The dream came like a tide, heavy and red. It rolled in with a weight that felt ancient, as if it had crossed oceans before reaching him. It began with smoke, dense and suffocating, curling upward in shapes his mind tried and failed to recognize. Then came thunder. Not the distant kind that murmurs in the sky, but the kind that tears the air in two, cracking open the world and leaving everything ringing in its wake. Aros saw bodies twisting midair, limbs caught between motion and stillness, and the ground below painted in a color that refused to fade no matter how many years he placed between himself and the memory. He no longer remembered names, only faces. Faces distorted by terror, faces turning toward him as the fire spread, swallowing roofs, swallowing streets, swallowing breath.

  Assassin. Monster. Demon.

  The words came from everywhere at once, whispered and shouted, echoing through the smoke like curses etched into the air. He tried to move, but the earth beneath him shifted and gave way, turning to ash under his boots. When he reached for his weapon, his hand closed on nothing. Only emptiness. Only fire.

  A sharp crack cut through the dream. Wood breaking. A sound so clean it sliced the nightmare in half.

  And he woke.

  For a moment, the border between dream and waking blurred, thin as wet paper. The smell of blood still clung to the edges of his mind, stubborn and metallic. The heat of the fire still pulsed behind his eyes like a second heartbeat. Then the world returned in slow pieces: the murmur of rain outside, the faint chill of morning crawling through cracks in the wall, the steady, even breathing of someone close by.

  Talon stood at the doorway with a metal tray in his hands. Morning light crept through the broken ceiling in narrow shafts, pale and thin, illuminating the small column of steam rising from what he carried. The smell of roasted meat drifted into the room, sharp and faintly sweet, a reminder of normalcy that did not quite reach the corners.

  Behind him, Gemma was already awake, sitting with her knees pulled to her chest. Her gaze followed the tray, cautious, torn between suspicion and hunger. The shadows under her eyes made her look smaller, younger, though her expression was the same mixture of resolve and uncertainty she always carried.

  “Breakfast,” Talon said softly, almost smiling, as if saying the word gently might make the place around them feel less ruined.

  Aros rubbed a hand across his face. The dream still clung to him like smoke, refusing to let go. “You kill it yourself?”

  Talon’s smile grew a little, warm but secretive. “A man shouldn’t ask questions when he’s hungry.”

  He crouched beside Gemma and held out the tray. She hesitated, watching both him and the food as if waiting for them to reveal something. Then she took a piece and began to eat. Slow. Silent. Careful. Like someone who had learned early that food was not always a promise but sometimes a trick.

  Aros watched her for a long moment and then looked down at the meat. He still had nuts and water in his pack, but that wouldn’t last long. After a few seconds, he reached out, tore off a strip, and chewed. The taste was rough, salted, cold. It reminded him of winter marches: nights when the fires died early, when the sky was full of smoke instead of stars, when survival tasted like iron.

  Talon looked pleased. “See? Still human.”

  They ate without speaking. The rain outside softened until it was little more than a thin mist, a quiet patter that sounded more like breathing than weather. When they finished, Talon stood, brushed his hands against his robe, and said quietly, “Come inside when you’re ready. We have things to arrange.”

  He left without waiting for an answer. His footsteps echoed softly, swallowed quickly by the vastness of the ruined church.

  Gemma looked up from the empty tray. “You don’t trust him,” she said. “But you still ate his food.”

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  “Starvation’s more persuasive than honesty.” Aros tightened his coat and picked up his pack. “Remember what I told you. Trust is what gets people killed.”

  Her faint smile disappeared, replaced by a familiar shadow. “You think everyone’s dangerous.”

  “I think danger’s the only honest thing left.”

  They walked back inside the church. The morning light filtered through shattered stained glass, painting fractured colors across the stone floor. Broko and Diana sat beside a cracked column, sorting supplies with a quiet rhythm born from habit. Their laughter was small, almost private, the kind shared by people who had spent too long in harsh places and learned to survive by finding scraps of warmth wherever they could.

  The air smelled of ash, wax and damp iron. Candles burned near the altar, their flames thin and trembling as if exhausted by the effort of existing.

  Talon stood waiting, hands clasped behind his back. His robe hung unevenly on his shoulders, wrinkled and loose, as though he had stopped caring if he ever looked like a priest again. “Good,” he said when he saw them. “You’re awake. You’ll be leaving soon. I want you to meet your companions again.”

  He gestured toward Broko and Diana. They stood and nodded. Gemma greeted them softly, and they responded with a warmth that felt genuine, not the forced camaraderie of soldiers but something more organic, fragile, earned. Aros offered only a brief glance, polite but distant, holding his responses close like a shield.

  Talon’s voice lowered. “They’ll go with you. Along with Candriela.”

  At that name, Broko and Diana exchanged a quick glance, almost too fast to notice. But Aros noticed. He always noticed.

  Talon continued, unbothered. “I won’t be joining you. Too much to do here. The rebellion needs a voice it can see. But you can trust them. They’re rough, but loyal enough to bleed for something bigger than themselves.”

  “Trust is expensive these days,” Aros said.

  “Then pay it slowly.”

  Talon turned toward Gemma. His tone softened. “Before you go, I’d like to know what it is you’re seeking. So we can make sure you reach it alive.”

  Gemma hesitated. “It’s something I need to find in Bondrea.”

  “What kind of something?”

  She opened her mouth, but Aros answered for her. “She’ll tell you when she’s ready.”

  Talon studied him, silent for a moment, then nodded. “Fair enough.”

  They began to prepare. Broko and Diana packed the last of the rations, checked their rifles, tightened the straps on their cloaks. Gemma folded her own cloak neatly, slipped a small compass into her pocket, the one that refused to point true but that she kept as if it still mattered.

  The church creaked in the wind. In the distance, the city bells began to toll again, slow and tired. The kind of sound that made even faith feel heavy.

  “You need to be careful,” Aros said quietly.

  Gemma didn’t look up. “Of what?”

  “Of them. Of anyone. Of what you are.”

  Gemma sighed, not with anger but with the exhaustion of repeating the same argument. “It’s my problem.”

  “It becomes mine when it gets us killed.”

  She finally looked at him. Her eyes were clear, steady. “You’ll see. The world isn’t as broken as you think.”

  He almost smiled, but the expression never fully formed. “I’d rather be wrong.”

  Broko appeared at the doorway, cloak pulled tight to shield against the wind. “Ready when you are.”

  Diana slung her rifle over her shoulder. “Candriela’s waiting outside.”

  Aros frowned. “Where?”

  A voice answered from the archway, low and rough, a voice carved by command and battle.

  “Here.”

  She stepped out of the shadows. Towering, broad-shouldered, moving with the confidence of someone who had never lost a fight she intended to win. Her skin was marked by scars, pale lines running like rivers across her arms and down her back. Her short hair was streaked with silver. Her eyes held a distant calm, the kind found in people who had already buried everything they feared losing.

  She didn’t wait for introductions. “Move,” she said, and turned toward the open door.

  The others followed without a word. Their boots echoed once against the wet stone before fading into the gray morning.

  Aros lingered. The air inside remained thick with smoke and the faint sweetness of extinguished candles. He looked at the blackened altar, at the broken colored glass scattered across the floor, at the hollow space left behind when belief abandons its home.

  Gemma waited near the door, hood drawn low, small against the vast gray outside. She turned just enough to see him, her expression quiet.

  He joined her. The wind was cold and metallic, carrying the distant hum that lived beneath every stone of Dromo. That strange pulse of the Light that seemed to breathe with the city itself.

  He didn’t need to ask who she was. He already knew. Candriela.

  And the road to Bondrea had begun.