Nadeden pulls the hood of her cloak over her eyes as she presses Adamus’s fragile sleeping body against her chest.

  The cloak is unassuming enough. It’s one of the standard brands issued and freely distributed by Magnus during his reign. Nadeden has already spotted five others wearing it in this train car.

  She’s practically invisible; no one has even noted the bag hiding her bow and quiver, as well as Thorn's sword that has served her well as a walking cane within its leather sheath.

  Still, even with the train barreling toward the spaceport, she remains on guard. She knows that this momentary peace won’t last.

  She’s right.

  The front of the train car emits an odd blue hue before flickering out. The passengers and furniture vanish along with it.

  Those in the back of the car launch into an uproar of horror.

  A woman drops the hand of her spouse upon the discovery that there is nothing at the end of it but blood. The scream wakes Adamus.

  Davon sighs; his fingers are still contorted into snapping position.

  “Sorry about that, everyone, but I can assure you that I’m only here for her.”

  “You’re siding with Gelmidas, then?” Nadeden asks, rocking Adamus again.

  The few passengers left in the car back away from the confrontation, pressing up against the walls. Davon keeps a level head. “I’m not siding with him. I’m putting a leash on him, and it’d be in everyone’s best interest if you put yours back on.”

  Nadeden huffs as Adamus continues to stir, “What are you going to do if I don’t?” Her left arm slips out of her cloak and into her bag while her right keeps Adamus steady. “Slice off my other leg?”

  The taunt has its intended impact, distracting Davon by drawing on the obvious regret in him that’s floating up to the surface now.

  “Don’t start, you would have killed Gelmidas, and while we both hate him, we don’t hate him enough to want him dead.”

  “Yeah,” Nadeden clutches the bow, ripping it from her bag along with an arrow that she hastily nocks. She lies Adamus in her lap as she fires. “But I’m getting there.”

  The arrow zooms across the train car, speeding through the air until meeting Davon.

  He flinches for one second and one second only.

  Blood drips to the floor, but he’s only been grazed.

  Nadeden narrows her eyes and nocks another arrow.

  Before she can shoot, Davon has his fingers up again.

  He snaps them.

  Nadeden throws her arms around Adamus, shielding him as the two tumble onto the rapidly moving roof of the train car.

  The roar of the chilling night air drags up her cloak.

  Adamus lets out a shrieking wail that only a child his age could make as Nadeden is knocked into a roll by the car. Her back is scratched and torn by the metal roof. She blasts out her arm, leaving only one to protect Adamus. It is a frantic and desperate ploy to search for something, anything, to halt her momentum.

  Lifting her eyes from Adamus exposes her to being struck by the bag she brought with her. Jolting her hand into the bag, Nadeden snatches the handle of Thorn’s sword and stabs the blade into the roof. Putting an end to her runaway tumble and anchoring her on the speeding car, but no doubt frightening the passengers below.

  “End of the line, Scorchy!”

  Shanna spins her blade behind her back with wild ferocity and a gleam of euphoria in her eye before swinging at Nadeden.

  She rips her sword from the roof, blocking Shanna’s swing. Nadeden grips Adamus tighter as she retaliates against Shanna.

  The blades clash. A series of sparks ignites from the sharp metal.

  “That’s one of Thorn’s!” Shanna calls out. The blade cuts a curl of her hair. She parries with a pirouette.

  The force of the speeding train car thrusts her closer to Nadeden. “If he’s dead, that makes me the best swordsman in the Division!” Shanna cackles, twirling her blade like a windmill, slicing Nadeden several times before she throws herself back.

  Nadeden lets the train guide her movements again before she stabs into the roof.

  Davon appears before her. He leaps out with Shanna.

  Nadeden ducks down, spinning on the hilt of the sword to dodge the pair.

  “Hey, be careful!” Orson calls, only now climbing onto the roof of the train. “She has a baby with her!”

  “That’s her problem,” Shanna mutters coldly, thrusting out at Nadeden but being shot backward by the train’s speed. Davon snaps his fingers, sending Shanna in the other direction to strike Nadeden.

