By mid-afternoon, the wind had picked up, dragging cold air in restless gusts across the landscape. It seemed to be tugging at the hem of Kaela’s shirt, trying to pull her backward. Back toward whatever she had managed to leave behind.

Talon scanned the terrain without appearing to, wary of every sound or movement. The flutter of torn canvas caught in barbed wire, a branch breaking off a dead tree and hitting the ground with a thump. He walked not for comfort, but with the lean economy of motion that came from years of measuring distance against endurance.

His wings were drawn close to his back, and his hand at the ready in case Kaela were to slip. But her feet continued finding stable ground. She had the instinctive grace of someone who had learned to read the landscape through the soles of her boots. She didn’t move like a child lost in a ruined world, she seemed to know her place within it.

The Skyguard base sprawled before them, empty but intact. Transmission towers rose like skeletal fingers from the overgrowth like the ribcage of some massive creature that had crawled here to die. The signal dishes hung at odd angles or were gone entirely, torn away by storms or scavengers. What remained leaned against the sky with the weary resignation of things that had outlived their usefulness.

“Why did they burn everything?”

Talon reflected on her question, as he surveyed the abandoned post.

“They accused us of forgetting who we served,” he replied, his voice heavy more with resignation than anger. “Turned our wings against the ones who gave them to us.”

He stepped around the remnants of what might have been an armored vehicle, now just a contorted chassis.

“We believed we were guardians,” he continued. “Born to protect, not obey. We took flight because the people needed watching over. Not because some man in a tower demanded it.”

He paused near the ruins of an old lookout tower, now snapped in half and slumping sideways. Its perch had buckled, paint long since turned to rust. He used the blade of his dagger to scrape away the age, revealing a faded Skyguard symbol.

“When we stood up for the people…” His fingers traced the outline of wings carved into corroded metal. “They called it treason.”

Kaela’s forehead creased with the concentration of someone working through concepts that were larger than her immediate experience but somehow familiar anyway. She didn’t speak for a long moment, just stood there processing what he had told her, her hands fidgeting with her shirt.

When she finally moved, it was to kneel in the dust beside the ruined perch. She pressed her palm flat against the scorched ground as if she could see, no… feel what had happened here.

“This place didn’t just die,” she whispered. “It was killed.”

Talon nodded once, the movement slow and deliberate. “Yes. As a warning.”

“And the Skyguard?”

He sighed with the deep resignation of loss and defeat.

“What they did to us was the warning.”

Talon stepped past the shattered perch and into the clearing beyond, his boots crunching over fragments of old polymer that had melted and hardened into abstract shapes. He tilted his head, listening to the wind as it moved through this section of the Glade. It sounded different here, flatter somehow, stripped of the subtle music that came from air moving through living things. Just the hollow whisper of emptiness filling spaces that had once held laughter, conversation, the small sounds of people building lives worth defending.

Kaela followed, her steps careful but not hesitant as she studied the wreckage with the attention of someone reading a story written in ash. She was quiet, but not from fear.

After a while, she asked, “Were you here? When it happened?”

“I was elsewhere,” he admitted, with a noticeable change to his countenance, as if a tidal wave of bitterness had just crashed over him. “We were scattered. Orders changed overnight. Friends went dark on the comm. Squadrons rerouted and never returned. I got back just after.”

Kaela didn’t push for details. She seemed to understand instinctively that some stories told themselves in the spaces between words, that pressing for specifics would only force him to relive trauma that served no purpose beyond her own curiosity.

He gestured toward a collapsed tower ahead. “That used to be a relay. One of ours. Carried tactical data across half the Withered Glade. It took a direct orbital strike. They wanted to make sure there was nothing left for us to rebuild.”

She turned slowly in place, her eyes tracking the way destruction spread outward from the tower in patterns that spoke of deliberate targeting rather than random violence. “They were afraid of you.”

He gave a grim smile, but there was no humor in it. “We made them bleed. Not enough to win. Just enough to make them suffer a little.”

Then, an object in the dirt caught her attention. She reached down and pulled it free from a pile of debris, brushing away the accumulated grime with careful fingers. It was a pendant. Skyguard issue, old-style, the metal partially melted. What remained showed the ghostly outline of wings etched around the edge, and though the chain had snapped, the central symbol was still discernible.

She held it up to him without words, the question clear in her eyes.

Talon nodded, his throat tight with recognition. “Yes. It belonged to someone.”

She studied the pendant for a moment longer, then tucked it gently into the pocket of her jeans.

“Then I’ll carry it for them,” she offered, her tone tender and determined.

Talon watched her smooth the fabric over the pocket, protecting what she had claimed. Then softly, he said, “That’s all we can do.”

The path wound between remnants of infrastructure that had once connected this place to the larger world. Sand and vines had swallowed most of the bunkers. Antenna towers tilted drunkenly, cables severed. Only the training pylons remained upright, their surfaces scarred by fire.

Then, they came to the edge of a ridge, where below, the types of buildings seemed much different. Instead of the cold functionality of military installations, these buildings had a softer, more civilian feel. Homes, schools, doctor’s offices, bowling alleys. The ordinary infrastructure of community that made isolated outposts feel more important than just strategic positions on a map.

