“Bring him,” the captain said.

  The ring moved.

  Boots in mud.

  Rope wet in hands.

  Iron points finding angles.

  Isaac felt the shift the way thunder timing went wrong near seam-mist, a decision made, a pattern snapping shut.

  The girl’s fingers were still knotted in his clothes.

  Her grip tightened.

  A spear tip dipped toward her by accident, then corrected.

  Isaac’s wings answered before his brain did.

  Plates slid.

  Clicked.

  He widened the half-fold by a handspan, just enough to cover the girl without hiding her again.

  A wall, not a threat.

  He kept his hands open where they could see them.

  That felt important.

  He didn’t know why.

  He knew it anyway.

  His hands looked wrong in the rain.

  Not human hands.

  Black, ridged, scaled along the knuckles, ending in thick talons that curved like hooked stone.

  He spread them anyway, palms out, showing he wasn’t holding a blade.

  His thigh burned where the cut had opened earlier.

  Warm blood ran down inside his boot, heavy and slick.

  He planted anyway.

  The woman stayed close, pack clutched to her ribs.

  Blonde hair plastered to her cheeks in wet strands.

  Dark skin slick with rain.

  Her breathing was loud because fear did not care.

  The captain lifted two fingers.

  Hooks came forward.

  Nets came up.

  Isaac saw the hooked poles aimed at his wings, not his chest.

  They wanted plate edges.

  They wanted leverage.

  He shifted his stance, slow and deliberate, the way his body already knew, and the weight of the plates settled into his hips like a door bracing for a kick.

  The first hook snapped in, fast.

  It caught a plate edge on his right wing with a wet metallic scrape.

  Isaac turned into it.

  He didn’t yank back.

  He didn’t flare wide.

  He rolled his shoulder and wing joint the way a door closes, pinning the hook against his own crystal.

  The storm-sweeper holding it cursed and tried to pull.

  Isaac stepped forward.

  One hard step.

  The man stumbled into the mud.

  Isaac could have crushed him.

  He didn’t.

  He shoved the hook pole down, using it as a lever to force space open.

  Space for the girl.

  The net came next.

  Low.

  Weighted.

  It slid toward his legs like a snake.

  Isaac lifted his knee and stamped down on the leading edge before it could wrap.

  Mud splashed.

  Rope snapped taut.

  Two sweepers pulled at once.

  Isaac’s thigh screamed.

  The cut tore wider.

  Copper flooded his mouth, sharp and mean, and he held his breath so the taste couldn’t turn into panic.

  He kept his balance.

  He dragged the net toward himself, then kicked it sideways into a hook pole and the man holding it.

  The pole jolted.

  The hook slipped off his plate edge.

  Isaac took the moment.

  He surged forward again, wings half-folded like a moving barricade, crystal plates grinding together with each step in a low, ugly rasp.

  The ring gave ground.

  Not much.

  A pace.

  But it was a pace.

  The girl stumbled behind him, still attached to his clothes like she had been sewn there.

  He felt her shaking through wet fabric.

  I won’t fail her this time.

  The thought was there again, hard and simple.

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  A spear tip jabbed toward his ribs, testing.

  Isaac turned his wing into it.

  The spear scraped along black crystal and skittered away.

  A plate chipped.

  A sliver snapped off and vanished into the mud.

  Pain flared along exposed wing-root skin where plates had already shed.

  Rain hit it and made it sting like salt.

  He paid the price.

  He kept moving.

  “Hold the line,” someone barked.

  “Hooks on the edges!”

  “Not the chest!”

  Isaac pushed again, harder this time, and the ring tightened around him.

  He felt the herding angles.

  The waiting.

  The trap in their patience.

  He wouldn’t overcommit.

  He couldn’t.

  Not with the girl behind him.

  A storm-sweeper lunged low, aiming to wrap a rope around Isaac’s left knee.

  Isaac reacted without thought.

  He dropped his wing fold a fraction, like a shield lowering.

  The rope snapped against crystal, slid off, and the man went down face-first in mud.

  Isaac took a step to crush the rope and break it.

  Something clipped his shin from the side.

  A hook.

  Not hard.

  Not to injure.

  To turn him.

  Isaac’s body twisted with it, forced into the angle they wanted, and his stomach dropped as the world’s “pull” tried to help them, a preference in the mud that leaned him inward.

