The fire crackled. Someone spat blood into the sand.

Bale leaned over Talon’s wingless body, nudging him with the toe of his boot.

“Well. Looks like this bird got his wings clipped,” he muttered, grinning down at the severed wings lying in the sand. “Hope the girl was worth it.”

He laughed, a sound thick with satisfaction and phlegm. He reared back his foot to deliver another kick when suddenly, the sky ripped open above him.

Like twin bolts of lightning burning the night, the last two living Skyguard warriors descended on the camp. Wings spread against the darkness, moonlight catching on drawn steel, faces hard as judgment.

And when they struck, they struck hard.

The first Syndicate thug died before he could turn his head. The second managed half a scream before his throat opened to the night. A third reached for his weapon and found his hand no longer attached to his arm.

Soryn and Rennic carved through the camp with cold precision. Each motion flowed seamlessly into the next, a dance of blades performed by men who had rehearsed it in a hundred battles. They killed without passion, without hesitation, as if death were simply a service they provided.

Before anyone on the ground realized what was happening, a dozen of Kessler’s men lay scattered across the sand.

Bale turned, his smugness evaporating into confusion. “What the—?”

Soryn’s boot connected with his chest before he could finish, the force of it launching the brute backward into a stack of supply drums. Metal buckled and caved as Bale crashed through, spitting crimson, his machete tumbling to the ground beside him.

The element of surprise faded as Soryn and Rennic stood back to back, wings half-furled, steel ready. What followed wasn’t a battle so much as a brutal demonstration. The Skyguard moved with the fluid precision that came only from years of shared combat. Soryn took a shallow cut across his shoulder but answered with three fatal strikes. Rennic dropped men with surgical efficiency, his blade finding the places where armor gave way to vulnerable flesh.

The Syndicate fighters fell in waves. Those who rushed in found only swift endings. Those who hesitated found the same. Screams filled the night. Fire painted a surreal scene in shifting amber and shadow. The air grew thick with the stench of opened bodies.

Through it all, Soryn and Rennic fought with the controlled precision that had made the Skyguard legendary. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Just the cold mathematics of survival.

Amidst the chaos of battle, neither Skyguard warrior noticed the slight movement in the bloodied heap discarded near the cages. A trembling finger. A chest rising with shallow breath. What the Syndicate had left for dead was stubbornly clinging to life.

In the void between consciousness and oblivion, Talon Veyr fought a different kind of battle. The darkness in his mind began to recede, not with the gentle fade of normal waking but in violent, disorienting flashes. Each pulse of awareness brought new agony, new understanding of what had been done to him.

Metal striking metal. Bones snapping. Flesh tearing. These sounds filtered through the haze of his pain, anchoring him to a world he wasn’t sure he wanted to rejoin.

But instinct drove him to push himself upright. His palms pressed into the sand, muscles tensing as he tried to rise. Then pain lanced through his shoulders, white-hot and electric, radiating down his spine in waves that stole his breath. The full reality of his mutilation crashed over him.

They had taken his wings.

His arms buckled, cheek pressing back into sand still warm from his blood. The world tilted and blurred, his vision narrowing to a tunnel of firelight and shadow. Through this diminished portal, he witnessed winged warriors moving with deadly grace. Skyguard. His brothers. Killing with the efficiency that came from years of shared battle.

He tried to call out, but his voice had abandoned him along with his strength. Darkness crept in from the edges of his vision, and he welcomed its cold embrace once more.

Across the camp, Kivven had watched Kessler’s men falling around her like chaff. Her patience evaporated, replaced by the cold calculation of a predator selecting its moment.

She casually spun both daggers in her palms, then launched herself at Rennic. The Skyguard met her initial strike, deflecting her blade. But she twisted with viper-like instincts, her second dagger finding the vulnerable spot beneath his wing joint. The blade sank deep. Rennic’s face contorted as steel bit through muscle.

Kivven pressed her advantage like a born killer. Her blades danced across his body, opening wounds at shoulder and thigh. Each cut precise, meant to drain and weaken rather than kill outright. Rennic’s movements slowed as crimson darkened his armor.

While Rennic struggled against Kivven’s assault, Soryn dispatched the remaining Syndicate thugs with ruthless efficiency. His sword found throats and hearts, each strike exactly as deep as needed.