“And this,” he murmured. “The families we were trying to protect.”

Below the ridge, everything had been systematically dismantled, not in the heat of battle but in the cold aftermath. Playground equipment had melted into twisted sculptures, seesaws warped and slides buckled. Horrifying illustrations of interrupted childhood. Games that would never be finished. A marquee, once illuminated with titles of movies, had crashed to the street and shattered into shards of glass and plastic. Lifeless power lines drooped from cracked poles, scattering across streets and parking lots.

The smell here was worse than smoke. More putrid than the simple scent of burned materials. It smelled like grief itself, as if the surface of the earth was in a perpetual state of mourning.

They descended into the heart of the destruction. Kaela bent down to touch the edge of a flattened bicycle frame, still recognizable for what it had been. Her fingers traced the outline of handlebars that had once been gripped by small hands, wheels that had carried someone with hopes and dreams.

The route led them past collapsed storefronts. An old bank stood at one corner, its columns crumbling, the vault door torn from its hinges. Across from it, the remnants of a gas station slumped against the horizon, pumps corroded into abstract art by years of exposure.

Kaela stepped carefully around the remains of a shopping cart, her attention caught by a child’s doll protruding from the dirt. Its face was scorched and one arm was missing entirely. She didn’t look away from it, but she didn’t stop to examine it either. Just acknowledged its presence with sad eyes. Talon felt his chest tighten as he watched her navigate the remnants of other people’s lives with such careful dignity.

“They called it a purge,” he explained, his voice barely carrying over the wind. “Said it was to ‘ensure compliance.’ But this…” He gestured toward the ruins with a hand that trembled slightly despite his efforts at control. “This wasn’t about compliance.”

When she met his eyes, there was anger in her expression. Or maybe an understanding that went deeper than anger ever could.

“This was punishment,” she grumbled.

Her attention drifted to a faded mural on the side of what had once been an apartment building. The painting showed three children in colors that had mostly flaked away, their arms outstretched toward a sun that existed now only in shadowy outlines and the memory of brightness.

“What happened to the people who survived?” she asked.

“Some ran,” Talon replied, stepping over the mangled streetlamp. “Some were taken. But most…” He didn’t finish the sentence. Just shook his head slowly.

Suddenly and without warning, Kaela stopped walking and turned to peer into the distance. Talon followed her line of sight but couldn’t see anything that distinguished one section of ruins from another.

“What is it?” he asked.

She stood motionless, head tilted, listening to an inner voice speak of things she couldn’t possibly know.

The structure she was looking at was larger than the others they had passed, set deeper into the ground with reinforced walls that had survived better than most. The roof had long since collapsed, but the foundation remained solid, suggesting construction that had been built to last.

It might have been a school once. Or a community center. The kind of place where people gathered to light candles, share stories, and maintain the connections that made survival feel like more than just not dying.

But now, this place was just another shell, another monument to the systematic destruction of hope.

“Come on!” Kaela called out, already in motion. She moved towards it with purpose, her steps quickening as if drawn by some invisible thing. She pressed her palm against the eroded concrete wall, fingers spread wide.

Her eyes widened, pupils dilating as her breathing quickened. For a moment, she stood frozen, every muscle in her body tense with concentration.

“Kaela?” Talon moved closer, concern sharpening his voice. “What is it?”

She exhaled slowly, the sound carrying relief and sadness in equal measure. “A memory.”

Talon’s pulse quickened. “You’ve been here before?”

She shook her head, her hand still pressed against the wall. “No. Not my memory.”

He crouched beside her, his voice dropping to the gentle tone he might use with an injured animal. “What do you see?”

Kaela’s eyes went distant, seeing beyond the present moment.

“They danced here,” she said, her voice soft with wonder. “There was music and laughing. A little girl spilled her juice and cried, but her mom picked her up and cleaned her face with her dress. Someone was playing piano… really nice sounds. Warm sounds. Like sunshine coming through the windows when you felt safe.”

Talon looked around the desolate space, trying to see what she saw. To him, it was just another casualty of systematic violence, another place where life itself had been methodically extinguished. But through her words, he could almost hear the echo of what it had been. Before.

“It’s still here,” she continued, her voice growing stronger. “The joy. But also… the fear, when it ended. And… the silence after. All of it soaked into the walls like stains that won’t wash out.”

She stepped back then, her hand falling away from the concrete, and without warning, she began to hum. A soft, halting melody that Talon recognized. It carried him back to moments he thought he had buried too deep to be disturbed.

It was an old Skyguard lullaby, from before the fall. A song that hadn’t been sung in years, that belonged to a time when they still believed their purpose was protection rather than rebellion. He hadn’t thought about it in longer than he cared to remember, and here she was, humming it like it had always been part of her.

“How do you know that song?” he asked, a hint of his amazement showing through in his voice.

She looked up at him with eyes that held depths he was only beginning to understand. “It wants to be remembered,” she answered.

Talon stared at her with a growing sense of awe that bordered on fear. “Has this happened before?”

