I knew he was coming before I even caught a flash of the dark green hood of his robe, and I knew what he was going to tell me. I turned around when he laid a cold hand on my shoulder. His skin was coated in greyish smears of ash, he had a black eye, and his lips were bleeding. I could still see the scars rippling down the cheeks from the last time.

“They fought me proper this time, Antheia. I was clean out by the time they all had a go at me. Still, it’s better than ‘em just putting a bullet through me. That’s dirty tactic, that is.”

“But they did it again?”

He nodded slowly, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Yeah. We’ve got until next week to give ‘em what they want, or they’re gonna do it again.”

“The children?”

“I took ‘em down to the creek, told ‘em to go and practice their charms. The older ones know there’s something wrong though. Some of ‘em are almost as old as us now, ain’t they? Sixteen?”

“Arktos, we can’t give ‘em what they want…can we? I vowed to protect this place, this guild. Look at everything we built.”

“I know, Antheia. We both did. But we might not have a choice. Come on, you better come see what they done.”

◆◆◆

Dying amber embers crackle under my bare feet as I walk on what is left of the blackened grass on the top of Koraki Crest. This time, the flames are worse. They lick at the remains of my hut, and others are reduced to dust and billow with demented grey smoke. Our grove of ash trees flickers with flames.

“Is there anything left?”

“Barely. They took our knives. And the elders’ cabin is ruined.”

I take a look around me. I can see shards of the bottles of our remedies and potions littering the floor. Our lampsi flowers are charred. Crumpled hammocks lie alight on the floor. One of our diamond-edged knives is shattered next to our plundered weapon stash.

A woman comes up the hill, carrying a pail of water on her shoulders, which she pours onto the worst of the fire which splutters, momentarily seeming to fizzle away, but is resurrected by the flames that dance violently everywhere around it.

“I’m tryin’. I’m really tryin’, Antheia, but it’s no good.”

“It’s okay, Lykia. You’re doin’ such a good job.”

She tries to smile back at me, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes, and her voice falters as she speaks again. “Is this the start—is this the start of—a war?”

“I’ll make sure it isn’t. I promise.”

Arktos looks at me anxiously. “Antheia.” He whispers. “That’s a big promise. I’ve—got a barge tied at the Dock, y’know. We could just—leave.”

“And go where? Don’t you remember why we left all those years ago? We were lost kids with shattered dreams then, and now we’re nothing but outcasts running from the memory of somewhere and someone we can never, ever go back to. This is our home. All of our homes. I don’t care what you wanted before, because we ain’t getting it back. This is who we are. We’re never gonna be like ‘em again."

Night settles heavy over Koraki Crest, the kind that presses its weight into your lungs and makes every sound feel like a warning. The fires are finally beaten down to smoking scars, and the air tastes of wet ash and iron. No one sleeps.

Antheia stands at the center of what remains of the grove, shoulders squared, hands blackened with soot. She doesn’t raise her voice when she speaks; she doesn’t need to. People lean in anyway.

“We don’t have walls,” she says. “We don’t have numbers. What we do have is ground they don’t know, charms they don’t understand, and a reason to stand.”

A murmur ripples through the guild—not fear exactly, but resolve hardening into shape.

“Pairs,” she continues. “Everyone moves in pairs. No one goes anywhere alone. The younger ones stay below the creek bend with the ward stones. If anything breaks through, you run. That’s an order.”

Arktos steps forward beside her, jaw tight, one eye swollen shut but burning with focus. He drops a bundle onto the ground. The cloth falls away to reveal salvaged blades—cracked, chipped, but still sharp enough to matter.

“They took most of our steel,” he says, voice rough, “but not our hands. Or our heads.”

Lykia kneels near the embers, crushing dried herbs between her palms, whispering old words under her breath. The powder glows faintly before fading into the wind, sinking into the soil. Traps, not lethal—never lethal—but enough to blind, to bind, to slow. Enough to remind an enemy they don’t own this hill.

The older children watch from the edge of the clearing. Not children anymore, Antheia realizes. Not really. One of them meets her gaze and doesn’t look away.

“Teach us,” the girl says. Not pleading. Asking.

Antheia hesitates for half a heartbeat—then nods. “You already know the basics. Tonight, you learn how to hold your ground.”

They work through the dark. Hammocks are cut down and rewoven into nets. Broken glass is buried where moonlight won’t catch it. Symbols are carved into stone and bark—protective, misleading, defiant. Every small act stacks atop the next until the ruins begin to feel less like a grave and more like a fortress made of will.

At the crest, Antheia pauses, looking out over the valley where the enemy will come from. The wind tugs at her hair, carrying the distant hush of water and something else—movement, maybe. Or memory.

Arktos joins her, quiet. “They’ll come hard.”

“I know.”

“And if we lose?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she presses her palm to the ground, feeling the warmth still trapped beneath the scorched earth.

“Then they’ll remember,” she says finally, “that we didn’t kneel. That we didn’t give them what they wanted. And that will cost them more than they think.”

Below them, the guild stands ready—not fearless, not unscarred, but unbroken.

When dawn comes, Koraki Crest will not be empty.

And it will not be silent.