The last thug standing watched his companions fall and finally broke. He turned to flee, boots sliding in the slick earth. Soryn’s boot caught him squarely between the shoulder blades, launching him forward into the waiting fire. The flames swallowed the screaming figure whole.

In their fading light, a new presence emerged from the shadows.

Seven feet of bone and brutality. Uxx of the Tallow Breed towered at the edge of the camp, his Gravemaker slung casually over one shoulder. Muscles moved beneath his pallid skin like coils of rope. Black, lidless eyes swallowed up the firelight.

Soryn dragged the back of his hand across his face, smearing sweat and grime. He looked up at the monster, assessing his tactical disadvantage. There was only one way to topple a giant. Take out the legs.

Uxx discharged an amused chuckle, shifting his weapon side to side. His voice deep and cynical, he taunted, “Come here, little bird.”

And then the two collided like natural disasters, sword against scythe. They traded several vicious strikes, sparks cascading across the camp. Uxx fought like an avalanche, each swing of the Gravemaker carrying enough power to cleave a man in two. Soryn wove between the wide arcs, his counter-strikes precise but seemingly ineffective against tissue that parted reluctantly and oozed rather than bled.

Uxx lifted his war-hook with both hands. Soryn threw himself sideways as the weapon came crashing down. The momentum of the missed attack left Uxx vulnerable. Soryn lunged low, bringing his blade sweeping across the giant’s kneecap. Flesh peeled back, steel scraped bone, and ligaments snapped.

Off balance, Uxx slammed the haft of his weapon into the sand to steady himself. Then he snapped it up in a swift motion, the wooden shaft connecting with Soryn’s temple. His vision shattered into fragments as the blow sent him sprawling.

Through doubled vision, he saw Uxx looming above him, the curved blade raised high.

“Wings make good trophies,” Uxx growled.

Drawing on reserves buried beneath exhaustion, Soryn scrambled backward, found his feet, and calculated his final move. He feinted left, spun right, and swung his sword with every ounce of strength remaining. The blade struck Uxx’s wounded knee, finishing what it had started. With a dull crunch, the blade cleaved the leg apart in two pieces. One that was still attached. And one that wasn’t.

The giant’s massive frame could no longer maintain balance. As he toppled, rage twisted the features of his face, becoming unrecognizable as human. With a final, desperate effort, he swung the Gravemaker in a wide arc.

Soryn’s wings snapped open, the downdraft kicking up sand as he vaulted over the deadly sweep. For a heartbeat, he hung suspended against the night, wings fully extended, sword held vertical.

Then he descended. Not falling, but striking. His blade sank into the flesh of Uxx’s neck, parting vertebrae and severing the spinal column. Uxx, now separated from his skull, tipped forward and slammed into the ground. His head tumbled free, bouncing once before settling in the sand, those lightless eyes finally empty.

Soryn landed beside the corpse, chest heaving. He allowed himself one deep breath, shoulders rising and falling as he surveyed the carnage around him.

Syndicate bodies lay scattered across the camp, broken and still. Those who hadn’t fallen had fled into the dunes, preferring the desert’s mercy to the Skyguard’s justice. The fires had burned low, casting long shadows across blood-soaked sand.

Then he saw them. Wings. Severed and discarded in the dirt like garbage. Horror knifed through him as understanding dawned.

Wings make good trophies.

He sprinted across the camp and dropped to his knees beside his fallen captain.

“I’m here,” he said, voice cracking with emotion as he gently turned Talon onto his side. “I found you.”

Talon’s eyes fluttered open, struggling to focus through a haze of pain and loss.

“The children…” he managed, each word dragged from the depths of his remaining strength.

“Safe,” Soryn assured him, gripping Talon’s hand. “We got them to the Vernathi settlement. They’re protected. We’ve been tracking you ever since.”

Relief washed over Talon’s face, but it was quickly replaced by urgent desperation.

“Kaela,” he whispered, his gaze shifting toward the cage in the distance. “You have to—”

“We will,” Soryn promised. “We’ll get her out. Just hold on.”

Talon’s body shuddered beneath Soryn’s touch, each tremor weaker than the last. The cold of approaching death crept through him. Soryn squeezed his hand, the pressure firm and steady, a silent language passing between warriors who had seen too many battlefields together.

There were no words to soften this moment, no prayer that hadn’t already been proven hollow. They both recognized the truth written in crimson sand. This was the end of the line, the final post where the last Skyguard captain would stand his watch.

