Chapter XXXIII: A Cage of Living Bars
The fields lay quiet beneath a pale gray sky. Wind moved through the grass, but nothing else stirred—no birds, no insects, no distant barking. Only hooves thudding soft in the dirt, tack creaking.
Petra kept her right hand steady on the reins and used her left forearm to brace the leather against the saddle horn. The strap bit against the bandaged stump. She forced her shoulders down, kept her posture straight. Her gear felt clumsy, only the grip on her right hip answered now, its trigger tension still unfamiliar.
Miche's orders had been plain: warn, guide, retreat. Don't engage unless you have to. Don't waste blades, don't waste gas. There was no resupply waiting, only what they carried and whatever they could scavenge from abandoned homes.
She found herself counting. One flare on her. Two on Lynne. Gelgar had extra rounds for the signal gun. Everyone still had canteens. Their horses were still under them.
For now.
They'd warned a few towns on their way south, spotted titans only from a distance—slow silhouettes on the plains, too far to hear. They hadn't been chased. Pure chance.
Every minute of this quiet made her wonder how many had already slipped inside Wall Rose.
"It's too damn quiet…" Gelgar muttered.
Sasha Braus rode point, posture rigid. The girl claimed she knew the back roads, but Petra saw the desperation in her shoulders. Braus had been steering them toward Ragako from the start, begging to check on the family of a dead recruit.
"Sasha," Petra called, voice scratching her dry throat. "How far?"
"Past the hill." Sasha didn't look back.
Soon they crested the low ridge and the village came into view.
Three houses at the northern edge had been crushed inward, roofs caved like eggshells. A wooden watchtower lay scattered across the road in pieces no larger than a child's fist. Massive circular depressions pockmarked the main street, filled with yesterday's rainwater that reflected the gray sky like dead eyes.
No bodies. No signs of struggle beyond the raw destruction itself.
Gelgar reined in beside her. "They came through here. Don't get sloppy."
"I don't see any from here…" Lynne's voice was tight.
"All right," Gelgar said, pitching his voice to carry. "Open up the formation. Don't rush in. Remember we're—"
Sasha snapped her reins and surged ahead.
"Braus!" Petra lifted her hand on instinct.
The girl didn't look back.
"I'm going after her." Gelgar kicked his horse into a gallop. Two recruits followed—Braun and Hoover.
Behind Petra, the recruits' mounts sidestepped nervously, mirroring riders who kept looking to Petra's back for the next command.
"Stay back in the field." Petra said, her voice dropping to a flat, command. "No one enters until we signal. If something comes out, you don't chase. You fire red and fall back. Understand?"
The recruit nodded too fast. "Yes, ma'am."
"Good. I'm not losing anyone else today." She spurred her horse toward the village. "Lynne. With me."
The silence was worse inside. A cart stood half-turned in the lane, one wheel broken. Tools lay scattered in yards. An axe wedged into a chopping block, clean and unused.
Her stump brushed the empty space on her left hip. The harness sat wrong without the left grip—usable, but always pulling her off-center.
At a glance, the place looked deserted. A home near the square had been stepped through, roof collapsed, walls bowed outward. The massive footprints led deeper into the village, then scattered, as if the titans had wandered aimlessly before moving on.
No trampled bodies. No smashed carts with human remains.
It looked like the villagers had simply vanished—or been taken so completely there was nothing left.
Clack.
A sound from behind a house. The metallic clack snapped her focus. Her blade cleared its sheath before the echo died.
A low growl vibrated through the air.
She moved around the corner, blade lowered.
Just a dog.
It was tethered to a post near the smithy—thin and scruffy, thick gray coat dust-matted. Its snout was long and sharp with a pale white smear over one eye. It threw its weight against the rope, collar digging into its neck, choking itself in a frenzy to escape.
But it wasn't growling at her. It faced the back of the village, hackles raised, pulling away as if trying to break its own neck to get away from whatever lay deeper in the settlement.
"Shh... easy..." Petra murmured.
She approached carefully. The animal didn't even look at her. Its amber eyes were rolled back in terror, fixed on something unseen.