  He felt another net coming in from the other side.

  He couldn’t block both with wings.

  He tried anyway.

  Plates clicked.

  Scraped.

  Crystal flexed against wet rope.

  The net caught on a chipped plate edge and held for half a heartbeat.

  Isaac drove his shoulder into it.

  The plate edge cracked more.

  The net tore.

  He paid again.

  He heard a small sound behind him.

  Not a sob.

  Not words.

  The sound a child makes when she is trying not to be seen.

  His chest tightened.

  He widened the half-fold a fraction.

  The captain’s voice cut through the rain.

  “Careful.”

  Measured.

  Isaac’s eyes flicked to him without wanting to.

  The captain stood back from the clash, hood dripping, hands clean.

  He watched the bracer wrist like it was the only real thing in the world.

  A sweeper reached for it anyway.

  Fast hands.

  Not a strike.

  A grab.

  He caught the girl’s forearm to yank her out from behind Isaac’s wing.

  The girl made a thin sound and jerked back.

  Isaac pivoted, wing plates flaring a fraction.

  Too late.

  The man’s grip landed on the bracer.

  The bracer drank it.

  There was no clang.

  No clean impact.

  Just a pressure pop in the air, like ear pressure suddenly changing, and Isaac’s teeth buzzed as if the shock had chosen bone as its language.

  The metal on the girl’s wrist pulsed once, heat visible even in rain as steam hissed off it.

  The storm-sweeper yelped and let go like he’d grabbed a stove.

  He staggered back.

  Not burned.

  Shaken, like his arm had forgotten what “strong” meant for a second.

  The girl stared at her own wrist like it had moved on its own.

  Her breath came faster.

  The bracer trembled again, faint vibration Isaac could feel more than hear.

  Hungry.

  The captain snapped, sharp now.

  “Don’t strike that arm.”

  The man spat a curse and backed away, shaking his hand.

  A net came from Isaac’s right, thrown higher this time, aiming for wing joints.

  Isaac ducked and rolled his shoulders, forcing the net to slide across crystal plates instead of catching skin.

  The net snagged on a chipped edge.

  Isaac grabbed it with his bare hand.

  Rope bit into his palm.

  He clenched, and the wet fibres groaned like they were the weak part.

  His talons sank in before he meant them to.

  Isaac blinked at it, confused.

  Then he yanked anyway.

  He yanked it down and stepped on it.

  Mud swallowed rope.

  Two storm-sweepers pulled.

  Isaac didn’t let go.

  He pulled back.

  Hard.

  The men stumbled forward.

  Isaac used the stumble to force them into each other, then drove his wing fold forward like a battering ram.

  Not to kill.

  To make space.

  The ring broke.

  For a second.

  Just enough for Isaac to see the path between two bodies.

  Just enough for his instincts to scream, push through.

  The urge existed, somewhere under his skin.

  But it was quieter than the other reflex.

  Protect the small thing.

  Keep it behind you.

  He stepped into the gap.

  The girl moved with him, still attached to his clothes.

  The woman tried to keep up.

  That was the moment.

  Isaac didn’t see it coming because he wasn’t watching for it.

  A hand shot out from the left, not at Isaac, at the woman.

  Fingers hooked into the collar of her wet tunic.

  Yanked.

  The woman stumbled back.

  Her pack shifted.

  Her grip faltered for the first time.

  A blade flashed.

  Not dull iron like the spears.

  Not black metal like hooks.

  A shining line, bright even in storm light, pressed under her jaw.

  The woman froze.

  Instantly.

  Rain ran down her neck and over the blade.

  The captain’s voice was right beside her ear.

  “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Isaac stopped so fast his thigh nearly gave out.

  His wings locked mid-fold.

  Plates clicked once, loud in the sudden stillness.

  The ring reset in a heartbeat.

  Spears angled toward Isaac again.

  Hooks re-aimed at wing edges.

  A net held ready, not thrown.

  Shown.

  A warning.

  The girl’s fingers tightened until they hurt.

  Isaac looked at the blade at the woman’s throat.

  He looked at the captain’s hand, steady on her collar.

  He looked at the woman’s face, jaw clenched, eyes wide, rage and fear fighting inside her.

  If he lunged, she died.

  If he rose, even for a second, lightning would outline wings, bracer, child.

  Spotlight meant more of them.

