sparring, the shock in his eyes as the dragon’s claw tore through him. The memory hit her not as a thought, but as a physical wave. It rolled up from her stomach, tightening her throat, burning behind her eyes.

The first sob broke like a snapped branch. She bent forward, hands coming up to cover her face as the tears came, hot and silent at first, then shaking her shoulders. It wasn’t pretty crying. It was ragged, ugly, the sound of something ripping open inside her chest that she’d been holding shut since she knelt beside his body.

She felt a hand slide into hers, cool and small. Lilith. The blond girl didn’t say anything, just held on, her crystal blue eyes wide and sad. Her other hand came to rest on Arianda’s trembling forearm.

Simon had shifted forward, his body tense, ready to move. He saw Lilith’s hands, saw the quiet anchor they offered. He hesitated. His shoulders dropped. He settled back, his own hands curling into fists on his knees, his gaze fixed on the cracked ground between them.

“It’s not your fault,” Kira said, his voice stiff. He was looking at Arianda, his analytical mind clearly scrambling for the right logic to stop the tears. His face contorted with sorrow. “You couldn’t have known the dragon would break through. You were following Sage’s lead. It was a tactical variable no one co— the wound was too deep this is—”

“Kira,” Simon said, a single, quiet word. It wasn’t angry. It was exhausted.

Kira stopped. He looked at Simon, then at Arianda’s hunched form, and his tanned face flushed. He gave a sharp, frustrated sigh and looked away.

*We are here,* Zariel thought to her, his mental voice a gentle pressure against the storm. *We will support you through the grief. That is its own magic.*

The rasp of a staff on stone made them look up. Sage stood there, leaning heavily on Zudrok’s shoulder. The elderly man’s robe was stained dark over the newly healed wound on his side. He moved slowly, carefully lowering himself to sit on a smaller stone opposite their circle, crossing his hands over the top of his staff. His breathing was shallow, raspy.

He watched Arianda’s tears slow to hiccupping breaths. He didn’t offer comfort. He just waited.

When she finally wiped her face with the back of her wrist, leaving clean streaks through the grime, Sage spoke. His voice was worn thin, but calm. “This right here. This feeling that the world has broken and you are standing on the sharpest piece.”

Arianda looked at him, her hazel eyes raw.

“It is not a flaw in you,” Sage continued, his nearly bald head catching the dull light. “It is the proof of a heart that knows connection. This turmoil, this loss… this is the very thing Diego and I, the Zarinthar, fight within every day. Not just against soldiers and companions. Against the despair that follows in their wake.”

Simon was listening now, his earlier bravado completely absent. Kira had turned back, his skepticism giving way to sober attention. Lilith’s hand still held Arianda’s.

“This is the weight,” Sage said, his voice worn but steady. His gaze moved across all of them—not just Arianda. “It is not a flaw in any of you. It means you understand what was lost here.”

A pause settled over the group.

“This is what follows every battle. Not victory. Not relief.” His grip tightened slightly on his staff. “This.” Another beat. “And there are those who allow it. Who build systems that depend on it. Who create traps like this one… and call it power.”

His voice lowered—not softer, but heavier.

“We fight them.” Sage leaned forward, his aged face grave. “That is the work. It is ugly. It is heartbreaking. It asks everything of you. And it is the only work worth doing.”

Arianda took a deep, shuddering breath. The coal of resolve in her chest, momentarily drowned, now glowed again, wet and hot. It was no longer just about seeing. It was about choosing a side in a war she was only beginning to understand.