Alyssa sat at the corner of a table, the empty plate in front of her forgotten. Her eyes were unfocused, staring at the dull glow of the overhead lights. Her twin grapples lay beside her, the metal catching the faint light, but she had not touched them. She had no appetite, though that was nothing new. For years, food had been little more than a necessity.

  Sophie sat nearby, trying to catch Alyssa’s gaze, but Alyssa seemed lost, sunk deep into thought. Sophie parted her lips, meaning to speak, but closed them again. It was pointless when Alyssa had already withdrawn into silence. The quiet spells had grown longer, her words fewer. At first, it had been subtle: a shrug, a glance, a muttered response. Now days passed where she barely said a thing outside of orders or battlefield reports.

  The others had noticed, but no one spoke of it. Everyone coped in their own way. Alyssa’s way was distance.

  “She’s not the same,” Sophie whispered as Ketta entered the mess and caught sight of Alyssa.

  Ketta gave the smallest nod. “No. But she doesn’t need to be. The war does that to people.”

  Sophie’s mouth pulled tight. “I just don’t know how to reach her anymore.”

  Ketta’s eyes lingered on Alyssa, then shifted away. “She will speak when she is ready. Or she will not. It is her choice.”

  The words did not comfort Sophie. They were all waiting—waiting for the next fight, the next body, the next ending.

  Alyssa’s thoughts drifted back, as they often did, to the days before. Before the breaches. Before the Rhupenshron. Before fire fell and tore her life apart.

  She saw again the first breach, the panic and screams, the walls breaking as her city crumbled. She saw her mother collapse, shock carved into her face, the breath leaving her in a single still moment. Too fast. Too final.

  Alyssa shut her eyes against the memory, but it pressed close, inescapable. She remembered the sound of her mother’s last breath, the wet cough, the blood on the stone floor. The smell of smoke. The weight of loss.

  Her hand tightened around the rim of her plate until her knuckles whitened. That night, she had not spoken. Not then, not for days. Just like now. The silence had never truly left her.

  “How long,” she whispered under her breath, barely audible, “how long will this go on…”

  Sophie heard, but said nothing. She had learned not to press.

  Alyssa’s fingers traced the edge of her grapple launcher. She wanted to speak, to admit the weight pressing on her, but the words stuck in her throat. She had buried them long ago, beneath armor she had forged inside herself.

  The war had taken everything. Perhaps survival itself meant becoming colder than grief, sharper than memory. Perhaps survival meant killing without regret.

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  And yet, in the stillness of the mess hall, with Sophie beside her, Alyssa felt something stir beneath the numbness. It frightened her more than the war did.

  Tomorrow, she told herself. She would fight tomorrow, as always. That was the only certainty left.

  “Tomorrow,” she said aloud, her voice faint. “We fight again tomorrow.”

  Sophie nodded softly. “Yeah. We will.”

  Morning came.

  Alyssa moved like a shadow in motion, grapples firing and retracting in perfect rhythm, carrying her forward across the scarred land. The others kept pace, each in their element: Harlen with his methodical strength, Ketta darting silent from cover to cover, Bran eager with his blade, Sira vanished into shadows, Sophie scattering smoke to confuse the enemy.

  The first Rhupenshron appeared: a massive worm-like serpent tearing through soil, its segmented body shaking the ground. Then came the bear-brute, claws raking, eyes blazing blue. Alyssa launched herself into the fray, grapples hissing, blades flashing. She spun mid-air and cut deep into the worm’s flank before pulling free and firing again.

  The squad joined her. Bran split a brute down its chest, Ketta darted under its guard for a fatal strike, Sophie’s bombs threw creatures into chaos. Alyssa faced the bear-type, soaring with her grapples to avoid its crushing strikes. She cut it down piece by piece, ending with steel buried deep in its eye and throat.

  But the earth trembled again. Another Alpha rose from the horizon, larger and more dreadful than the last. Its jagged antlers gleamed like frozen lightning, its body armored with pulsing plates of dark hide, its eyes glowing with hunger.

  Harlen’s voice rang out steady: “Bluehawks, form up.”

  They scattered into practiced positions, but Alyssa was already moving. Her grapples sang, hurling her toward the beast. Her blades struck, cutting at its flank, then she vaulted high, aiming for its head. She buried her weapon in its glaring eye, and the creature howled with a sound that shook the sky.

  She screamed with it, twisting the blade deeper, cutting until the Alpha collapsed beneath her.

  Silence followed, heavy and unreal. Another Alpha slain.

  But Alyssa did not stop. She pulled her blades free and launched herself at the next wave of Rhupenshron, cutting through them with ruthless speed. The others watched in awe and unease. She moved too fast, too furious, her blades a blur, her face streaked with blood and tears. Something inside her had cracked.

  Bran muttered, “She’s pushing too hard.”

  Ketta’s eyes narrowed. “She is breaking, and none of us can stop her.”

  By the time the last creature fell, Alyssa stood trembling in silence, her hands slick with blood, her eyes distant.

  That night, the Bluehawks camped on a ridgeline. No fire burned. The field below was littered with corpses, the stench of death heavy in the air.

  Alyssa sat apart, her blades beside her, her grapples still fixed to her wrists. She stared into the valley as if it still held enemies.

  Bran approached carefully. “You’re not made of iron, Alyssa.”

  She did not turn. “I don’t need to be. I just need to keep going.”

  “You fought like something was chasing you,” he said.

  “Maybe something is.”

  He crouched beside her. “What you did with the Alpha—it wasn’t just speed. It was something beyond.”

  “That’s the only way to survive.”

  Bran’s jaw tightened. “We are not just surviving. We are living. You cannot carry the whole war alone.”

  For a moment, she said nothing. Then quietly, “I still hear her scream sometimes.”

  Bran knew who she meant.

  “I didn’t have blades then. I had nothing. Just fear. And I ran.” She looked at him, eyes raw. “I don’t run anymore.”

  “No,” Bran said softly. “Now you fly.”

  A quiet fell over them. For a moment, peace seemed possible.

  Then a horn sounded across the plains, sharp and urgent.

  Alyssa was already on her feet, blades in hand.

  Bran rose beside her.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They vanished into the dark together, toward the next fight.