Meanwhile, on the far side of the camp, Kivven launched herself into the air, twin daggers glinting in the fading firelight. She dropped onto Rennic from behind, driving both blades deep into his shoulders. He arched backward with a strangled cry, twisting away from her. But the damage was done. His wings darkened with spreading stains.

Movement stirred at the edge of the camp. Bale rose from behind the shattered oil drums, shaking his head to clear the lingering fog of concussion. His eyes found Kivven and Rennic locked in their deadly dance, and his face contorted with renewed purpose. He snatched up his machete and lumbered toward them, weapon raised for a killing blow.

At the last possible instant, Rennic sensed the threat. With desperate strength, he seized Kivven by the hair and yanked her between himself and the oncoming attack. Bale’s momentum carried him forward, his machete plunging deep into Kivven’s chest before he could check his swing.

Steel parted flesh and tore through her, emerging between her shoulder blades. Crimson erupted from her mouth as she dropped to her knees. Her eyes, wide with shock and betrayal, found Bale’s face. One hand lifted toward him, fingers splayed in a silent goodbye.

Then she collapsed face-first into the dirt.

Bale stood frozen, staring down at her body, at his blade still buried in her flesh. For one heartbeat, genuine grief flickered across his face, but it quickly burned away, replaced by molten rage. He lifted his gaze to Rennic, who staggered backward, arms hanging useless at his sides.

With a roar that was more animal than human, Bale lunged. His massive hand closed around Rennic’s throat, fingers digging into flesh, crushing his windpipe. With his free hand, Bale wrenched the Skyguard’s own blade from his grip. Slowly, he pressed the sword into Rennic’s stomach, driving it upward in a performance of sadistic cruelty.

Rennic gasped as crimson sprayed from his mouth. His eyes, wide with pain and fading life, searched the camp until they found Soryn kneeling beside their captain. Recognition flashed across his face in one last lucid moment.

In that final clarity, he found relief knowing that Talon was alive. But then sorrow, knowing his own life would end before the girl was free.

His wings spasmed once, twice, then stilled. He pitched forward and released his final breath.

Soryn bowed his head for a single heartbeat. A silent tribute to the last of his brothers, now lying still in blood-soaked earth.

When he raised his eyes again, they locked on the bloated thug across the fire who was now grinning over his kill. He touched his captain’s face one last time, then rose to his full height, sword gripped so tightly the leather of his glove creaked.

The night seemed to hold its breath. Even the flames stilled, sensing what was about to unfold.

And then he moved. Not like a man. Like vengeance incarnate. Like the answer to every unanswered prayer.

The space between them vanished in a heartbeat. Bale’s eyes widened in belated recognition of his fate, his hands rising far too late to ward off what was coming. Soryn’s blade caught the firelight once, a flash of silver turned crimson, before it descended in a perfect, terrible arc.

Steel met flesh with the finality of judgment. The blade carved through Bale’s substantial girth, parting muscle, severing organs, splitting him from sternum to spine. The grin plastered across his face never had time to fade. As Soryn’s rage found its mark, Bale’s body folded inward, two halves connected only by his backbone.

Soryn gave a savage kick to the corpse and spat, the gesture containing all the contempt and fury that words could never express. With a single, shuddering exhale, he turned back toward the fire.

That’s when the crack split the night. The sound ricocheted off the rusted freight containers, sharp and final, like the period at the end of a death sentence.

Soryn froze. His sword trembled in the air for a moment, then dropped from his fingers and hit the dirt with a dull, almost mournful clang.

He looked down, confusion momentarily overtaking pain.

There was a hole in his chest. Perfect and round. Life spilled from it in slow, thick pulses, dark as pitch in the firelight, each beat of his heart pumping more strength onto the sand.

He staggered. Coughed. Red dribbled from the corner of his mouth and down his chin. Slowly, he turned toward the source of the shot.

Standing at the edge of the firelight, rifle braced casually against his shoulder, was a figure wrapped in shadow. He stepped forward into the light, revealing a crooked grin across a scarred face.

The Chainfather.

Soryn touched his cheek, and then he was gone.

Talon’s shoulders screamed with agony where his wings had been severed, the stumps throbbing with each heartbeat. Pain had diffused deeper than physical sensation, and even the memory of flight felt like a distant echo pressed flat against silence.

But even now, in defiance of death, he struggled in quiet refusal to surrender.

Something was stirring within him.

