By dawn, his armor was scraped and his knuckles were raw.

He found the skyblossom near the base of the twisted tree, crushed into the sand. Its stem was torn, its once-luminous petals now wilted, as dark violet as a bruise the morning after.

He picked it up anyway.

He picked it up anyway.

The rest became a blur of motion driven by muscle memory and instinct, the familiar routines taking over where grief threatened to paralyze him completely. He had years of combat experience behind him, countless rescue drills practiced until they became second nature, extraction missions flown under fire with precision born of desperation. But none of it had ever felt this personal, this hollow, this much like losing a piece of himself.

If only he had her ability.

The power to see what wasn’t there. To know things he shouldn’t. She could press her palm to an old floorboard and hear the dead sing. He was having trouble finding a bootprint in the dirt.

He had no special gift. No magic. No seer’s blood.

Just wings.

So he used them.

For hours, he cut the sky in widening spirals. Eyes sharp, wings aching. He scanned every ridgeline, every cactus, every shadow. But the Fold held its silence.

She had vanished.

His first thought had been the obvious one: someone had taken her from the outpost while he slept. But that theory just didn’t hold up. He might have dozed off, yes, but not so deeply that he wouldn’t have heard boots scraping against stone, the sounds of a desperate struggle, or a terrified scream cut short by violence. His subconscious never stopped listening, even in sleep, a survival skill that had kept him breathing through too many dangerous nights to count.

No, the truth was worse than that. She had left on her own, walked into the darkness carrying whatever innocent purpose had seemed worth the risk.

And that haunted him more than anything else.

Why?

Why would she walk into the dark?

He wouldn’t make the connection until later.

Much later.

And by then, it would be too late.

Talon approached from the south. When his boots hit the ground, the impact was hard, like he was a man made of iron.

He hadn’t slept in three days. His skin was pale, his wings frayed at the edges. His eyes were raw, ringed in red, dried out from too many hours slicing through wind and desperation.

Near the cliff’s edge stood his second-in-command, Soryn Thalor. Older. Wiser. The kind of soldier who carried his discipline like armor. His arms were folded, wings half-furled, posture tight as if ready to launch at a moment’s notice.

Talon walked up beside him, but neither spoke at first.

It had been weeks since they’d last seen each other. They had parted after a recon sweep near the Red Spires. Soryn had volunteered to track a Dominion patrol, one rumored to be abducting survivors from broken resistance cells. Talon had gone the other way, following a feeling he couldn’t name at the time. A pull that thrummed through his bones as a warning or a prayer.

He hadn’t known then that it was Velien. That it was leading him to a girl with emerald eyes who would change everything.

Now she was gone.

And Talon had called for help.

The outpost at Kareth-9 was dead, but Talon had managed to coax the old comm system back to life. He’d sent a desperate signal into the dark. A short, coded call to any remaining Skyguard still listening.

Soryn was the only one who answered.

And it was he who broke the silence.

“No trail?”

Talon shook his head.

“Syndicate?”

A shrug, and a frown that said it all.

Soryn sighed deeply, reached into his belt satchel, and pulled out a dented metal flask. He offered it without comment or ceremony. Talon stared at it for a moment, then accepted it with hands that weren’t quite steady. The liquor inside burned with sharp intensity, cutting through the numbness that had settled over him.

“I’ve seen you take blades through bone without flinching,” Soryn said quietly. “But this… this is different. Your soul is bleeding.”

Talon didn’t respond. His eyes were locked on the horizon, unfocused. Like he was trying to see something already gone.

“She trusted me,” he muttered. “And I let her walk into the dark. I was right there.”

Soryn remained perfectly still. He understood that some kinds of pain needed room to breathe before they could be addressed. So he let the silence stretch between them. He would let Talon pour out his guilt without trying to catch it or cushion its fall.

Talon unscrewed the flask with deliberate movements, took another drink that burned all the way down, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. His jaw was set with the rigid control of someone barely holding himself together, but when he spoke, his voice carried the ragged edge of a man coming apart at the seams.

“She was just a kid, Soryn. And I was supposed to keep her safe.”

Still, Soryn said nothing.

Talon finally turned toward him, his face drawn tight.

“Tell me I should’ve seen it coming. Tell me I got careless. That I fucked it up.”

Soryn’s eyes didn’t waver. “You already know all that, Captain. You don’t need me to say it.”