She cut the rope with a quick slice. The dog didn't linger. It tore past her, claws scrabbling at the dirt, and bolted.
Petra watched it go. The village behind her had gotten quieter.
She followed the direction it had been staring. Past empty yards. Past doors left swinging in the gentle wind. Past a child's toy cart overturned in the dust.
At the end of the lane sat a barn with a sagging roofline. A stable beside it.
She heard nervous stamping from the stable. Hooves clattering against wood.
Petra reached the stable door first. Eight horses shifted in their stalls, ears pinned back, eyes showing white. Their water troughs were almost dry.
"They left their horses?"
The voice behind her made her spin, blade coming up.
Lynne. Weapons drawn, moving quietly. "My side was clear. Place looks empty."
"I found livestock," Petra said. "Horses, eight of them."
Lynne counted the stalls under her breath. "Don't think this place would have much more."
The horses pressed to the far wall of each stall, trembling.
"Poor things," Lynne murmured. "They're terrified."
Lynne took a step toward the barn door, voice dropping to a whisper. "Think someone's still here?"
Petra moved past her. "If people ran, they'd take horses first. Cover me."
As they approached, a smell leaked through the cracks in the wood. It hit her like a physical blow—not the coppery smell of blood, but something sweeter, thicker. The smell of fruit left to rot in the sun, mixed with the sharp sting of something metallic.
Petra pushed the door open.
Carrion birds exploded from the rafters, wings hammering as they fled. For a heartbeat the inside looked normal—sacks, crates, tools—then her eyes adjusted.
"Ugh," Lynne muttered, waving her hand. "What's that stench?"
Light filtered through gaps in the roof, illuminating dust motes hanging stagnant in the air. The floor was a graveyard of small things.
Rats and sparrows lay in heaps near the blackened grain sacks.
Petra took a step closer, boot crunching on something brittle.
The carcasses were wrong.
A rat lay near her boot—stiff, rigor mortis long set, but bloated. Thick, black, viscous fluid leaked from its eyes and mouth, pooling in the dirt. Not blood. Like tar. It shimmered in the low light, oily and dead.
"In my town," Lynne's voice came through, muffled, "we put poison down around stores before winter." She nudged a rat with her boot. It rolled, too light. "I think they overdid it... by a lot."
"No flies. No maggots," Lynne said, fighting her gag reflex. "Should be crawling."
Petra stopped breathing. The scent dragged her backward.
Oluo's cry as Gunther fell. His blade cutting into Anja's shoulder.
"Traitor!"
The wet tearing of flesh. Anja pinning Oluo down. Her teeth finding his throat. And that black liquid... seeping from Anja's mouth into his wounds, mixing with the red, turning the forest floor into a nightmare.
The smell inside the barn wasn't just rot.
It was the smell of her.
The room spun. The black puddles seemed to widen, reaching for her boots.
She barely made it outside before she retched, bending double, heaving bile onto the dry earth.
"Petra!" Lynne's hand was on her shoulder.
"Don't touch the corpses!" Petra gasped, wiping her mouth, stumbling away from the barn. "Don't touch anything in there!"
Lynne stepped out behind her, face pale. "Relax, I wasn't planning on it. Come on, we need to clear-"
A scream tore through the village.
Sasha.
/***/
They found Sasha at the far edge of Ragako, kneeling in the dirt before a cottage that had been crushed inward. Braun crouched beside her. Hoover stood back, staring at the dirt between his boots.
A titan lay sprawled over the wreckage.
Small. Its limbs wasted—atrophied sticks of bone wrapped in pale skin. It lay on its back, pinned by the roof beams, arms splayed helplessly. Blonde hair matted to its scalp. Mouth hung open, saliva stringing from slack lips.
It was staring at the girl.
"What happened?" Petra's voice was a rasp. She kept her distance, blade ready.
"They're gone," Sasha choked out. "Connie's family... everyone..."
"Hey, we don't know that," Braun said, voice steady, gentle. But Petra saw his hand resting on Sasha's shoulder, fingers digging in too hard, knuckles white. "There are no bodies, Sasha. They probably left."