  She kicks herself to the side of the train, avoiding Shanna, but now she’s on the edge of a hurtling, unstoppable metal object that is an endless distance above the abyss that is the city of Rome below.

  Shanna swings at her again, but Nadeden stabs back into the roof of the train and propels herself from the hilt of the blade onto Shanna’s legs. Nadeden pins Shanna down and steals her sword, bashing the hilt into her nose while still holding onto Adamus.

  “I don’t want to kill you three!”

  “Bullshit.”

  Davon sends Nadeden through a portal back into the sky.

  He lunges at her with daggers in hand.

  Nadeden twists Adamus away from the danger, only to find Davon already on the other side of her.

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  He overshot his trajectory.

  He still doesn’t know how to properly fight with his new abilities.

  That makes him dangerous.

  Davon snaps his fingers.

  Nadeden tumbles onto the train again.

  This time, she braces herself for the fall but loses her sword in the process.

  Adamus is now a babbling mess, but he’s strong. He’s being strongly protected after all.

  Sensing a shift in the air around her, Nadeden lunges out her leg, striking Orson. He reflexively slams his blade into the roof to steady himself. He doesn’t notice that Nadeden has her leg around his throat until it’s too late, and he’s pinned down just like Shanna was.

  “Let me go, Nadeden. I want nothing to do with this.” Orson’s appeal for mercy doesn’t make Nadeden release him, but the view of the train approaching the mass of the Spaceport in the distance does.

  Orson hurries back to the ladder on the side of the train car, his feet slip as he looks back to thank Nadeden, yet he quickly snags the ladder, saving himself. Holding it tightly, he grins, still with the assumption that he is the center of the universe. “You won’t regret this!”

  Nadeden shrugs at Orson’s statement. She uses the sword he left behind to stand despite the elements that demand her to fall.

  Orson climbs back into the train car as Davon appears before Nadeden. The portal fizzles out behind him as he glances at the Spaceport, “So that was your plan,” he snorts, holstering his daggers.

  Nadeden clutches Adamus, who’s calmed about as much as he can given the situation.

  “You don’t have to do this, Davon. All I want now is to get off this planet.”

  “And how many more have to die before you do that!” Shanna shouts through her broken and bloodied nose.

  She crawls across the roof like a wounded animal. “Why do you get to be happy, Nadeden? Who gave you the right to run away? You threw aside this new life of yours all because you couldn’t keep your head down and look past what Gelmidas was going to do!”

  Shanna’s nails dig into the roof, scraping against it. “You just had to fight back, didn’t you? Because fighting is all you can do, and somehow you still can’t fight your nature! No one can! Nature always wins!” Shanna kneels against the tide of the speeding current that blasts onto her, yelling into the endless night wind at Nadeden, “YOU’LL ALWAYS BE THE SCORCHED ARCHER!”

  Enraged, Nadeden pulls the sword from the roof to strike Shanna.

  Adamus nearly falls from her grasp as she does so.

  Almost instinctively, Davon juts out both his hands, aiming one at Nadeden and one at the front of the train. The uncanny pull of its momentum threatens to overtake him as he snaps his fingers.

  The blade falls just above Shanna’s shoulder, yet does not pierce it.

  Nadeden’s eyes widen.

  Tears flutter in the wind as sparks of blue flicker in front of Shanna’s weeping face.

  The twin portals ignite and open, sending the head of the train barreling onto its own roof.

  Nadeden drops the blade and buries Adamus into her.

  She slams her back flat on the train car. The wheels pass over her head, nearly rolling her into a fine pulp.

  The train coils in on itself. Davon stands still, with both arms frozen in their positions. His eyes frantically search for a body while his ears await a death cry that never arrives.

  The metal twists and snaps with countless passengers still inside.

  Shanna allows herself to be taken by the train’s velocity, falling into the night.

  Nadeden and Adamus fall as well, landing on the hill leading toward the spaceport.

  Davon remains on the train as it reaches a full circle.

  The bridge of train tracks is blown into a million pieces by the explosion of roaring fire and flying metal debris.

  Nadeden tosses her cloak over her arm, covering Adamus’s gentle skin from the incoming volley of raining fire.