“Has what happened before?” she asked, looking up at him innocently, as if her gifts weren’t abnormal.

“This. You seeing the memories of other people. Hearing songs that aren’t being played.”

She shrugged, the gesture suggesting that the question itself was more strange than the abilities it addressed. “Sometimes. If I’m quiet. And if the memories were strong enough.”

He studied her face, trying to understand what he was seeing. This wasn’t just sensitivity to the past. If she could learn to control it, she could change the world. If she could only survive long enough to grow into whatever she was becoming.

“Captain?” she said, and he realized he had been staring.

He blinked, forcing himself back to the present moment. “You don’t have to call me that. You can use my name.”

“But I like it,” she replied, a mischievous smile tugging at her lips. She repeated the word with exaggerated formality, drawing out the syllables sarcastically. “Captain.”

They both smiled at that. And for just a moment, the rare glimpse of happiness somehow felt at home among the ruins.

But then her expression grew serious again, and her voice dropped to a whisper.

“What if all this was for nothing?”

Talon looked at the wreckage around them, at the wall where she had touched someone else’s joy and found it still warm after all these years. Then he rested his palm gently on top of her head, his fingers running once through hair that was softer than it had any right to be after everything she had been through.

“But what if it isn’t?” he replied.

And for a moment, that was enough.

A half-mile deeper into the Glade, they reached a plot of land that had been cleared since the fires. Ash lay scattered across its surface, blown in from the surrounding ruins, but the soil itself bore no signs of burn. Someone had tended this place. It was not a ruin, but a memorial.

Rows of modest headstones rose from the earth like fragments of memory. Some were chipped, others tilted or overgrown. A few still held names, etched in the sharp, angular script of the Skyguard. Many bore only sigils; unit crests, stylized wings, or the simple carved line that meant fallen without record. Most remained unmarked altogether, silent as the lives they once honored.

Talon paused at the edge of the clearing. His gaze swept across the rows with quiet reverence, his body stilled by the presence of the fallen.

“This was Antioch’s Reach,” he stated. “A retreat post. We sheltered here when the skies turned bad. Stored what we could. Food. Munitions. Letters we never got to send.”

Kaela stepped beside him, careful of her boots pressing into the soft ground as if she feared waking ghosts.

“Did you live here?” she asked.

He shook his head once. “No.” Then, after a pause, quieter: “But I buried friends here.”

Without waiting for more, he walked toward a lone tree at the edge of the field. Half its limbs were stripped and blackened, its bark curled and flaking like paper left too long in the sun. Still, it stood, tired, but upright.

Beneath its branches sat five headstones, clustered close together. All five bore the same winged insignia.

Talon crouched before the center stone and placed his hand against the surface. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, releasing sorrow he’d carried too long.

Kaela lowered herself beside him without speaking. She examined the stones. Only one was inscribed with a name.

“Why aren’t they marked?” she asked quietly.

“Because no one left alive knew their names.”

She reached out and touched the closest marker. She touched the stone with quiet reverence. The wind stirred faintly, moving through her hair. Her voice, when it came, was soft enough to be mistaken for thought.

“They mattered, though.”

Talon nodded. “They did.”

An unforced silence settled between them, until Talon turned to find her watching him. She wasn’t staring. She was studying him, like he was a puzzle she had nearly finished assembling. When their eyes met, she didn’t look away.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

Her answer took a moment. When it came, her voice was distant, almost wistful. “You were different once.”

His eyes wandered back to the headstones. “A lot of us were.”

“Not Corren,” she said softly.

The name came out of nowhere. He turned his head, slowly, trying not to show the shock that came with hearing it aloud. She had no way of knowing that name. It wasn’t marked on any of the stones.

She saw the question on his face and offered a faint, sly smirk.

“So serious, Captain.”

He managed a smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “What do you know about Corren?”

She reached out again, this time resting her hand on one of the unmarked stones. “He’s here. I saw him laughing.”

Talon’s hand dragged down his face, his gauntlet rasping softly against the stubble on his cheek.

“Corren laughed a lot,” he smiled. “Too much, some thought.”

“Didn’t you like him?”

“I loved him,” Talon replied, voice low and anchored by memory. “That’s why it hurt.”

She didn’t press him. She didn’t need to. Whatever she had seen was enough.

The clouds had thickened above them, dulling the light. A colder wind swept through the trees, bringing with it a metallic smell. Talon looked toward the ridgeline. Shadows were gathering in the distance, long and uncertain.

“We’ll stay here tonight,” he announced, rising. “We reach the Fold tomorrow.”

Kaela stood beside him, studying the bones of the world that had been shattered and healed wrong. After a long moment, she asked, “Is it dangerous?”

Talon’s expression didn’t change. “Everywhere is dangerous.”

She didn’t flinch. She trusted him. And he felt the warmth of that trust settle across his shoulders like a new kind of armor. It didn’t make him stronger, but it made him certain. Far off, the crows cried out over the valley.

Tomorrow, they would move again. But tonight, he allowed himself to believe that maybe, just maybe, there could be a future worth saving.

And that the girl beside him might be the one to save it.