Dorian and Kesi sat on a stretch of curb that hadn’t melted.

  The camp flowed around them.

  Someone handed them two cans and a dented opener. They ate without tasting much.

  Kesi watched the north. “Frontage road looks passable if we cut through and take the service lanes.

  “Potholes will eat the smaller trucks,” Dorian said. “We’ll have to walk them through.”

  Kesi nodded. “Runners can chalk it. We clear anything that moves.”

  Silence followed.

  Ash shifted in the wind, tracing thin rivers through the cracks.

  “We should look for it,” Dorian said.

  Kesi didn’t ask what. “The Gauntleted Fiend.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s smarter now,” Kesi said. “If it’s close, it’s watching. If it’s watching, it’s already picked where it wants to strike.”

  “I know,” Dorian said. “I still want it.”

  “For the convoy,” Kesi asked, “or revenge?”

  A breath escaped Dorian. Not quite a laugh. “Both.”

  Kesi nodded. ‘Convoy rolls soon. Ammo’s low. There’s going to be civilians roaming about. If we go hunting, we might drag it back.”

  Dorian looked at his hands. Faint blue light still lived under the skin. “It spared me twice.”

  “Or it wanted you heavier,” Kesi said. “And today, we fed.”

  “Then we hit it first.”

  Kesi’s eyes flared yellow for a heartbeat. “You’re not wrong. You’re also exhausted.”

  “Fifteen minutes,” Dorian muttered.

  “Felt longer.”

  Kesi handed him the second can. “Fast sweep. One grid north. Two streets east. Mark and report. If it gives us a clean window…”

  “No hero run,” Dorian said.

  “No chasing it into the smoke,” Kesi agreed.

  They stood and checked their gear. Edges. Straps. Grips. The ritual steadied them.

  “Your eyes,” Dorian said.

  “What about them?”

  “Still yellow.”

  Kesi blinked like it would dispel the latent Will. It flashed brighter. “You’re blue.”

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “Not my favorite color,” Dorian said.

  They crossed to the command truck. Keller looked up before they spoke.

  “Say it.”

  “Quick sweep,” Kesi said. “One grid north. Two streets east. Mark and report. If we get a window, we take it. If not, we don’t drag it home.” Kesi insinuated what he was talking about by exaggerating his hands.

  Keller studied them, then nodded. “Twenty minutes. Carry a flare. If it goes bad, you pop it and run. I’ll clear you a lane. If you’re late, we roll. Clear?”

  “Crystal,” Kesi said

  Keller pointed north. “Quiet patch along Marrough drive and Eighth street. And if you see something you can’t finish fast, you don’t start it.”

  “We’ll be back,” Dorian said.

  As they turned away, Keller added quietly, almost too low to hear:

  “Don’t make me choose.”

  “You won’t have to,” Kesi replied.

  They slipped through the runners’ gap and into the gray beyond, weapons low, breath steady, every sense stretched thin for a furnace that did not breath and clawed gauntlets that clanged once before the world went wrong.

  They cleared doorways and windows by habit, checking under burned-out trucks and along sightlines that collapsed into gray nothingness. Kesi paused at each corner, blinked once, then moved on. When he focused like that, the thin yellow edge stayed in his eyes a fraction longer than It should have.

  Dorian tested the air the way he’d learned to. Feeling. Searching for that subtle wrongness that had nothing to do with smoke or wind.

  Nothing answered.

  They crossed a basketball court fused into a single sheet of warped glass. The hoop lay face-down, half-melted into the surface like a dropped coin. Dorian scraped his boot across it and listened.

  Nothing.

  They pushed another half block into the haze. Ash hissed along the gutters. Loose paper skittered, caught, and burned itself out against a curb.

  Dorian stopped in the middle of the street.

  His shoulders stayed tight. His hands flexed on the hilts of his blades, knuckles whitening like he was trying to pull something out of them by force.

  Kesi watched him for a moment. Then, quietly, “Talk to me.”

  “It spared me twice,” Dorian said. “That wasn’t mercy. It’s planning something. Every minute we let it breathe, more people die. If we walk away now, that’s on us.”

  “We’re on a clock,” Kesi replied. “Keller rolls thousands. Ammo’s thin. There’s civilians, children. Elderly. People who can’t run. They leave without us if we’re late.”

  Dorian took a step forward anyway, jaw set. “One more block. If it’s close-“

  “That’s how it gets you,” Kesi said, sharper now. “One more block turns into one more corner, then we’re late and dragging it back on top of the convoy.”

  The wind pulled ash into slow ribbons around their boots.

  Dorian stared down the gray throat of the street, eyes fixed like he could will it open. “I can’t just let it go.”

  “Then don’t,” Kesi said. “Just not today. We pick the ground. Good cover. Weapons ready. Overlap everywhere. We can make it come to us and die where it can’t take a crowd of innocents with it.”

  Dorian didn’t answer.

  “Breathe man,” Kesi said, low but steady. “Right now you’re two bad thoughts away from doing something we don’t come back from.”

  Dorian drew air through his teeth. The faint blue under his skin dimmed from a fire to an ember.

  Kesi kept it practical. Kept him moving. “What’s a win today? You maybe kill it and the convoy pays because we’re late or too injured to help. Or we get to the outpost, turn a hundred people into us, maybe a thousand, teach them about Remnants, and then we hunt it on our terms.”

  Dorian closed his eyes once. When he opened them, the anger was still there, but contained.

  “You really think it’ll come,” he asked.

  “It spared you,” Kesi said. “Twice.” Kesi echoed Dorian’s fixation. “It wants more. We make sure ‘more’ means a trap.”

  They stood there a moment longer.

  Then Dorian looked south one last time, like he was memorizing the shape of the street.

  “It left,” Kesi said.

  “It left…” Dorian answered.

  They moved again, slipping between collapsed frames and leaning walls. Kesi stayed just behind, eyes cutting corners. Dorian took point, scanning ahead. His posture was still tense, but now it was controlled.

  “On the road,” Kesi said as they walked, “I run point and tail. You hold center and save your lungs. If it shows, we mark it and pull it into guns. No solo charge. If I say break, you break.”

  “If I see a clean window,” Dorian started.

  “Then take it,” Kesi said. “If it’s not clean, we make it clean first.”

  The camp’s floodlights bled through the smoke ahead, pale and steady like a promise that might hold.

  “Twenty minutes,” Kesi said.

  “We’re on time,” Dorian replied.

  “Good,” Kesi said. “Let’s go tell Keller we aren’t dead yet.”