23. Ragon
RAGON
I don’t take Jax straight to the heart of it.
You don’t walk a man fresh out of a broken faith into the center of another one and expect him not to flinch.
Instead, I lead him sideways.
Through the badlands where the stone fractures into teeth and the wind knows how to whisper names. Through dry riverbeds that haven’t seen water in generations but still remember its weight. Through paths that don’t look like paths unless you’ve learned how to read absence instead of presence.
Jax doesn’t ask questions.
That alone tells me how much the temple took from him.
We crest a ridge just before dusk, and the encampment reveals itself not all at once, but in layers—smoke drifting from cookfires hidden under stone awnings, low structures dug into the rock like they were ashamed to be seen, sentries posted where the shadows are thickest.
No banners. No salutes.
Just eyes.
Lots of them.
A woman with one arm nods at me as we pass. A boy no older than sixteen adjusts the strap on a rifle that’s older than both of us combined. A man missing half his leg sits sharpening a blade with meticulous care, humming something tuneless under his breath.
Jax slows.
He tries not to stare.
He fails.
“This is it,” he says quietly.
“This is part of it,” I reply. “There’s no ‘it.’ Only people who decided not to lie down.”
A woman approaches us—broad-shouldered, hair braided tight against her scalp, scars crossing her neck like punctuation marks.
“Hooded One,” she says, then glances at Jax. “You bring guests now.”
“He’s not a guest,” I say. “He’s a complication.”
Jax snorts. “Nice to meet you too.”
She studies him, eyes sharp. “You bleed like the rest of us?”
“Last I checked.”
“Good,” she says. “We’re short on saints.”
We move deeper into the camp.
Food is scarce. You can smell it—thin broth, rationed grain, protein dried until it tastes like regret. People eat anyway. They joke anyway. There’s laughter here, sharp-edged and defiant, the kind that exists specifically to spite death.
Jax watches it all with a soldier’s eye.
“Missing limbs,” he mutters. “Burn scars. Malnutrition.”
“Welcome to the cost of saying no,” I say.
He stops near a fire where a woman with a shattered jaw is teaching three kids how to clean a weapon one-handed.
“They expect to die,” he says.
“Yes.”
“And you let them.”
I turn to face him. “I don’t let them do anything. I don’t command sacrifices. I give people a place to stand when the world tells them to kneel.”
“That’s not leadership,” he snaps. “That’s abdication.”
I smile faintly. “Careful. That almost sounds like doctrine.”
He glares at me, but doesn’t deny it.
We don’t linger.
The convoy rolls at dawn.
Water is everything on Zhankar. You don’t hoard it unless you want rebellion to breed faster than rats. Dzu knows that. Which is why his water convoys are fortified, tracked, and guarded by soldiers who look like they believe in what they’re protecting.
That belief is going to crack.
We set the traps before sunrise.
Jax works fast, decisive—terrain analysis, fields of fire, fallback routes. I handle the quieter work—charge placement, signal timing, escape vectors that don’t look like escapes.
We don’t argue.
That’s new.
“Convoy enters the canyon here,” Jax says, crouched over a holo-map scratched into the dirt. “Two lead vehicles. Four tanks. Rear guard rotates every twelve minutes.”
“Not today,” I say.
He looks at me. “You’re sure your people are in position.”
I tilt my head. “You think I’d bring you here without redundancy?”
He grunts. “Just checking.”
The convoy appears as the sun crests the horizon—dust plumes first, then the low rumble of engines. They move steady, confident. No rush.
That confidence is expensive.
I trigger the first collapse with a soft click in my ear.
Stone gives way. Not explosively— intentionally . A section of canyon wall slides down, blocking the lead vehicles without crushing them. No fire. No death.
Jax doesn’t wait.
He moves like a released spring, rifle barking, rounds precise and controlled. Tires shredded. Engine blocks disabled. Soldiers dive for cover, shouting.
“Drop your weapons!” he roars. “This isn’t about you!”
They hesitate.
That’s the moment.
My people move from the shadows, fast and silent, cutting supply lines, draining tanks, marking crates with sigils that will travel faster than we ever could.
One soldier throws his rifle down.
Then another.
No civilians are hurt. No water spilled.
The convoy is empty and breathing when we leave it.
Later, we hear the whispers.
“Did you hear? No casualties.”
“They took everything and left us alive.”
“They could’ve killed us.”
“But they didn’t.”
Belief cracks.
That night, Jax and I sit on a ridge overlooking the camp, the desert cooling around us.
“You don’t think you can win,” he says suddenly.
I don’t pretend not to understand. “No.”
“Then why do this.”
“Because submission is unacceptable,” I say softly. “Winning isn’t the only metric that matters.”
He shakes his head. “Fighting without belief guarantees failure.”
I glance toward the horizon—toward the citadel, invisible but present.
“She’s inside,” he adds. “She changes the equation.”
“Yes,” I admit. “She does.”
He looks at me. “Then start believing.”
For the first time, I don’t deflect.
We spread maps. We plan. We argue—constructively this time.
Direct strikes. Surgical disruptions. Pressure and patience braided together.
For the first time since childhood, we fight side by side.
Not back to back.
And somewhere deep in the desert, the idea of invasion stops sounding like madness.
It starts sounding like a plan.