Not a memory. Not a thought. Something more fundamental.

A spark.

Her spark.

And then he saw her.

Not with his eyes, those were swollen and crusted. But with a clarity that belonged in a realm beyond sight.

Kaela.

She was kneeling in the sand beside her cage, her small hands pressed flat against the earth as if she could feel his pain through the ground itself. Tears tracked down her cheeks, cutting clean lines through the dirt and grime.

She didn’t speak, but her words moved through him anyway. Slow, settling, like sediment drifting to the bottom of a long-forgotten well.

Something that isn’t broken, she whispered to the night.

He watched her lift the crushed skyblossom from where it had fallen beside her. Its petals were black and withered, but as her fingers touched them, they began to pulse with gentle light.

She pressed the flower to her chest, over her heart, and then reached out toward where he lay broken in the sand.

And then, she was gone.

But her warmth remained.

Talon’s trembling fingers found the pouch at his belt. He fumbled with the cord, his strength barely sufficient to loosen the knot. When it finally relented, he reached inside until his fingers closed around the withered petals he had carried since the twisted tree.

A single tear carved a path through the grime on his face. Her bright green eyes, her trusting smile, memories that cut deeper than any blade. He had failed her, and all that remained was this crushed flower in his palm.

He closed his fist around it, tight enough that the brittle edges cracked against his flesh.

The old stories had spoken of warriors who found strength in skyblossoms, who drew from them the endurance to survive what should have ended them. Pain-killing properties distilled from starlight, strength borrowed from the earth itself.

He had never believed the tales.

Until now.

The flower seemed to dissolve against his skin, its essence seeping through his palm and into his bloodstream. Ancient, mythical properties awakening in his veins, dulling the screaming agony from his severed wings, giving his exhausted body one final surge of strength.

Maybe it was the skyblossom.

Maybe it was her.

Maybe it was the vow he had made to the girl who saw through his armor, through the wreckage, through the hollow where his hope used to live.

And that’s when his veins caught fire.

His breath returned not as a gasp, but as a slow, desperate negotiation. It forced a path through bruised ribs, shallow at first, wet and painful. But real.

And then the world crashed back upon him, all at once.

Pain.

White-hot, blinding, as he awakened to a tsunami of torment where his wings had been. The stumps pulsed with each heartbeat, tissue exposed to air that felt caustic against raw nerve endings.

Yet beneath this maelstrom of agony, he focused on the name that meant more than his own life.

Kaela.

Without conscious command, his hand found purpose. Fingers crawled across ground painted with crimson, stopping only when they found cold steel in the sand. They curled around the weapon’s hilt with the certainty of a drowning man finding purchase.

Like rusted hinges, his eyelids scraped open.

The camp materialized around him, a tableau of carnage painted in firelight and shadow. The air was thick with the aftermath of violence. Embers from the dying fire spiraled upward, each one carrying a silent testimony of what had unfolded here.

Talon pressed one trembling knee into the earth. Each muscle fiber screamed in protest as he forced himself upright. The skyblossom’s gift radiated from his core outward, not healing his wounds but lending him the impossible strength to carry them.

He didn’t rise with glory.

He rose because she had given him something that refused to die.

And now, neither would he.

His breath steadied.

His vision cleared.

And then, from across the camp, came a sound.

It split the night in a sharp, reverberating crack.

A rifle shot.

The Chainfather’s rifle blast had torn a hole through Soryn’s chest, clean through his body. Though the strength in his limbs was fading fast, Soryn remained standing, his shoulders squared and head held high.

A Skyguard to the very end.

Rulv Dask dropped the rifle carelessly into the sand. He began to cross the clearing with slow, deliberate steps, each footfall heavy with confidence, a smirk spreading across his scarred face as he approached his dying opponent.

When he was only a few paces away, he stooped without ceremony and plucked a dagger from the stiffening grip of a dead man’s hand. Rising to his full height once more, he stepped toward Soryn with the casual arrogance of a predator who knows its prey cannot escape. His eyes moved over the Skyguard’s body with clinical detachment, studying him like a butcher might assess a carcass he wasn’t quite finished carving.

“You got any last words, feather?”

Soryn lifted his chin. His voice was strong.

“Veken drae tor’mal suun.”

Dask frowned, incomprehension furrowing his brow as the foreign words hung in the air between them. But then the wind shifted, rustling through the camp, whispering the translation into his ear.