Petra circled the creature slowly. One beam ran through its thigh. No blood, just slick tissue and thin steam leaking off the wound.
"I don't think it can walk. How did it even get here?"
Gelgar's voice came from behind. "Could be an abnormal, or it got pinned after it fell in. Either way, don't get close."
Petra stared at the titan's belly, thin as stretched cloth. It didn't look like it could eat anything.
Its eyes glistened. Wet. Almost human.
It opened its mouth.
The sound was wet, gurgled, like rocks grinding together at the bottom of a well. The jaw worked uselessly, cartilage clicking, tongue lolling heavy and thick.
Guh... ah...
"Did it just..." Gelgar's hand locked onto his grip. The color vanished from his face. "Is it trying to talk?"
Nobody moved. The sound hung in the air — that wet, grinding, almost-shape of a word — and nobody moved.
"We're losing daylight," Petra said. Her voice came out wrong. She said it again. "We're losing daylight here. Let's move."
Gelgar shifted his weight. "Right... We're halfway to the wall. Let's move before it gets dark. Everyone mount up."
"Come on, Sasha. We're leaving." Petra grabbed Sasha's arm and hauled her up.
"But-" Sasha's eyes were wild. "If they're moving north... I have to check my village. My family is to the north."
"We can't. Mission goes first, Braus. We still have towns to warn, and we have to locate the breach. Another team is warning the northern sector."
"But my family-"
"We're soldiers!" Petra's voice snapped across the ruined street like a whip. She saw Braun flinch, a crack in his composure that vanished as quickly as it appeared. "It's our duty. Everyone behind us is counting on us to do our job. We don't get to stop. Not now."
Sasha wiped her face with the back of her hand. Nodded once. Didn't speak.
Braun helped her onto her horse. Hoover was already walking toward the mounts, shoulders tight.
Petra turned her horse.
The titan was still watching them. Mouth hung open in a silent scream.
A tear rolled down its cheek.
/***/
They'd been moving for more than a day now.
Anja knew because she'd watched two sunrises blur into existence through an eye that wouldn't quite focus anymore. The first from a roadside ditch where they'd pressed themselves flat against cold mud while a patrol passed. The second from inside a culvert that smelled like rust and death, Annie's hand clamped over her mouth to muffle her ragged breathing.
They'd tried to circle back toward Trost twice. Both times, Annie had pulled them away at the last moment, reading something in the patrol patterns that Anja's exhausted mind couldn't process.
Annie's hand dipped into her backpack. She pulled out a small notebook wrapped in cloth, edges softened from being opened too many times. She flipped it open without stopping, thumb sliding down tight lines of pencil—times, routes, changes marked in short, ugly shorthand.
Anja caught a glimpse of crude maps, a few names crossed out hard enough to tear the paper.
Annie snapped it shut the moment Anja looked too long.
"Too many," Annie whispered. "And they're not moving like search parties. They're moving like they're waiting for us to walk into a trap."
So they'd kept moving. South and west. Staying off roads. Sleeping in snatches that felt more like drowning than rest.
They kept their cloaks, the cloth plain green where insignias should have been. Annie was down to a hoodie over boots and trousers; Anja had stolen layers and no jacket. The harness sat under it all, stripped to quiet essentials: no blades, no loose metal, just gas and hooks to make it over the wall.
Her clothes still smelled like drainage ditch mud and something fouler, something chemical that made Anja's stomach turn when the wind shifted wrong. Her boots squelched with every step, leather softening and splitting at the seams.
Annie wasn't looking any better. Shadows under her eyes dark enough to be bruises. Hair matted with sweat and dirt. But she moved with the same efficiency she always had, scanning treelines, counting minutes between patrols with a precision that Anja found both comforting and terrifying.
Had she done this before, run like this?
The thought came and she walked through it. Later. She could think about what that meant later.
Right now, she just had to keep moving forward.
The hills leveled out near a treeline, revealing rooftops below. Faded planks. Small fences. A tilted well near the center. No smoke. No movement.
Annie crouched beside her behind a low ridge, scanning through the long grass. "No soldiers. No one on watch."
