Stars shimmer above me, framed by two small moons—one pale gold as old parchment, the other green as spring grass—sliding between restless clouds.

  Lightning rips the sky in half, bright enough to paint my bones through my skin. The echo follows a breath later—deep, rolling, chest-rattling.

  Ahead, twin peaks rise like the sundered ribs of a fallen titan, the gorge between them black as an unhealed wound. Far beyond, the volcano glows—slow, molten, alive. Heat rides the wind, iron-sharp and rain-bitten.

  For a heartbeat the storm-light pools in the valley, turning the flooded hollow into a crimson lake—like the mountain is bleeding out into the night.

  Jenny exhales a shaky laugh. “Gods,” she whispers. “Mordor on a juice cleanse.”

  I groan. “You have to stop mixing Tolkien with diet fads.”

  I push to my knees, muck sliding off my arms, and motion Tess closer. “How’s your night vision?”

  “It’d be better if you shut off your belly light.”

  “Shite.”

  I slap a hand over my charms and focus. It takes forever—longer than forever—to choke off the power feeding them. The glow sputters, dies, and shadows swallow us whole.

  “They saw you,” Frankie murmurs. No humor. Just hard truth.

  Rhea hisses. “Then we move.”

  My eyes scan the terrain. No clean lines. No friendly cover. Twin moons throw dueling shadows across jagged rock, everything twitching like it’s alive. Instinct screams five-alarm fire. We’re far past our depth.

  “Where?” My voice comes out thin and tight.

  Frankie turns in a slow circle, reading the land like a street brawl waiting to spring. Then she spots something above us—maybe fifty feet up—and flicks her hand: a signal. A command.

  She starts climbing. And we follow.

  Up. Around. My fingers claw for holds, the rock tearing skin from my knuckles. Gravel skitters loose, pattering down the slope like rain on tin—loud enough to make me wince. They’ll hear us. Saints, don’t let them hear us.

  Adrenaline spikes, my whole body a taut wire of fight-or-flight.

  Halfway up, my boot slips. The world lurches. Stone scatters. I flail—weightless—

  —and a red-leather arm snags me out of the air.

  The stop is brutal, a jolt that rattles my teeth. Solenne grunts with the effort, twisting to pin me against the canyon wall, her breath hot at my ear.

  “Careful,” she huffs. “It’s a long way down.”

  The faint hum of Snapcord threads buzzes through her armor where it presses to my ribs, every seam glowing like molten wire. One wrong tug and we’d both be vapor.

  My mind stutters. She caught me.

  The woman sewn into an explosive deathtrap—Catalina’s creature, our prisoner—just risked her life to save mine.

  “Thank you.” The words scrape out of me, rough with adrenaline and sincerity.

  Solenne nods once, brisk, then motions upward with a flick of her chin. “Keep movin’.”

  We climb. My pulse still drums in my ears, each heartbeat echoing off the stone. I glance back, catching each of my team in turn.

  Rhea meets Solenne’s eyes, lips forming a silent thank you before she inches a little closer up the line. Frankie gives a short, tight nod—respect grudgingly earned. Tess keeps rubbing her chin, studying Solenne between footholds, that analytical look that means she’s measuring more than muscle.

  And Lenora —steady, stoic Lenora—pauses just long enough to swipe a tear from her cheek, gratitude softening the hard planes of her face.

  For the first time, the air between us feels less like a fuse waiting to burn.

  The plateau tilts downward, slick with loose stone, the kind of ground that wants you to fall. I flatten into it, chest pressed to rock, wedged between Lenora and Frankie. Sweat trickles in the hot, humid night.

  Below—movement.

  A horned brute drags a chain the color of dark blood. Each fist-sized link connects to iron cuffs.

  And in those cuffs—people.

  Ten faces.

  Then twenty.

  Then more.

  A line that vanishes into the dark.

  My heart stutters.

  Grettaluna.

  She moves among them—beaten, bruised, shaved raw, blood trailing down her scalp from a fresh wound. The whip cracks again. She staggers—but her chin stays high, pride unbroken.

  And then I see it.

  The chain doesn’t end.

  It stretches back, farther and farther—a river of bodies beside the loch.

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  Not ten.

  Not a hundred.

  Thousands.

  All female. I stop counting as lead fills my gut. At first it’s hard to be sure, hairless, emaciated, abused, and despondent, but the realization grows with each familiar face. I know these women.

  Our town.

  Every real woman.

  Understanding slams into me.

  This is it. The answer.

  The missing faces from our town. Every real person. Shackled. Dragged.

  Not gone. Not safe. Enslaved.

  Tears sting behind my lids. What happened? The AIs should’ve stopped this—should’ve prevented this… this butchery. I don’t even have words.

  An hour stretches into eternity. Shock curdles into anger, and anger combusts into pure, white-hot rage.

  Frankie’s hands clamp down on my shoulders, gripping until the scream inside me chokes silent. She shakes her head once—sharp, absolute.

  I swallow the sound. Barely.

  Jenny weeps into her palms, tears catching the lightning-flicker.

  Then—a strangled sound beside me.

  “That’s… my baby sister…” Solenne’s voice breaks like glass. “Why’s—goddess, Jody—why’s she chained up with the rebels?”

  Her head shakes, slow and deliberate, like she’s afraid blinking might shatter what’s left of her world. Her breath comes ragged and shallow, her hands buried in the mud until it oozes between her fingers.