The sky remembers its oath.

Soryn’s gaze lifted past Dask. To a figure slowly rising from the ash.

“Tal’vey ai’sha drae.”

You are the sky now.

Soryn’s knees wavered, but he remained upright.

And then he locked eyes with Talon Veyr, his captain, his brother.

He drew one final breath, spine straight, eyes steady.

“Drel veken shar ai’lor.”

Finish what we began.

He smiled, eyes shining.

“Captain. It has been an honor.”

And then he fell.

Rulv Dask turned, slowly, toward the firelight. And toward the last Skyguard standing.

His chest full of cinders, every breath burned.

But that meant he was breathing.

His shoulders screamed where his wings had been severed, but his limbs held firm. The skyblossom’s essence still pulsed through him with every heartbeat, a borrowed strength flowing through his veins.

Talon pushed himself upright and immediately felt the wrongness of his balance. Without the familiar weight of wings counterbalancing his frame, he stumbled, his body suddenly alien to itself. He reached for his weapon with deliberate focus, fingers closing around the hilt as his other arm braced against the ground. Using the blade as a crutch, he steadied himself against gravity’s unfamiliar pull.

When he finally lifted his gaze across the campsite, he saw Soryn standing there. Crimson pouring from the hole in his chest, legs locked in defiance, spine unbowed even in the face of death.

And across from him, Rulv Dask.

Talon didn’t move. He simply watched, as the last of his brothers held the line one final time.

Dask said something, a sneer curling his lips. Soryn answered. Not in rage, not in panic, but in the sacred Skyguard tongue.

Talon’s breath caught, as he realized Soryn was not speaking to Dask. He was looking past the Chainfather, making eye contact with him.

Drel veken shar ai’lor.

Talon opened his mouth. But there was no voice there.

Soryn’s eyes looked directly into his own. He smiled, just a hint. A farewell.

“Captain,” he called. “It has been an honor.”

And then his body gave way.

He dropped soundlessly, a beautiful sacrament returning to the earth.

For a moment, Talon didn’t breathe. He stood frozen, chest heaving, blade still slick in his grip. There was no sound. No scream, no mourning cry, not even the scrape of sand beneath boots. Only the fading echo of sacred words still reverberating through the space between them.

Talon looked toward the ground where Soryn’s body lay still, framed in firelight, armor dented, edges blackened, his wings outstretched like a fallen banner. He had died on his feet, eyes open, not in fear, but in faith. There had been no desperation in his final words, only truth. The kind of truth that could only be earned by sacrifice.

The pain in Talon’s shoulders had not subsided, but the agony now felt like an inheritance.

Whatever strength remained in his veins was no longer his to spend lightly. It had been entrusted to him, by Soryn, by the oath they both carried, and by the fire still smoldering in Kaela’s name.

Across the clearing, Rulv Dask turned fully now, the weight of the moment settling into his eyes. He saw the blade in Talon’s hand. He saw the stumps where wings had been. He saw the man who had stood back up.

But Talon saw only one thing. The end of this. And the man who still stood in the way.

Dask ground his boots into the sand, as the wind teased at the torn edges of his coat. His eyes met Talon’s across the firelight. One pair alive with the heat of fresh violence, the other cold, determined despite the mutilation.

Talon stepped forward.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t posture. Couldn’t even if he had wanted to. Every step forward required total concentration, his body fighting to relearn balance it had never needed before.

His armor hung in shards around his torso, his shoulders weeping fresh crimson where his wings had been violently severed.

And yet, despite this mutilation, he moved with the quiet purpose of someone who had transcended ordinary suffering. A man who no longer felt the weight of guilt or the burden of memory, only the singular clarity of what remained to be done.

Dask tilted his head, rolling his neck until it cracked. The borrowed dagger hung loose in his grip, the blade dark with fresh stains. He flipped it from hand to hand, spinning it with lazy precision.

“She said you would come, you know,” he muttered, not looking at Talon yet. “All proud and quiet, like she thought you were some kind of angel.”

He finally met Talon’s eyes and grinned.

“Ugliest damn angel I have ever seen.”

Talon didn’t answer. His silence was sharp and unshaken. Dask chuckled low in his throat.

“She cried your name when I had her on the ground,” he sneered, voice soft now, almost playful. “Over and over. Thought it might stop me.”

He tilted his head again, his eyes piercing straight through.