Anja tried to focus on the village, but the edges of her vision kept swimming. The horizon bowed. She blinked, and the treeline snapped back into rigid, violent focus.
"Through the wheat," Annie said. "Low. Let the stalks hide you."
Anja nodded. Started to stand.
The ground swerved sideways.
Annie's hand caught her elbow, steadying her. "Easy."
"I'm fine."
Annie's grip tightened. "When's the last time you slept?"
"I'm fine," she repeated.
Annie's gaze flicked from Anja's trembling knees to the sweat beading at her hairline, lingering on the dirty bandage over her missing eye.
"Come on," Annie said finally. "If you go down, I'll drag you. Don't make me."
They moved down the slope, keeping to the wheat rows. Left. Right. Left. She counted the boot-falls, locking out the burn in her lungs
The wheat changed as they pushed through it. First yellowed, then gray, then brittle and brown underfoot. Near the village edge, entire rows had withered—stalks curled inward, blackened at the base in uneven patches that spread like rot.
Anja brushed one of the dead stalks. It crumbled between her fingers, leaving a faint slickness on her fingertips, like sap gone bad.
"Blight?" she whispered.
Annie spared a quick glance at the dead crops. "Keep moving."
The village streets told a clearer story. Doors stood wide open, creaking softly in the wind. Deep wheel-ruts marked the road where carts had been loaded and driven away in haste. The ruts weren't random—two parallel grooves, deep and straight, as if the carts had lined up and rolled out one after another.
And there were tracks beside them: many footprints, packed close, mostly in the same direction.
No signs of violence.
Just absence.
"Everyone's gone," Annie said quietly. "Not long ago."
"You think they ran because of us?" Anja's voice was a dry rasp that barely carried over the wind.
"No." Annie scanned the empty windows, the open doors. "They would have left someone behind. A watch. Something." She paused. "This is something else." Annie nodded toward the wheel ruts. "Those carts didn't flee. They left in a line."
They moved through the square, checking corners. The well stood untouched, bucket secured. A market stall had been stripped, only spoiled vegetables remained, their smell cloying in the still air.
No insects. That's what was missing. No flies on the rotting food. No bees in the wildflowers growing through cracks in the cobblestones.
Just silence and a faint smell of decay.
They found a larger house at the edge of the square—two stories, shutters painted blue, a carved lintel over the door that suggested wealth or at least comfort. The door stood ajar.
Annie pushed it open slowly, listening. She raised a hand to her lips, then slipped inside.
Anja followed.
Dust hung in shafts of afternoon light. A table set for a meal that never came. The hearth cold, though ashes still filled it. Whoever lived here had left in a hurry, but not in panic—the chairs were pushed in neatly, dishes stacked beside the sink.
Annie moved to the shelves, checking jars, testing weight. Always practical.
Anja stood in the middle of the room. Her legs trembled faintly. She locked her knees to hide it, teeth grinding.
"Sit down," Annie said without looking.
"I'm fine."
"You're shaking." Annie turned, holding a jar of something pickled. "Sit."
Anja found a chair. The chair groaned. Her locked joints gave way the second her weight hit the wood.
Annie set a hard roll on the table. "Eat. Try to rest."
Heinrik's voice slid in close, amused.
Back to your old habits. Slip through a door, take what isn't yours, run before the bill comes due.
The bread was stale, dense as a stone. Anja bit into it anyway. Her stomach cramped around it, suddenly aware of how empty it had been. She chewed slowly, forcing herself not to wolf it down, while Annie packed supplies into a canvas bag—grain, dried vegetables, salt.
Anja watched her work. Despite the tiredness in her face, there was no wasted movement.
How long have you been prepared for this?
The question sat heavy in her throat, but she didn't ask.
"Let me see your hand."
Anja looked down at her right hand. The stumps where three fingers used to be, wrapped in cloth that hadn't been changed in... she couldn't remember how long.
Annie crossed to her, crouched, took the hand gently between both of hers. Started unwrapping the bandage.
The cloth stuck to the wounds. Anja hissed as Annie peeled it away carefully, revealing—
Smooth skin.