  If he did nothing, they marched.

  And the girl.

  The word due rose in his mind like bile.

  He didn’t have enough thoughts to build a plan.

  He had enough instincts to know he couldn’t protect both with one move.

  The woman swallowed hard.

  Her throat pressed against the shining blade.

  Then she forced her eyes to Isaac’s.

  “Look at me,” she said.

  Not a plea.

  An order.

  Isaac’s focus snapped to her face like a hook.

  Her mouth trembled.

  Her eyes didn’t.

  Rain ran off blonde strands and down her cheeks like tears that didn’t get to count.

  “Save her,” she said.

  Her voice broke on the first word and then steadied, sharp as flint.

  “Whatever it costs.”

  The girl made a sound behind Isaac, small and choking.

  Isaac felt the shake in her hands.

  A spear tip angled closer.

  Not to him.

  To her.

  The bracer hummed faintly, heat pulsing against rain.

  It wanted to drink.

  The captain pressed the blade a fraction harder until the woman’s skin dimpled.

  “Drop the wings,” he said.

  Certain.

  Isaac’s breath came in.

  Copper.

  His breath went out.

  Mud.

  He lowered the wing fold by inches.

  Plates slid with a wet click.

  The storm-sweepers didn’t move.

  They watched for tricks.

  Isaac opened his hands.

  Palm up.

  Empty.

  Black scales slick over his knuckles.

  Thick talons curved and unavoidable.

  A reminder, even when he was showing surrender, that he was not built like them.

  The woman made a sound that was not words.

  Then it became words.

  “No,” she screamed.

  Not for herself.

  For the girl.

  Isaac flinched anyway.

  The girl jerked, bracer arm tight against her belly, eyes wide, breath too fast.

  Isaac turned his head just enough to see her face.

  Black hair plastered to her forehead.

  Mud on her cheeks.

  Eyes huge with a fear too old for her.

  He didn’t know her name.

  He knew this.

  He couldn’t let her be thrown.

  He couldn’t let her be due.

  Isaac’s wings settled into a lower half-fold.

  The ring tightened again.

  Hooks at the ready.

  Nets shown.

  Spears herding.

  Two men grabbed the woman’s arms.

  She fought them with her whole body, but the wet ground and the numbers made it useless.

  Another storm-sweeper reached for the pack.

  They tore it from her.

  The pack hit mud with a heavy thud.

  The captain finally lifted the shining blade away from the woman’s throat, not because he trusted her, but because the trap had worked.

  He turned his head toward Isaac.

  Rain ran off his hood brim in straight lines.

  “You walk,” he said.

  Property voice.

  The storm-sweepers started moving them.

  A marching shape built around the bracer.

  Built around Isaac’s wings.

  Built around the child like she was a bundle of meat and metal.

  The woman’s breathing went ragged.

  She tried to lunge once, toward her daughter.

  A spear butt slammed into her ribs.

  She folded with a broken sound and kept trying to stand.

  Isaac’s chest tightened again, sharp.

  He didn’t move.

  He couldn’t.

  Not with nets ready and hooks aimed and a dozen angles waiting to tear his wings open.

  But he could do one thing.

  He stepped closer to the woman as they herded him forward, close enough that his voice could slip under the rain.

  He leaned his head down, just a fraction.

  His words came out rough, like they had to scrape past something in him.

  “I won’t fail her again,” he whispered.

  He didn’t understand the sentence as memory.

  He understood it as a vow his body already knew.

  “I will save her.”

  The woman stopped struggling for half a heartbeat.

  She turned her head and stared at him like he’d spoken in a language that didn’t exist.

  Then her gaze flicked up.

  To his wings.

  To the black crystal plates.

  To the way the storm-sweepers held their distance, afraid of what he could do.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  Tears kept running down her cheeks, mixed with rain.

  Her mouth twitched once.

  Sharp.

  Wrong for someone who was crying.

  Something like finding a knife in the dark.

  She looked past Isaac, at the guards watching her, at the captain walking like he owned the ground.

  Her smile didn’t grow.

  It didn’t need to.

  Then she blinked, and the tears looked real again, and she let the storm-sweepers drag her forward.

  Isaac kept walking.

  The girl kept clinging.

  The bracer hummed under the rain.

  And the captain didn’t look back once, because he didn’t think he had to.