“It didn’t.”

The words landed quiet, steady, matter-of-fact. More like a man recounting a meal than describing a desecration.

Still, Talon said nothing. His silence wasn’t calm, it was tectonic. It wasn’t the passiveness of peace, but rather the stillness before the quake.

Dask’s smile faded, just a shade. His fingers stopped spinning the dagger, and he shifted his weight.

Talon lunged, compensating for his altered center of gravity, the dagger extending his reach where wings once balanced him. Dask sidestepped with surprising agility for his bulk, countering with an upward slash that glanced off Talon’s breastplate. Metal screamed against metal, casting brief constellations into the darkness.

The fight wasn’t beautiful. It was vicious.

Dask attacked with the brutality of a conqueror. Talon fought against more than just his opponent. He battled his body’s unfamiliar balance, his brain still sending signals to wings that no longer existed. His movements became increasingly predictable. No flourish, no wasted motion, each step calculated to conserve what little strength remained.

They converged, separated, circled. Their weapons became extensions of will rather than mere tools. Each clash reverberated through bone and sinew.

Talon fought like a man with nothing left to lose. But his reserves were evaporating. The exhaustion of sleepless nights, the starvation, the mutilation, and now his blood volume was critically low. His shoulders throbbed with every swing, his ribs screamed with each breath.

But still, he fought.

Dask, heavier and broader, fought like a siege engine, each swing intended to end, not wound. His forehead crashed against the bridge of Talon’s nose. Cartilage yielded with an audible crack. The world fragmented into shards of light and darkness. Before Talon could recover, Dask’s boot connected with his sternum, launching him backward into a collapsed shelter frame.

The Chainfather pressed his advantage, advancing with methodical certainty. His dagger thrust upward in a disemboweling motion. The blade punctured Talon’s side, sliding between ribs.

A copper taste flooded Talon’s mouth. His lungs seized, struggling to expand around the intrusion of foreign metal. Dask leaned in close, his weight driving the blade deeper, his breath carrying the sour notes of decay and triumph.

“That’s lung blood,” he whispered, the words almost intimate. “Soon you’ll drown standing up.”

Talon tried to create distance, but Dask used his free hand to press him against the frame, grinding the rusted metal against the bloody wing stubs.

The Chainfather’s fist connected with Talon’s jaw. Bone yielded with the sound of green wood splitting. A second blow followed, and Talon collapsed to one knee. For a breath, he wasn’t sure he would rise again.

But the skyblossom still flowed in his veins, steady and defiant. He drew breath into damaged lungs. A primitive impulse took control, and he exploded upward. His blade found its mark across Dask’s torso, opening a seam that wept crimson.

They reset. Advanced. Engaged.

Talon ducked beneath a killing stroke, rotated his body, and drove the pommel of his dagger into Dask’s temple. The impact disrupted the slaver’s equilibrium just long enough.

Talon moved into the momentary weakness.

And committed fully.

He struck with everything he had left, rage in his chest and a vow burning behind his ribs. The blade wasn’t the weapon. He was.

Steel tore across Dask’s arm, bit into his shoulder, carved deep across his ribs. Talon drove him back, step by brutal step, until they reached the empty cages shrouded in shadow at the edge of the camp.

That’s where Phessra Vein had been all along. Seated casually atop an oil drum, smoke curling from her lips in lazy spirals. She watched the entire fight without moving, still as stone. Not out of fear.

Phessra didn’t fear men like Talon Veyr and Rulv Dask.

She studied them instead. The way they bled. The way they broke. The way they kept fighting long past reason or sanity.

Her eyes tracked each wound, tallying some private ledger, counting the cuts, the blows, the stabs with the methodical precision of a deranged bookkeeper. Quiet arithmetic done in shadow. But now, she was losing interest.

This wasn’t her war, and she really didn’t care about this fight. Or its outcome.

The drama of their mutilation and survival held no more interest for her than a play she’d seen too many times before.

“Well,” she coaxed softly, aiming her voice in Uncle Jel’s direction. “I think it’s about time we bid farewell.”

With that, she slipped down from her perch and flashed him a wicked grin. The old man just smiled back, the expression never reaching his eyes, as he stood and obediently followed her lead.

With a final glance over her shoulder at the bloodbath she was abandoning, she stepped into the darkness beyond the fire’s reach. Her dress fluttered once in the wind. Her boots made no sound against the sand. The firelight did not follow her retreat.