No scab. No redness. Just… sealed over, pink and smooth, like weeks had passed.
Annie's hands went very still.
She stared at the stumps for a long moment. Then, slowly, she traced the edge of one stump with her thumb. Testing. Checking for inflammation.
Nothing.
"It's only been two days."
Annie's voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it Anja hadn't heard before. Not quite fear. Something sharper.
"You can't let anyone see that." It wasn't a warning—it was an order, clipped and immediate.
Her eyes flicked to Anja's face, then away. "If my people notice it, they won't kill you."
A beat.
"They'll cage you."
Annie swallowed, jaw tight. "And if they decide you're not worth keeping—" A pause, controlled. "Let me handle it. But you need to give them something. Anything. Don't give them a reason to think you're useless."
"I'll keep it wrapped. No one has to see it." Anja pulled her hand back, curling the remaining fingers into her palm. "I heal fast, you know that. And… I won't give them a reason."
"Not like this." Annie's eyes met hers, and there was something in them Anja couldn't name. Fear, maybe. Or recognition. "Anja, this isn't—"
"It doesn't matter." Anja stood abruptly, chair scraping. "I'm fine. We should get a move on before—"
"What did they do to you?"
The question hung in the air between them.
Annie hadn't moved from her crouch. She looked up at Anja with an expression that made something crack in Anja's chest, like she was looking at something broken and trying to figure out if it could be fixed.
"What did they do?" Annie asked again, quieter.
Anja turned away. Focused on the cold hearth, the scattered ash, anything but Annie's eyes.
In the corner of the room, Heinrik stood watching. Closer than usual. Close enough that she could see the individual threads in his uniform, the stubble on his jaw he'd never quite managed to shave smooth.
Look at me, it whispered.
"They did what they had to," Anja said, voice flat. Hollow.
"Anja—"
"They had to make sure I wouldn't hurt anyone else." The words came faster now, tumbling out before she could stop them. "And they were right. Things went wrong anyway. So whatever they did wasn't enough, was it?"
Silence.
Annie stood slowly, following Anja's gaze. She looked to the corner, saw nothing.
She set another roll on the table. A jar of pickled vegetables. "Have some more. You need it."
Anja took the food. Bit into the bread without tasting it. Felt Heinrik's gaze like a hand on the back of her neck, patient and unrelenting.
She can't help you, he whispered. But I can. You don't belong with them.
She didn't look. Wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
The air in the room thickened, pressing against the back of her skull until her teeth ached.
/***/
The town's stable was empty. Gates open, hay scattered across the floor. No horses.
"We keep moving, then," Annie said.
They followed the road south for speed, keeping to the treeline. The clouds had thickened, turning the light gray and flat. Anja focused on the rhythm of walking—left, right, left, right—and tried not to think about how much farther they had to go.
"What's it like?" she asked after a while.
Annie glanced at her. "What?"
"Your home. Where you grew up."
For a long moment, Annie didn't answer. Just kept walking.
"Growing up, there wasn't much to see," she said finally. "Lots of walls."
"Like here?"
"No. Nothing like here." Annie's voice was distant, like she was remembering something she'd tried to forget. "Much shorter. But everywhere. Around the streets. Around the buildings. Around us." She hesitated, like she'd already said too much.
"You learn the sound of gates when they open." she added. "Chains. Metal on metal. The kind of noise that means you're allowed to breathe again."
"When you said there were no titans where you're from…" Anja kept her voice low. "I didn't imagine it would be like that. Why lock yourselves up if you could live free?"
"In a way..." Annie's jaw tightened. "They're just scared of different monsters."
Anja absorbed that, tried to picture it—a place of walls within walls, fear layered on fear.
"Did you get to leave often?"
"Only when they needed us for something." The flatness in Annie's voice didn't invite a response.
"Then we were useful. Then they opened the gates. But it wasn't all bad."
After a beat, she added, almost grudging: "They sold sweet bread on the street. Warm. Real sugar."
A short, raspy exhale escaped Anja's throat. A smile threatened the corner of her mouth, fracturing the tension.
Annie's shoulders loosened by a fraction.