A few moments passed, as Talon let the liquid poison from the flask numb his fingertips. Then he took another drag before handing it back towards his friend. Soryn put his fingertips on Talon’s wrist, pushing it away. As if to say, you need it worse than I do.

“Whatever this is, we end it,” Talon muttered

Soryn looked back out across the Fold. “Then say the word.”

There was no consolation in his tone, no comfort offered or expected. They were just two soldiers standing in the wreckage of another failure, waiting for the kind of blood that might balance the scales of justice.

Then, over the far ridge, four more silhouettes emerged against the pale sky. They crested the rise, moving with the fluid grace of ghosts made solid, history returning to take its rightful place beside him.

Talon turned at the sound of wings cutting through air, his breath catching in his throat as he recognized the familiar faces.

Each one wore the insignia of the Skyguard, their armor dented, repatched and faded. They landed one by one, flanking Talon without need for words or ceremony, forming a loose formation that spoke of years fighting together. There were no salutes exchanged, no formal declarations of loyalty, just their presence. And that spoke more than any oath ever could.

They stood steady and silent, their resolve as unyielding as the stone beneath their boots. After everything they had endured together, from the fall of their order to the long exile to the crushing silence of the shadows, they were still his. Still Skyguard. Still willing to follow him into whatever hell awaited them.

Talon’s grip on the flask loosened without conscious thought, and it dropped to the ground with a metallic clink that echoed off the rocks. The liquid courage was of no use, now. He didn’t need it anymore.

Talon straightened. Drew a breath. Adjusted the strap of his wingcloak across his chest, checked the weight of the blades at his back.

Then, without ceremony, he reached into his belt pouch and drew out a crushed skyblossom, now black with decay.

Such a small thing.

But he wasn’t ready to let it go.

Soryn watched as Talon folded the bloom gently and tucked it back into the pouch. When their eyes met, no words were needed. They had buried too many brothers together, carried too many names in silence.

Soryn stepped closer and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You sure you’re ready for this, Captain?”

Talon flexed his wings. They opened wide behind him in a sharp, powerful arc.

Full of anger and violence.

“No,” he said. “But I’m done waiting.”

For three days, they tore across the Fold like revenants loosed from the old wars.

Talon gave no speeches, offered no battle cries, and wasted no breath on the hollow promises of hope. He issued commands with the same precision he wielded a blade, each one stripped of ceremony, each one honed to the edge of necessity. And the last of the Skyguard did not follow out of duty, nor from some fading allegiance to the oaths they had once carved into flesh and feather.

They followed him because the fire in his eyes mirrored the one burning deep in their own chests. Because vengeance was a language they still understood. They were fluent in the cold, righteous dialect of suffering long unpunished. And, in a world that no longer offered justice, standing at Talon’s side meant lashing out with retaliation. It meant making someone pay.

They struck the first camp at dawn. An abandoned outpost along the ridge, nothing more than rusted walls and a few tarps fluttering in the wind. But inside, they found records. Names. Ages. Transport dates. Coordinates. Syndicate logs were usually handwritten, always coded in slaver shorthand. Soryn cracked it in a matter of minutes.

“Shipment moved four days ago,” he noted. “Eight units. Young. Southbound.”

No one spoke of what the word “units” meant.

By midmorning, they were airborne again. Winglines sharp, formation tight. They banked low over ruined roads and hardened canyons, their shadows dancing across old Dominion warning signs and broken comm spires. A mile past the bend, they found a caravan of three Syndicate haulers, canvas pulled over cageframes, tires spitting sand. The guards didn’t see them coming until it was too late.

When the lead truck veered too hard, it struck a patch of loose sand and tipped onto its side in a shriek of rubber and metal. The two behind it had no time to react. They slammed into the wreck, twisted frames locking in a mangled heap of rust and groaning steel. Before the dust could even settle, the Skyguard descended. Six winged shadows carving through the dusk like falling blades. They encircled the wreckage and they didn’t take prisoners.

The second day began with a trail of bodies.

A Syndicate scout team, four men and two women, shredded near a supply depot. Ripped open and left to rot from the inside out. The assault had taken less than ninety seconds.

Their blades were still wet when Talon caught sight of a thin line of smoke curling into the sky from just over the next rise.

“Another camp?” Soryn asked.

Talon didn’t reply. He was already moving.