They just vanished into the night.

Rulv Dask was a butcher. And he fought like one.

He absorbed Talon’s punishment, gritting through each blow, and kept coming. Heavy swings, brutal arcs, every strike a cleaver meant to sever, not finesse. He didn’t fight with grace. He fought as a man who had won a hundred battles the same way:

By being the last one standing.

And now, that strategy was beginning to pay off. The flurry of attacks the Skyguard had unleashed was taking its toll. The effects of the skyblossom were ebbing fast. Talon was tiring. Slowing. Losing.

Dask smiled, like this had always been the outcome he expected. Like he had just been waiting for the moment the Skyguard would break.

And that’s when he kicked Talon in the chest, sending him crashing backward into one of the cages. His shoulders slammed back against the bars where his severed wings had been, lighting every nerve with fire. The impact dislodged his blade, and it clattered against the frame of the cage, tumbling out of reach.

The pain took his breath away. He teetered on the brink of unconsciousness.

But her voice brought him back.

“Captain!”

He slowly turned his head to look over his shoulder, and there she was. Rushing up to the front of the cage, arms outstretched, the girl with emerald green eyes.

“Kaela,” he gasped.

Then, Dask loomed above him. His twisted, evil grin stretching the scar across his face. He tossed the dagger aside. He didn’t need it anymore.

Fists now. One. Two. Three. Each one breaking something inside the fallen Skyguard captain.

Talon spat crimson. He tried to lunge, but Dask caught him by the throat, slamming him back against the cage. His fingers closed around Talon’s windpipe, crushing it.

As Dask’s grip tightened, Talon flexed his fingers, realizing he no longer had his weapon. He was defenseless, and he was suffocating.

The skyblossom had been used up. His veins empty of its rejuvenating power. He had gotten this close to her… close enough to hear her voice. Feel her hand brush his cheek. Yet, it wasn’t quite enough.

He swatted at Dask’s face with his hand, a feeble attempt at a punch. Dask only laughed, and squeezed harder.

Talon’s hand fell to his side, fingers starting to twitch as the last remnants of life escaped him. His knuckles brushed against his leather pouch, the one that had once held Kaela’s skyblossom. Now, all that was inside was a few stale almonds, and the small chunk of glass he had found in the desert.

A shard of blue glass that meant nothing…

He could barely move beneath the crushing grip of Dask’s hand around his throat.

Unless it had been placed…

But summoning the last of his strength, Talon slipped his hand into the pouch around his waist.

like he was meant to find it…

His fingers closed around the cracked, Dominion-made field optic that he had tucked away days ago without knowing why.

With the last ragged thread of strength, Talon lifted the shard above his head. He brought it down as hard as he could, slamming it into the side of Dask’s neck.

The jagged edge of the broken glass sank deep, and Dask’s eyes flared with shock.

Life surged from the wound in thick, arterial bursts, painting Talon and the cage behind him in violent arcs. Dask’s grip on Talon’s neck released. He staggered back, pulled the glass from the gaping wound. He let it drop to the ground, and tried to cover the geyser with both hands. It spewed through his fingers, until finally there wasn’t enough pressure remaining. The spray thinned to a sluggish ooze.

Then, with an eerie smile carved across his lips, Dask collapsed to his knees.

His body pitched forward.

And slammed into the dirt.

Talon inhaled, deep and shaking. His eyes fell to the lifeless stare of the Chainfather, still wide in shock. Crimson trickled from his neck, pooling slow and quiet around his face.

It was over.

The camp was silent but for his own breath, and one other’s.

Kaela.

Talon turned once again to face the cage. She was there, splattered with Dask’s blood, his blood. She was still small, still bruised, yet still unbroken. And her emerald eyes were on him.

“Hi, Captain.” Her voice cracked.

With one last surge of adrenaline burning through his veins, he scooped up his dagger from the sand, and with a groan of metal and force, jammed it into the lock and cracked it in two.

The door swung open, and Kaela didn’t hesitate. She launched forward, and he caught her, arms wrapping around the only thing in the world left worth saving.

She buried her face in his chest, sobbing now, and for the first time since it all began, he let himself hold her. Not as a soldier, not as a guardian, but as a man who had come back from the brink for one reason only.

“I’m here,” he whispered. “I found you.”

She sobbed into his shoulder. “I knew you would.”

His hand brushed the back of her head, his fingers trembling.