They walked without speaking for a while. The road curved around a hill, and the valley opened below them—fields stretching toward the gray line of Wall Rose in the distance.
Annie stopped.
Anja nearly walked into her. "What—"
"Don't move."
Anja followed Annie's gaze.
Across the valley. Near the horizon.
Shapes against the sky. Tall. Moving.
Titans.
Anja's breath caught. Her mind stuttered, trying to process what she was seeing.
Inside Wall Rose?
"That's not possible," she whispered.
"I'm seeing it too."
Anja counted them. Five. Six. More cresting the far ridge. And they weren't wandering aimlessly. They moved in a line, following each other like soldiers marching toward a destination.
But they weren't chasing anyone. No fleeing figures ahead of them. Just movement, coordinated, purposeful.
"They're just... walking?" Anja said slowly.
Annie's jaw was clenched so tight Anja could see the muscle jumping.
Then Anja saw it.
Among the distant shapes was a different titan—low to the ground, moving on four legs. It kept pace with the others, and something rode its back, a frame carrying cargo she couldn't make out from this distance.
"Look at that one." She squinted. "It's… carrying something."
"That's—"
Annie stopped. Her grip tightened on Anja's arm. "Move."
"Annie? What's going on?"
"Before they see us." Annie pulled her toward the trees.
"They can't see me. You know that."
"But they can see me." Annie's voice had gone flat, urgent. "And whoever's directing them isn't blind the way they are. Move."
They ran.
Anja stumbled after her, dragging air into burning lungs. The treeline swallowed them and they kept going, through brush, over roots, around boulders, until the village was far behind and the titans were just shapes on the horizon.
Annie finally slowed near a creek bed. Checked behind them. Listened.
Nothing followed.
Anja leaned against a tree, chest heaving. Her hands shook. The bread she'd eaten sat like lead in her stomach.
"The wall's close," Annie said, still scanning the treeline. "We might make it there before dark."
Tired. So tired.
Don't you want to go home?
The voice wore Heinrik's shape, but it wasn't him. The disguise was thin, wrong at the edges, like a familiar face spoken with someone else's mouth.
Do you trust her? Really trust her? After what she has done to us. To you?
Anja opened her eye. Pushed off the tree.
Annie's brow pinched. Her hand hovered an inch from Anja's shoulder before dropping.
"I'm okay," Anja said.
Annie didn't look convinced. But she nodded and turned south again.
Anja followed Annie through the trees.
You will only get her killed just like you get everyone killed.
The voice was getting harder to ignore.
But Anja kept walking.
Because the alternative was worse.
And Annie was here. Real. Breathing. Matching her pace.
The voice kept at her anyway, needling at every step, looking for a place to sink its teeth.
At least she wasn't alone.
Yet, it whispered.
Anja didn't answer.
But she felt Heinrik walking beside her, just out of sight.
/***/
The wall's shadow stretched across the fields like a stain that swallowed what light was left.
Petra rode as it crept over the grass, consuming the road inch by inch as the sun slid down behind Wall Rose. No smoke. No dust. Just the wall, enormous and indifferent, and the same quiet that had been riding her nerves since morning.
They'd lost numbers as the day wore on. Some recruits had been sent back with messages—too green, too shaken, not worth dying in the dark. Barely a handful volunteered to keep going, refusing to turn around when the wall was this close and the breach still hadn't been found.
Now it was a thin column. Petra. Gelgar. Lynne. And the recruits who still had enough nerve to keep their reins steady.
Sasha was still with them, riding like the horse could outrun what she'd seen. Petra let her. Hope kept people upright longer than orders ever did.
Petra kept looking for the obvious: collapsed stone, rubble spilling outward. Anything that made sense of the panic and the patrols and the empty towns.
There was nothing.
No damage along the wall line. No signs of a titan pushing through. Just the same high face of stone and the narrow strip of ground beneath it, untouched.
Gelgar rode up alongside her. His jaw worked once, like he was grinding down a thought. "If there's a hole, it's not in this sector."
Petra didn't let the question hang. "There has to be. Or we find what everyone missed."
