The hour of rest wasn’t rest at all.
We sat in silence on the ridge, our breaths fogging in the cold dawn air. Kael leaned back against a rusted beam, his wound bound tighter but still leaking through the cloth. Nora stood apart from us, eyes trained on the ruins below like a wolf watching prey. Adrian crouched with his knife, sharpening the edge though it didn’t need sharpening, his jaw locked tight.
And me? I tried to close my eyes, but Jace’s voice kept replaying, over and over. One lamb to the slaughter. One life, for the rest.
By the time Adrian rose to his feet, the sun was dragging itself higher, a dull smear of red across the horizon.
“It’s time,” he said.
We descended the ridge in silence.
---
The factory graveyard was a skeleton city, the air thick with rust and ash. Tower
