They had discovered an old shelter hacked into the rock half-collapsed but still protected from the worst of the dust and heat. It would serve.
The boy sat against the wall, his legs stiffly crossed, as if his body might have forgotten how to move. His hands were scraped. His skin wizened, sunburnt in splotches. But he was alive. Breathing now.
Anna crouched beside him, pulling a miniaturized balm kit and wet cloth out of her bag. She moved with precision, care, and practice. She dabbled lightly over the blood on his knuckles as if her fingers were flame with no air to feed it.
"Stay still," she said.
The boy didn't respond.
She didn't try to coax him. All she did was nurse him like a drooping houseplant silently, purposely, but without passion. Her hands never strayed longer than they had to. Her voice didn't descend into softness.
Kael looked on from the periphery, honing her blade again though her gaze strayed to the boy every few moments. Michael hovered beside her, arms loosely crossed, eyes darting between the cracked sky and the way Anna moved.
He recalled how her hands had encircled his face. How she'd called his name, and not like it belonged to him but like it was him.
She didn't do that now.
She didn't take the boy's hand.
Didn't touch his face.
Didn't view him in the same way.
And Michael didn't need anyone to tell him what that meant.
The boy shifted suddenly and Anna stopped.
His lips moved. Words without sound.
Then finally: "…name. I don't…"
She didn't rush to answer. She'd finished wrapping his hands, then sat back on her heels.
"It can be split up, you don't have to recall everything in one go," she said.
He blinked slowly. "Do I know you?"
"No," Anna replied. "But you will know yourself. In time."
She rose on her own, her robe whispering against the soil. Michael stepped up to her, handing her a water pouch. Their fingers grazed, briefly, as she accepted it.
Anna glanced at him just a glance.
But in that look was a language.
That night, the three of them took turns resting near the fire, the boy staring at the flame, wide-eyed but mute.
Michael sat next to Anna, slightly closer than previously.
He didn't say anything.
Neither did she.
But her hand hovered near the ground between them — fingers close, but not touching his.
But near enough to know the warmth.
…..
They departed the Cracked Span as the light became something nearer to dusk — though Pyrrhion never went wholly dark. Just deeper orange, pillowier shadows. So the world was on hold.
Arion walked with them now. Still wobbling, his steps slow, deliberate. He spoke little. But he was present.
Michael was continually stealing glances in his direction not with suspicion, but with curiosity. How the boy looked out at the world, looked out at the horizon, at flame and sky it was as if someone was seeing again after too long in the dark.
Kael held her sword slack over her shoulder. Since they'd left the ridge, she hadn't said a word.
As they continued on at a pace, Anna walked in silence, a few steps in front, as if to lead by instinct.
They didn't talk much until they reached the outer edge of the city's firewall, where the road was less lumpy and signs of life resumed merchant trails, rune markers, the first folding flickers of heat that would return.
That's when Arion spoke.
Soft. Not urgent. Just… remembering.
"There was a woman."
The others slowed but no one interrupted.
"I thought I saw her… at roughly the middle of the crack. Not up close. Just far enough to feel it."
Michael turned slightly. "Feel what?"
Arion's brow creased. His voice stayed low.
"Like I no longer owned my own soul. Like … if I stayed too long, I'd agree to give it up, and believe it was my idea."
Kael looked over. "You spoke to her?"
Arion shook his head. "No. She was not in the mood for conversation."
He rubbed the rim of his wrist. The skin there still glimmered faintly, a relic of the Thread disruption.
"She was calm. She was focused. Like she'd done this before. Like she'd shattered people better than me."
Silence followed.
Anna slowed slightly but didn't shift direction. Her posture stayed even. But Michael watched her hands how they quivered ever so slightly at her sides.
Then Arion said, "I don't know her name. But some of the others … before they vanished … they whispered something."
Michael knew before the word arrived.
"Eidara."
Michael stopped walking.
He remembered the rooftop. The men in half-tones speaking. The reverence, the distance, the quiet fear in their voice fear not of pain, but of getting their mind around her too late.
"I've heard that name," muttered Kael. Once. But only in passing. I thought it was a myth."
Anna's voice was quiet.
"It's not."
Michael looked at her. "You know who she is?"
"No," Anna said. "But I remember watching what she leaves behind."
That silence sat heavier than any scream.
They resumed walking. No one asked for more.
Because sometimes a name speaks for itself.