Her stump throbbed under the bandage. The strap on the saddle bit. She shifted her weight and forced her shoulders down, forced the same posture she'd worn under Levi's eyes. Stand straight. Don't show it. If you sag, they sag.
Night crept in fast once the sun dipped. The air cooled. The fields turned the color of ash.
"At least they don't move at night," Gelgar said. It was meant as comfort.
Petra didn't believe in comfort anymore.
They rode the base of the wall until the road curved and the terrain broke into low hills. The wall's shadow lifted off them for a moment, and the last light showed a cluster of figures ahead—horses, cloaks, someone raising a hand in signal.
"Nanaba," Gelgar said, relief sharp enough to sound like anger. He leaned forward and kicked his horse into a faster trot.
As they closed the distance, Petra recognized her stance before she saw the face—Nanaba, sitting her horse like she'd been born in a saddle, eyes scanning the treeline as if the dark might leap.
Nanaba's gaze flicked over Petra's group, counting. It paused at Sasha, at Braun and Hoover, at Petra's bandage. "Everyone okay?"
Hennig rode up from Nanaba's flank, shooting a hand up in greeting. "Good to see everyone's still kicking."
Behind him, a freckled girl with sharp eyes swung down from her horse with a grunt, rolling her shoulder like she'd slept wrong.
"Ymir?" one of the recruits—Braun—blurted, disbelief cutting through the fatigue.
"Miss me?" she shot back, and it almost sounded like normal.
Another voice, quieter. "Where's Christa?"
Nanaba's mouth tightened. "Not here. She's riding to Sina with our report."
Petra nodded once. "You find anything on your end?"
"We passed through a village that was destroyed by titans. We've been riding the wall for hours. No breach."
Nanaba kept her eyes forward. "We came up to the wall north of here. Met a Garrison patrol riding down from Klorva. They'd already inspected their stretch—nothing."
A brief pause.
"They turned back to double-check. We continued south along the wall."
Her expression didn't change. "Same result."
"Then where the hell are they coming from?" Lynne's voice cracked on the final word, her grip strangling the reins.
The freckled girl, Ymir, was watching her, eyes fixed on her bandaged stump. Petra ignored it.
Nanaba looked past them at the wall, then toward the hills. "No idea, but we won't find anything in the dark either. We passed an old tower not far from here. Some castle ruins." She nodded toward the slope.
Gelgar hesitated. "I guess we could hole up there for the night."
"It's for the best," Nanaba confirmed. "We wait out the night. Regroup. Move at first light—maybe reinforcements will arrive by then. The courier I sent to Ehrmich should be there by now."
Petra looked at the hills. The outline of something jagged stood against the dim sky now lit by a pale moon—made of stone, broken, but it would be enough to catch breath.
Petra spurred her horse toward the slope. "Then what are we waiting for?"
Nanaba's eyes held hers for a beat. Then she nodded once. Approval, or simply recognition of necessity.
They turned their horses toward the hill.
The wall loomed behind them.
/***/
Ruins rose from the hillside like broken teeth.
Anja spotted them first—stone walls silhouetted against the darkening sky, a tower that had somehow stayed standing while everything around it crumbled.
"We could rest there," she said, voice rough.
Annie glanced at the ruins. Her eyes traced the tower. "No. Too open. If anyone's operating in this area, that's the first place they'd post a lookout. Or already have."
"But we've been walking for—"
"The wall's close." Annie kept moving, angle set toward the darker line of trees. "The canopy will hide us. We rest in cover, tomorrow we'll climb before the sun comes up."
Anja looked at the tower again. It looked solid enough. Safe. A place to stop.
But Annie didn't slow.
She sighed—too tired to argue.
She's brought us this far…
She followed Annie into the forest.
/***/
The forest swallowed them whole. The canopy locked together overhead, choking out the moonlight entirely and trapping the damp cold against the earth. It was pitch black, forcing them to navigate by touch and memory until the trees broke, revealing a small, natural clearing illuminated by a single shaft of pale moonlight.
A faint click—stone on stone—somewhere behind them.
Anja turned her head.
Nothing. Just trunks. Just shadow.
