The healing district woke to screams.
Not gunfire.
Not explosions.
Screams.
Juvy ran barefoot through sand and glass.
A tent was on fire.
Then another.
Men in Dustfall colors were dragging refugees out by their hair.
"STOP!" Juvy shouted.
Crystal burst from the ground and wrapped around two attackers.
A third threw a bottle.
Fire splashed across a bed of bandages.
A child inside didn't get out.
Juvy froze.
"No… no, no—"
She ran in.
Heat bit her skin.
She pulled the child free, coughing, burning.
Too late.
He didn't breathe.
Her hands shook.
"Why?" she whispered.
A man laughed.
"Orders."
She turned. "From who?!"
He pointed toward the towers.
"The Dust King pays for silence."
Her heart cracked.
Across the city, Maxruell heard the screams through the wind.
He saw smoke.
He felt it.
Your law is being tested,
the voice whispered.
Answer.
Men ran up the stairs to him.
"They're killing Bright Sister's people."
"Who?"
"Bandits. Wearing our marks."
Maxruell's jaw tightened.
"That wasn't my order."
"Doesn't matter," the man said. "City thinks it is."
Maxruell walked.
Shadows followed.
Juvy tried to hold the line.
Crystal shields went up.
She dragged wounded people behind them.
Bandits rushed her with machetes.
She disarmed them.
Trapped them.
Spared them.
One spat blood at her.
"You're soft," he said. "Your brother ain't."
A gunshot cracked.
The man's head snapped back.
He fell.
Dead.
Maxruell stepped out of the smoke.
His coat was black with shadow.
The bandits froze.
"Leave," he said.
Some ran.
Some begged.
One raised a gun at Juvy.
The shadow took him apart.
Juvy screamed, "STOP KILLING!"
"They started it!"
"They're burning people alive!"
"So I end them."
She pointed at the tents.
"At the kids!"
"They used your mercy as cover."
Silence pressed between them.
Bodies lay around their feet.
Refugees hid behind crystal walls.
Watching.
Judging.
A woman in gray stood on a roof.
Cain's agent.
She whispered into a bandit's ear.
"Shoot the girl."
The bandit aimed.
The shot hit Juvy's shoulder.
She fell.
Maxruell saw red.
Not blood.
Red inside his chest.
Shadows tore the shooter into the air and crushed him into the wall.
The gray woman vanished into smoke.
Maxruell ran to Juvy.
"You're bleeding."
She pushed him away.
"Your city did this."
"Our city."
"No," she said. "Yours."
She looked at the burning tents.
"They came because you paid them."
"I paid for information."
"You paid for violence."
Sirens howled in the distance.
Government drones.
Drawn by the fire.
Refugees ran.
Bandits ran.
Maxruell stood in the middle of it.
"Come with me," he said.
"I can end this."
She shook her head.
"You are this."
By nightfall, the healing district was ash.
Twenty-seven dead.
Mostly civilians.
The city whispered a new story:
Bright Sister couldn't protect them.
Dust King could.
Juvy buried the child with her bare hands.
Maxruell watched from a distance.
The voice purred.
Fear chose you.
He turned away.
In the ruins, the gray woman knelt beside Juvy.
"See?" she said softly.
"Your way makes graves."
Juvy looked up, eyes hollow.
"Who are you?"
The woman smiled.
"Someone who survived Cain."
And somewhere far beyond Dustfall, Mother Cain drew a line across the map.
"One more push," she whispered.
"Then the twins break."