The return journey to Elandra was a quiet one.
The team rode back in the JLTV, the vehicle creaking with every bump on the forest road, its armored hull now scorched and dented. The air inside was heavy—not from tension, but from exhaustion. The kind that burrowed deep into the bones and made every breath feel like a weight.
No one spoke for the first few hours.
Even Lyra, who usually hummed softly or plucked idle tunes on her stringbow, leaned back with her eyes closed. Her quiver was half-empty, fingers wrapped in stained bandages. Meryl sat at the rear, launcher across her lap, helmet off, her short hair matted with sweat and soot. Brenna kept cleaning her shotgun out of habit, though she had long since reassembled it perfectly. Feron leaned against the vehicle's interior, his staff beside him and eyes unfocused, as though still listening to something in the earth.
And Inigo drove.