Annie didn't react. Either she hadn't heard it, or she had and decided it didn't matter.
They pushed deeper until the ground dipped and fallen logs formed a low, natural barrier. Annie stopped there, finally, and dropped into a crouch like a switch had been flipped.
"Here," she said. "We rest for a few hours. Then we move."
Anja hit the dirt against one of the logs, lacking the strength to even ease herself down. She watched Annie gather dry moss for padding, arrange their meager supplies.
Anja's thumb found the ring at her chest without thinking. She turned it once. Crossed keys, cold against her skin.
Annie settled across from her, back against a tree, face half shadowed. "Get some sleep. I'll keep watch."
"You need to rest too."
"I will. After you."
Anja closed her eye. The forest floor vanished, instantly replaced by a frictionless, heavy dark.
Almost home, Heinrik whispered. Almost there.
She didn't know what home he meant anymore.
The vibration through the dirt woke her.
The forest was no longer quiet. A low, massive shifting of weight echoed from the dark perimeter. Wood groaned under pressure, and the damp earth compressed with synchronized thuds.
Across from her, Annie was already alert.
Anja barely breathed.
"Annie?"
Annie lifted two fingers then pressed them to her own lips.
Quiet.
Anja swallowed. Her throat felt too loud.
She followed Annie's stare. The clearing had shrunk.
At first, she saw nothing. Just tree trunks. Just darkness.
Then the massive shapes peeled away from the bark and stepped out of the shadows, breaking into the edge of the moonlight.
Titans.
They stood between the trees like statues. Five. Six. More, forming a tight ring around the clearing.
Watching. Waiting.
Anja's hand snapped to her hip. Her fingers dug into the empty sheath, grasping at air.
Maybe, if we are fast enough, we could—
Annie's hand snapped out and caught her wrist.
Don't.
Annie mouthed the word. But her grip said it for her—hard and urgent, like she was holding her down against the edge of a cliff.
The titans had stopped moving. No heads turning. No mouths opening. No sudden wet breath.
Just stillness.
This is wrong. What are they waiting for?
Anja's mind tried to assemble logic out of it, failed, tried again.
And then she understood.
They were surrounded. Inside a cage of living bars.
She brought you here, the voice whispered. She knew.
Anja's lips moved around air. What do we do?
But Annie didn't answer.
Her eyes weren't on the titans. They were fixed on something beyond them. Something moving through the trees with unhurried steps.
Not a titan.
A man emerged from the shadows like he belonged there—tall, lean, moonlight catching the circular glass of his spectacles. Blonde hair. A neat beard. Mid-twenties, maybe. Hands buried in the pockets of his coat.
The titans didn't even spare him a glance. He moved past them like he'd just walked past a room full of furniture.
He stopped at the edge of the clearing. A smile crossed his lips.
"Annie," he said, voice warm and familiar, like greeting an old friend. "It's been a while."
Annie's breath hitched. The blood drained from her face, leaving her features rigid, her eyes locked on the man like an animal caught in a snare.
Annie's hand was still on Anja's wrist, grip so tight it hurt.
Annie's lips moved. The sound came out broken, strangled—like something being forced through a closing throat.
"Zeke."
"Look at you," the man said, adjusting his glasses. "It's been exactly five years. You've had a rough time of it, haven't you?"
His gaze slid to Anja—curious, measuring her briefly—then back to Annie.
"Made a new friend? How uncharacteristic of you."
Anja tried to pull away, but Annie held fast.
"Don't," Annie breathed. It was barely sound. "Don't run."
The next word scraped out of her like it hurt.
"Please."
Anja stopped pulling. Annie rarely said please. Had never begged.
Zeke tilted his head. He looked them over with the mild curiosity of a man inspecting livestock.
He took a step closer.
Annie didn't reach for her gear. Her posture slumped, the tension draining entirely out of her shoulders.
"You look exhausted, Annie." Zeke said, almost conversational.
"Come on. We have a lot to discuss, and I'd rather do it somewhere more comfortable than a forest floor."
He extended his hand toward Annie.
His smile didn't change.
"It's time to come home."