“You’re safe now.”

She hugged him, tighter than anyone had ever hugged another person. She had heard his screams when his wings were severed, and she had seen the jagged, bleeding stumps as she watched the fight. Now, she could feel their absence with her arms around him.

“You’re hurt!” she whispered, and she wanted to fix it. But knew she couldn’t.

Talon coughed, his breath catching as his fingers fumbled at his belt. With slow, painful effort, he pulled free a strip of worn leather. Its edges were darkened and soaked through.

He held it out to her, letting its contents slip into her palm. A bronze charm with a single emerald at its heart.

“You dropped this,” he said, smiling faintly.

“No… no no no…” She tried to lift him, tried to cradle him. “Please. Don’t do this. Don’t…”

His eyes were losing focus. “I would lose my wings a thousand times. Just to save you.”

She shook her head, panic setting in. “No. No! Not like this…”

Suddenly, a current moved across them. Not wind. Presence.

Then a figure materialized from the shadows; a ghost who could breathe and bleed, but never die.

Velien.

His hair was long and gray, not unkempt but untamed, falling past his collar like the remnants of a crown he no longer wore. His face bore the calm severity of one who had seen too much and judged little. Lined not by age, but by memory. His eyes, pale and unwavering, carried the weight of witness: a scholar’s detachment balanced against a prophet’s burden.

He wore a storm-colored robe that seemed ancient. Stitched into the fabric were sigils that no longer answered to borders. They moved as he did… with purpose, not pretense.

This wasn’t a man who had come to save anything. He had come because the time had finally run out.

“It’s you!” Kaela exclaimed, her voice tight with half-recognition, half-accusation.

She didn’t move from Talon’s side, her arms still locked around him trying to hold the life in.

Velien’s gaze shifted to her, not cold, but unreadable.

“Yes,” he offered simply, as if the moment had been inevitable all along.

Then, his eyes moved to Talon. “You’ve done well, Guardian.”

With that, he slowly knelt beside them, not like a savior, but like someone who had seen this moment in a hundred dreams and still hoped he was wrong.

Kaela clutched Talon tighter. “Don’t take him.”

“I’m not here for him,” Velien stated gently. “I’m here for you.”

Talon’s eyes locked on his. “You could have come sooner.”

Velien nodded. “I could have.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

The silence stretched, long enough to become its own kind of answer. But then Velien spoke, quiet and sure.

“Because you needed redemption. And she needed you.”

Talon looked down at Kaela. Her tears had mixed with the crimson on his chest. He brushed her hair back one last time.

“Go light up the world, Little Spark,” he whispered.

Then, with a breath like a falling feather, his eyes closed.

And the Guardian was finally at rest.

The fire crackled. The sky above began to gray at the edges. Kaela pressed her forehead to his chest and wept.

Velien looked down at Talon’s body, and his gaze grew distant. It wasn’t grief, but rather the reverence of witnessing something fated.

“He was more than soldier,” he observed softly. “More than flame or fury. He was consequence. The shape justice takes when it can’t wait any longer.”

Kaela rested her hand over Talon’s chest.

“He won’t be remembered for what he destroyed,” Velien continued. “But for what he saved.”

Kaela was crying, but her voice was steady.

“Drel veken shar ai’lor.”

Velien smiled weakly, and placed his fingers over hers, just above Talon’s heart.

Then, from within his robes, Velien withdrew an object she didn’t recognize. Forged from a mysterious, shimmering mineral, it was etched with ancient Skyguard markings. Its shape was irregular, and its surface caught the firelight with a glint that wasn’t quite reflection.

He whispered a prayer in the ancient tongue and pressed the object to Talon’s chest.

Then, like parchment meeting flame, his body began to yield. Slow at first, as if resisting the inevitable, then with graceful certainty. Not decay, not rot, but transformation. Flesh softened into ash. The remnants of his wings became smoke. Piece by piece, the man became something less, and something more.

Not scattered. Not lost. Lifted.

Within seconds, there was nothing left but silence…

And a single skyblossom, resting where he had lain. Still. Glowing. Undeniably real.

Velien stood. His voice softened, reverent but steady.

“You were the last wing in the storm. The sky was yours, and you carried it well.”

He looked up as the last of the ash lifted and vanished into the wind.

“Now let it carry you.”

He turned to Kaela and extended his hand. And together, they stepped into the dark.