The wind moaned like a wounded beast.
I sat up, shaking off the last fingers of the dream. Its shadow lingered with me—flames of images, veins throbbing like liquid metal beneath skin, the hollow face of the man who had groped for me in darkness.
Nevertheless, in the icy light of imitation dawn, my fingertips hummed. I rubbed them against each other. Static sparkled between them.
No. Not static.
Power.
Weak. Rudimentary. Wrong.
I clenched my fists and wrapped them under my arms, glancing around. Karis waited outside, verifying the boundary. Liv crouched beside her brother by the door. Tolen slept, clutching a slender, tattered doll sewn together from sheathed material and string.
It would have been sweet, maybe even comforting, if the world outside us wasn't broken.
The outpost groaned when a gust swept through. Dust filtered from the rafters. My heart slowly retreated to almost normal, but that strange warmth under my skin wouldn't fade.
It hadn't always been there.
It was new.
Or maybe it had lain there all along—latent.
I carefully stood and came out outside.
The forest was no less sinister in daylight. The trees stretched out like bony fingers, thin and dark, peeling bark like worn paint. What little light seeped through the branches came in broken, misty slants. The wind was sharper now, cold and razor-edged.
Karis stood by the stream, staring into the water as though it would speak to him.
"You slept?" he demanded, without so much as a look my way.
"Barely."
He nodded. "It's better that way. Too much sleep makes you soft out here."
I didn't say anything. The silence drew out again.
Then he spoke. "You were dreaming loud."
"I was?"
"Mumbled something. Couldn't hear it. Sounded like a name."
I shrugged. "I don't remember."
Lie.
I remembered too well.
The faceless man.
The voice that wasn't a voice but a hum beneath my ribs.
The word whispered behind my eyes: Aether.
It meant nothing.
And everything.
I never told Karis anything. He wouldn't understand. Hell, I didn't understand. But something within me stirred every time I so much as considered that word.
"We depart in an hour," he stated. "Eat if you're able. We have distance to travel."
I nodded and returned inside.
Liv was awake now, gently shaking Tolen, who grumbled in protest. She glanced up at me, her eyes red but clear.
"You okay?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Define okay."
She issued a gentle snort. "Fair."
She gave me a ration bar. It was dry, bitter, and tasted like chalk covered in dried mud, but I ate it anyway. Hunger didn't care about taste.
Tolen stretched and yawned, his little body looking even smaller in the ravaged light.
"Do we have to go now?" he asked.
"Soon," Liv said quietly. "But we'll find something better. Promise."
I looked at her then—really looked. She carried hope like an open wound. Something that silently bled but never closed.
We left before the sun rose over the treetops.
Karis took the lead. I followed close behind, with Liv and Tolen on our heels. The stream flowed through hills and turned roots, taking us deeper into nowhere.
Hours passed.
The ground changed. The woods grew sparse. The ground turned rocky, studded with shells of dead machines—torn pieces, half-devoured by moss and years. A rusty one-legged crawler lay sprawling like a downed giant. A drone lay crushed in a tree, metal belly inhabited by birds.
"Something happened here?" I asked.
Karis didn't glance. "Collapse followed. And rot."
Liv spoke low, "This was part of the Veil Network. Supply lines. Scout camps. Waypoints."
"Veil?" I raised my eyebrow. "Like. a military?"
"No," Karis said. "Worse. They kept things in order. Until they did not."
"And now?"
"Now they're ghosts."
I sensed that he didn't say that metaphorically.
When we topped a ridge, Karis raised a hand, holding us back. I stood there rigid next to him and gazed in the direction he gazed.
Down below us, in a valley, was a settlement—or what was left of one. Collapsed huts, half. Solar rigs that sagged like crushed flowers. Smoke drifted lazily from a single chimney in the center.
Karis knelt and pulled out a cracked lens from his jacket—an old optic scope cobbled together with wire and grit.
"One source of heat," he grunted. "No movement. Might be a scav post."
"Safe?" Liv asked.
"Safer than open trail. Possibly."
We descended cautiously, skirting around crumbling walls and rusting scaffolding. The wind shifted, carrying on its breath woodsmoke and. something else.
Something metallic.
Karis raised his fist.
I dropped down low reflexively.
Something moved in the shadows near a broken antenna tower.
Thin.
Bent.
Hunched over like a old man, but not right—too stiff. Like it didn't know how to be a body.
"Don't move," Karis whispered.
The figure turned.
It wasn't a man.
Its eyes were glass.
Its skin a patchwork of flesh and synth-cloth, sewn where metal touched muscle. Its jaw too loose. One of its arms sparking at the joint, twitching.
"Damn." Liv began, but the thing moved.
Quick.
Too quick.
Karis shot.
The report cracked like thunder, the thing's head jerking backward—shards of glass shattering.
It didn't fall.
It stumbled once, then rushed forward.
Karis shot again. Missed.
I didn't think. I acted.
The heat below my skin seethed, pouring upwards, out.
My hand went up.
And something thrust.
Not force.
Not air.
Something deeper. Like my body remembered how to dictate something old.
The creature exploded mid-lunge, evaporating to ash and broken metal.
Silence dropped.
Karis gazed at me.
So did Liv.
Tolen stepped back behind his sister, eyes wide.
"What. what was that?" Liv breathed.
I didn't know.
Karis approached slowly. "You moved your hand."
"I didn't mean to."
He did not blink. "You burned it. Without fire."
"I—" My voice cracked. "I didn't know I could."
"You shouldn't be able to," he said, stone-faced. "Not anymore."
"What was that thing?" I asked.
"A Sentinel," he said. "Old-world security unit. Long dormant. Or supposed to be."
"Then why was it awake?"
"Something's waking up," he said grimly. "And I think it's not just the machines."
He glared at me.
I glared at my hands.
They still glowed faintly.
Weak lines etched across my skin now—almost imperceptible webs of light humming just under the surface.
Not fire.
Not electricity.
Magic.
Actual magic.
And in that world—one in which magic was meant to be dead—that made me a walking tombstone.
Or a god.