Kallum
The barn was still standing.
Barely. The eastern wall had caught, flames eating up the old wood, but the western side held. I found the cart where Anhara had said it would be. Two wheels. Rusted axle. Built for hauling feed, not evacuating wounded animals.
It would have to do.
I dragged it out through the smoke. My side was bleeding again. Not the steady trickle from before. Something worse. Something that made my vision blur at the edges. The case pressed against my ribs where I’d tucked it, the Sovereign’s seal digging into my skin with every step.
Later. Deal with it later.
Three hostiles between me and the farmhouse.
They didn’t see me coming.
The first one died before he knew I was there. Blade across the throat.
The second turned. His rifle swung toward me, but my blade found his ribs before the barrel came level.
The third got one shot off. It went wide, burning through air where I’d been standing a half-second before.
I finished him with my hands.
No time for precision. No time for elegance. Just speed and violence and the need to get back to her.
The cart bounced over the bodies as I hauled it toward the gap in the farmhouse wall.
Anhara was crouched beside Turnip when I came through. She looked up. Her face was streaked with soot, and her eyes were red from the smoke, but her hands were steady on the boar’s harness.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
“I know.”
“More than before.”
“I know that too.” I positioned the cart beside Turnip. Dropped to one knee. My leg didn’t want to hold me. I made it hold anyway. “Help me lift him.”
We worked together. She took the front harness, I took the hindquarters. Turnip squealed when we moved him, a sound that made Anhara’s face twist, but he didn’t fight us. He knew we were trying to help.
Two hundred kilos of Frangian boar settled onto the cart. The axle groaned. Held.
“Now what?” Anhara asked.
“My ship. Half kilometer north. Through the orchard.”
“The orchard is on fire.”
“Parts of it. Not all.” I gripped the cart’s handle. “Stay behind me. Move when I move. Stop when I stop.”
“Kallum.” Her hand on my arm. “You can barely stand.”
“I’m aware.”
“Let me pull the cart. You cover us.”
She was right. I knew she was right. But every instinct I had screamed against putting her in front, making her the target, letting her do the work while I stumbled behind.
“Please.” Her voice was quiet. “Let me do this.”
I handed her the cart handle.
The orchard was a maze of smoke and fire.
Some trees still stood, green and alive, untouched by the flames that consumed their neighbors. Others were torches, columns of fire reaching toward the dawn sky. The smoke obscured everything more than ten meters ahead.
Anhara pulled the cart through the chaos. Strong. Steady. The same way she did everything.
I followed with my rifle up. Searching the smoke. Listening for movement.
Two more hostiles. One from the left. One from directly ahead.
I shot the first one center mass. The second got close enough to see his face. Young. Scared. Not expecting to find a ghost in the burning orchard.
He died scared.
“Keep moving,” I told Anhara. “Don’t slow down.”
She didn’t answer. Just pulled harder.
The smoke was getting thicker. I couldn’t see her anymore, just the shape of her through the gray haze, the sound of the cart wheels grinding over roots and debris.
Turnip made a sound. Low. Warning.
I spun.
Three of them. Coming through the smoke from the east. They hadn’t seen us yet, but they would. Another three seconds. Maybe four.
I stepped into their path and started shooting.
The blood loss was catching up.
The world came in flashes. A muzzle flash. A body falling. Pain in my thigh that meant I’d been hit. Movement to my left that I met with a knife I didn’t remember drawing.
When it was over, bodies lay in the ash and I was on one knee, breathing in smoke and tasting copper.
“Kallum.”
Anhara. Close. Her hands on my face, turning me toward her.
“We need to keep moving,” she said.
“How many left?”
“I don’t know. Less than there were.” Her fingers found the new wound in my thigh. I watched her face tighten. “This is bad.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Stop saying that.”
I let her pull me up. Let her guide me forward.
The field was close now. Empty ground through the thinning smoke, right where I’d set down less than a week ago. A lifetime ago.
I fumbled at my wrist. Pressed the release. The Turetsala shimmered into view, dark hull cutting through the haze. Right where I’d left her.
We were going to make it.
The clearing around the ship was empty.
No hostiles. No movement. Just the ship and the cart and the burning world behind us.
Anhara stopped beside the cargo ramp. Her chest was heaving. The cart’s handle had worn blisters into her palms. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Can you fly this thing?”
“Yes.” I limped past her. Slammed my palm against the hull sensor. The ramp lowered. “Get Turnip inside. Secure him in the cargo bay. There’s strapping in the left compartment.”
She moved quickly. With determination. No questions. No hesitation.
I turned to look back at the farm.
And that’s when I understood what they’d been doing all along.
The farmhouse was a column of fire.
Not the outbuildings anymore. Not just the orchard. The farmhouse itself. The place she’d lived for years. The place Torek had built with his own hands. The place where she’d raised Turnip from infancy and buried her only family and waited alone for three years.
Burning.
I watched the roof collapse inward. Watched sparks spiral up into the dawn sky. Watched everything she’d built disappear into smoke and flame.
Around the perimeter, figures with torches moved. Methodical. Professional. Setting fires to anything that wasn’t already burning.
They weren’t trying to kill her anymore.
They were erasing her.
“Kallum.”
Anhara’s voice. Behind me. Quiet.
I turned.
She stood at the top of the cargo ramp, looking past me at the flames. Her face was blank. Empty. The kind of empty that came before breaking.
“We need to go,” I said.
She didn’t move.
“Anhara.”
“Torek’s grave is in the north field.” Her voice was flat. “I planted flowers. They bloom every spring.”
“I know.”
“I was going to be buried next to him. That was the plan. Stay here until I died, and then be buried next to him, and maybe someone would remember us both.”
I climbed the ramp. Slowly. Every step sending fire through my leg, my side, my entire body. But I made it to her.
“There’s nothing left,” she said. “Everything I built. Everything I was. It’s burning.”
“Not everything.”
Her eyes found mine. Wet. Red-rimmed. But still fierce.
“You have Turnip,” I said. “You have years of Torek’s training. You have everything he gave you.” I pulled the case from my jacket. Held it between us. “And we have this. His legacy. Safe.”
She looked at it. At the Sovereign’s seal, smeared with my blood.
“And you have me,” I said. I reached for her face. Cupped her cheek in my bloody palm.
“You’re bleeding out.”
“Yes. We should probably leave before I finish doing that.”
Her laugh was harsh. Broken. But it was a laugh.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Let’s go.”
She turned toward the cockpit.
I took one more look at the burning farm. The grave I couldn’t see. The life she’d built that was disappearing into ash.
Then I sealed the ramp and followed her inside.
We left the fire behind.