They followed the fetid odor of grease and human filth down a narrow trail carved into the mountain. They landed with boots crunching on loose rock, and crested the hill. Below, a sprawl of mismatched tents, prefab huts, and cracked shipping crates was scattered around a fire pit. A crude antennae dish pointed skyward, useless, rusted through at the base. Two vehicles sat half-disassembled beneath a tarp stretched between fuel drums.

But the camp was empty. Talon raised a hand, and the squad stopped cold.

He scanned the perimeter. No footprints. No drag marks. No blood. Just dust kicked up from recent motion, a smoldering cookpot still bubbling beside a sliced up cluster of roots, and four chipped bowls set out in the sand.

“Gone hunting,” Soryn muttered. “They’ll be coming back.”

“They left someone standing guard,” one of the Skyguard, a man named Rennic, called out. He was pointing to a container across the site.

Talon and Soryn moved in tandem, one from the front, the other from behind. They found him crouched behind a half rotted cargo crate, cradling a rifle, barrel jittering between his shaking hands. He wasn’t much older than a boy. Fifteen, maybe, though the grime and hollowness of his face made him seem older.

His eyes were jaundiced, cheeks were sunken, lips cracked. And yet, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t run. He just locked them in his sights and held his ground, trembling like an animal that knew it couldn’t win, but would bite anyway.

This half-starved, half-feral boy was willing to die on his feet.

“Where are the others?” Soryn asked bluntly.

The boy didn’t answer.

“Tell us your name, son?” Talon ordered.

The boy’s mouth remained clenched. Not a word.

“Look boy, you can die quickly, or we can take turns slicing up you. Piece by piece,” Soryn exploded, taking a threatening step forward.

When he shifted the gun towards Soryn, Talon lashed out. His move was so quick, he had the rifle in hand before the boy even flinched.

“Where do they take the cargo?” Talon asked, pushing the barrel of the rifle against the boy’s forehead.

The boy pointed. South. Toward the Emberdeep.

Talon didn’t thank him. Just squeezed the trigger, and the boy died quickly.

On the third day, as they flew low along the base of a jagged mountain range just north of Draymar Valley, they spotted a cave behind some loose rocks and dried cactus. Its entrance yawned lazily, with lengths of rebar jutting outward like rusted teeth. Welded steel plating sloped down into the darkness, angled with precision. This was a passage built for hiding or moving goods.

Talon pointed toward deep, parallel gouges torn into the dirt, still sharp at the edges. The tracks had been formed by heavy wheels, and they were recent. No more than a quarter mile down the slope, the earth was churned with the unmistakable signature of industrial movement.

“Trucks,” he observed, voice low. “Big ones. Fresh.”

He landed first, boots crunching against rock. The others followed without a word, wings folding in tight behind their shoulders. Soryn knelt at the edge of the tracks, studied them, and then looked up at Talon.

“These trucks were loaded down with—”

“Cargo,” Talon snapped, using their word.

The stale air seeping from the cave stank of mildew. Power residue clung to the walls, faint but traceable. Old Dominion tech, repurposed and stripped for Syndicate use. Broken machines were jammed into crevices along the interior, gutted and rewired with scavenged components. Panels still flickered dimly in the gloom, displaying fractured readouts in a language long abandoned by the Crown’s official channels.

Soryn rose slowly from the tracks, the weight of the revelation settling in his shoulders.

“This was a hub,” he noted, voice taut. “Too much infrastructure for a forward post. They’ve been here a long time.”

“Stand guard,” Talon ordered, his voice clipped and final. Two of the Skyguard nodded and took positions near the cave mouth, blades drawn and eyes sharp.

Then he motioned to Soryn and the remaining two. “With me.”

No more words were needed.

The others fell into step, boots crunching softly over loose stones and dirt as they followed him deeper into the cave. The walls of the corridor narrowed quickly, forcing them to move in single file. Soryn took rear guard, while Talon led them through the curved passage, flanked by fractured screens and dusty concrete. The deeper they went, the colder the air became, saturated with the sterile burn of recycled power. Above their heads, the occasional spark crackled from a bare conduit, casting jagged shadows across the curved steel.

Half a dozen turns in, they found the holding cells.

No, not cells. Cages.

They were industrial grade steel, welded to last. Rust marked the floors in narrow runnels where fluids had drained. In one of the cages, a drawing was scratched into the wall. It was just three crude stick figures, clearly a mom and a dad and a child. Beneath it, a single word etched by a young child’s hand:

Home

They stared at it for a long time, lost for words. They had seen horrors before, but this simple drawing cut deeper than carnage on a battlefield.