  She opens her eyes once the storm settles. Nadeden refuses to hold her gaze on the scene of the wreck.

  She pushes up the hill to the Spaceport without a second thought.

  Unable to walk without support, she limps forward. The incline forces her into a crawl.

  She’s finding it increasingly difficult to hold onto Adamus. Even panting like a wounded dog from the physical exertion, she keeps moving. Sweat and ash begin to drench her. Adamus settles, although doesn’t slumber. By the time his Mother reaches the top, the journey has become a game to his innocent mind.

  Perhaps he’s upset that it’s now come to an end.

  Leaning on the doorframe, Nadeden knocks on the entrance to the repair shop.

  There is no answer.

  She twists Adamus to her side and relies on her strong spine to break down the wooden door. Landing on the scattered planks, Nadeden groans as she makes use of the brick wall to stand.

  “Nadeden.”

  She lifts her head at the sound of Gelmidas’s voice.

  He waits calmly on a workbench beneath a small transport vessel.

  Nadeden huffs in annoyance at the new but familiar obstacle, “Where’s Hadel?”

  Gelmidas rises and steps out of the shadow cast over him by both the ship and the cold night.

  “The mechanic?” He questions before answering himself, “He’s inside the ship, safe.”

  Nadeden doesn’t allow Gelmidas to see her breathe a sigh of relief. “If you kill me, at least promise to watch over Adamus.”

  “Surrender now, and that won’t have to happen.”

  Nadeden grunts, balancing herself, “What if it has too?”

  Gelmida sighs a wary breath, knowing full well what she is seeking confirmation of: “I’m not going to open the container.”

  She nods, “Are you going to let me leave then?”

  “I don’t know…” Gelmidas stalls, “I’m afraid, Nadeden.” He cracks, letting the calm facade drop and shatter, “I’m afraid of you.”

  Nadeden isn’t surprised.

  She knew this would happen.

  Everyone she’s ever known has eventually come to fear her at one point or another.

  Maybe even Adamus may one day be horrified by his own Mother.

  The thing is, Nadeden feels that same fear now, towards another.

  “I’m afraid of you, too, Gelmidas.” She looks him dead in the eyes, “Afraid of what you’ll become.”

  “After all this time,” Gelmidas wonders, being filled with all those old buried feelings, “how could you still care about me?”

  “I don’t,” Nadeden says without hesitation, looking down into the joyous bundle of life in her arms, reaching out to her, “but I care about him, and I know that he can’t be raised here.”

  Gelmidas nods. “You’re right,” He drags out the last remaining scrap of his mask of courageous leadership, “but I disagree.”

  Nadeden nods just as Gelmidas did, although it's a nod of recognition and not of acceptance.

  “Because it’s not in the Division’s best interests, is it?”

  Gelmidas knows he doesn’t have to say anything, but speaks nonetheless. “Yes.”

  Nadeden rests her hand on the wall, then drags it. She walks to the ship with its aid, feeling the rough texture of the bricks. She informs Gelmidas of what he already knows: “Sticking around isn’t in my best interests either.”

  “They’ll want justice,” Gelmidas whispers, staying in the light as Nadeden fades into the shadow of the ship.

  The weight of the Division casts an even larger darkness over him. “I’ll want justice.”

  “I know.” Nadeden states.

  It’s as if the tide breaks in Gelmidas. Tears fall that he wasn't even aware he was holding.

  “They’ll find you.”

  He isn’t sure if he intends it as a warning or a threat, but his voice cracks regardless of such, stripping any meaning from the statement.

  “Goodbye, Gerry.”

  Nadeden boards the ship with Adamus in her arms.

  Gelmidas’s guard arrives along with what little army is stationed on the planet as the ship takes off from the repair shop and Spaceport.

  It rises into the night, pierces the atmosphere, and enters the vacuum of space.

  “My lord!” blurts out the captain with a rising battle high. “Shall we pursue them?”

  Gelmidas shakes his head.

  “No.” He mutters under his aching breath before wiping away his tears and hiding them away forever under the mask of leadership.