Talon stepped away first. He moved with that slow, deliberate precision that came when rage had cooled just enough to function. He passed cage after cage, eyes scanning for anything human left behind. A note. A piece of fabric. A name scratched into the steel.

But there was nothing.

Only ghosts and rust.

At the far end of the corridor, they came to a stairwell. Old Dominion wiring still ran along the walls, sliced and rewired in haphazard junctions. It was scavenger work, not elegant but effective.

They descended in silence, boots echoing softly in the shaft. The stairs ended in a chamber of monitors and computer terminals. They were all powered down, except one. A single Dominion relay terminal had somehow rebooted itself. Its display was weak and flickering, but alive.

Talon rushed over to it. “Soryn! Come quick!”

The second-in-command was at his side in an instant.

“Can you get anything?”

“Maybe,” Soryn replied. “Depends on how well they wiped the hard drive before abandoning it.”

Soryn’s fingers blazed across the grime-caked keys, bypassing the boot protocols with a firmware exploit. The terminal stuttered but responded, flickering to life in erratic pulses. He tapped in a series of backdoor commands, accessing cached routines, cracking past what few firewalls remained. For a long minute, there was only the brittle clack of keys, and the distant creak of the cave settling around them.

Then the screen blinked again, brighter this time. Lines of code flickered across it.

Soryn grinned. “Got it. It’s some kind of manifest. Let’s see if Kaela’s listed.”

Talon stepped in beside him, eyes narrowing as Soryn scrolled through the partially corrupted data.

There were no names. Of course there weren’t. The Syndicate didn’t care who they took, only what. Just gender, age approximations, and bloodline markers. That was all that mattered to butchers who saw children as currency.

Talon’s jaw tightened. Each line of code felt was a lash across his back. Eleven years old. Female. Velari blood. That could be her. But so could half a dozen others.

“Check the timestamps,” he said, his voice low.

Soryn tapped a few more keys, pulling up access logs and cargo reports. “This line’s from three days ago.”

Talon glared. “She was here.”

He could feel it like a splinter driven deep under his skin.

“But then why isn’t she on the outbound list?” Soryn muttered, more observation than question.

Talon reached past Soryn and pointed to a status marker in the shipping manifest. On the line marked 427-KV13, a single word blinked in red:

Withheld.

“Wait—”

Soryn’s fingers hammered the keys with renewed urgency. Each keystroke was a gunshot in the silence. He bypassed the corrupted routing index, punched through the security protocols, and forced a manual query refresh.

A moment later, a second node flared to life on the display. It was the full data entry for 427-KV13.

Talon leaned in.

ID: 427-KV13
Class: A – Unbranded
Age Estimate: 12
Gender: Female
Origin: Velari
Status: HOLD – R.Dask Private Custody
Transfer Route: N/A

“There,” Soryn snapped, jabbing a finger at the status line. “Could that be Rulv Dask?”

Talon’s heart sank. His eyes closed, and for a breathless moment, the hottest fury he had ever known surged into his throat, incinerating the air in his lungs.

This was the worst outcome imaginable. Kaela would be safer dead than in the hands of the Chainfather.

Rulv Dask’s name incited terror in all the worst corners of the world. Whispered through the Fold, cursed in the Withered Glade, and despised across the Emberdeep. He wasn’t just a Syndicate commander. He was a monster. The last person Talon would have ever let near her.

“She wasn’t traded,” Talon murmured, voice cold. “He kept her for himself.”

Soryn exhaled slowly. “Why would he do that?”

Control. Leverage. Or something darker. Dask didn’t just collect bodies. He broke them.

“He wouldn’t keep her just to kill her,” Talon hissed. “That means she’s still alive.”

Soryn looked up. “You think Dask is still nearby?”

Talon’s eyes narrowed. “If so, he won’t be for long.”

He turned to the others. “Wreck this place. Smash everything.”

He turned and retraced their path at a near sprint, boots echoing through the hollow tunnels until the light of the cave mouth cut through the dark. When he reached it, he paused, staring out into the Fold. The mountains beyond cast shadows from the setting sun, and somewhere out there, among caravans and ruins and all the monsters man had become, a girl with emerald eyes was still waiting.

He wasn’t going to fail her again.

Not this time.

With a single, sharp beat of his wings, he launched. The others followed, a storm rising in formation of vengeance peeling skyward.

Just over the next ridge, above Draymar Valley, the world was about to burn.