  “Why would she do this?” she whispers, voice breaking around the edges. “Why’d Catalina chain her up—chain them all up? They’re ours, they’re s’posed t’be safe…” The words stumble out thick with grief and disbelief, the Cockney bleeding through as her mask collapses.

  The mountain seems to tremble with her, thunder rolling like the sound of faith cracking open.

  Jenny’s hand finds mine. None of us speak. We just watch Solenne’s world crumble in silence.

  I draw her to my side, cradling her beneath my arm, and let her tears and fears soak into me until they’re part of my own. For the first time, she doesn’t resist. She just leans in and breaks.

  Lenora catches my chin and tilts it toward the line—to the ones driving it forward. The guards aren’t strangers. They’re our NPCs, but not as they were. Scales creep across their arms, feathers bristle at their collars, faces stretched into raptor-like masks that only half remember being human only vaguely. Their slitted eyes slide sideways, avoiding ours.

  But I know those eyes. I’ve seen them haggle in the market. Sing over ale. Give candy to children.

  Now they march with the same beaten gait as the captives—whipped when they falter. They push women forward not from authority, but from obedience so brittle and unwilling. Every tug looks like it costs them. Every lash they deliver makes them flinch.

  It’s not cruelty I see. It’s resignation. Confusion. The hollow look of souls pressed into a mold that doesn’t fit. And that’s worse. Because it means they know what they’re doing, and they hate it.

  Something inside me breaks and reshapes at once. This isn’t an enemy we can bargain with. This is a machine.

  A system. A theft. Or, the system has been hijacked.

  “Shite,” I whisper under my breath.

  I press my belly into the dirt and restart the flow of power to my bellybutton piercing. The Luck Tokens from this morning’s spectacularly successful play are finally about to pay off—to keep us hidden long enough to find the clues that might save our town.

  The moons hang high, washing everything in a harvest glow. I can’t tell if it’s been two hours, three, or more since Grettaluna passed—but every soul I know from town has marched by. Jerrie, the butcher who buys my wild game. Martha, who runs the dry goods store. All eight of my female archery students. Everyone. Each step drives another nail through my chest.

  Where are the men? Did we miss their line? Are they even alive?

  Is this our fault—would they still be free if we hadn’t gone into Inanna’s catacombs? Or is that the only reason we’re still free? Is this happening across every VR shard aboard the Sidhe’s Seraphim, or did the ZTA lockdown trap it here with us?

  Heat prickles across my stomach, sharp where the leprechaun charm digs into my skin. I risk a glance over my shoulder—and nearly choke. The shamrock-green glow from my bellybutton paints the back of my corset like a beacon.

  Worse—matching lights pulse from the others, tiny starbursts leaking through cloth and armor.

  What the… Shite. How many Luck Tokens did I spend?

  Everyone inches closer, instinctively drawn to the warmth. We huddle together, a tangle of limbs and confused breathing. Their faces tilt toward me—soft, dreamy, like they’ve all slipped into a shared hot bath.

  Lenora’s fingertip trails down my spine.

  Frankie leans in, nostrils flaring. “You smell like… Grandma’s peach cobbler.”

  I jerk away, whisper-shouting, “What?!”

  Lenora’s tongue flicks my shoulder. “Mmm… nope. Fresh cherry pie.”

  My protest catches halfway between a yelp and a squeak.

  “Lasagna,” Tess moans, eyes half-closed.

  Jenny sighs, voice gone breathless. “Popcorn…”

  “Bread puddin’ with warm custard,” Solenne murmurs, her nose twitchin’ toward me like a bloodhound’s. “Rich, sweet, an’ heavy wi’ cinnamon, nutmeg, an’ …”

  Rhea inhales, trembling. “Sweet mercy… soda bread an’ jam. Hot off the griddle. Saints above, lass—that’s the smell o’ home.”

  Below, chains clatter as the last prisoners disappear into the dark.

  Silence.

  Then—

  “What is that smell?”

  The voice hits like ice water down my spine.

  I elbow Lenora and Frankie awake. “Mrs. Evard,” I hiss.

  Frankie slaps a hand over Jenny’s mouth mid-gasp.

  Catalina Evard—Jenny’s coach, mentor for half her life, and commander of the Second Crew. Five-foot-five, lithe, blonde hair wound into an officious crown. Human. Naked. Proud. Unchained. She steps from her palanquin with dancer’s poise, authority rolling off her like perfume.

  She inhales. Eyes narrow. The air around her tightens.

  “Why,” she says slowly, “do I smell… McDonald’s french fries?”

  “Mam,” stammers the nearest litter bearer, fear edging his gravelly dwarven voice, “there ain’t a fast-food joint on the ship.”

  Catalina tilts her head, sniffing again, sharp and deliberate, like a wolf catching scent of blood. “My nose knows, and it doesn’t lie.”

  “Yes, Mam—whatever you say, Mam.”

  “Shut up. Go find the source.”

  The dwarves squat to lower the palanquin, stocky bodies bristling with wiry beards and corded muscle under battered leather vests. One snorts, nostrils flaring wide. “Only thing I smell is Cain.”

  “I am not on the menu.”

  “Who’d wanna chew your sorry arse?”

  “Yer sister—”

  “Hey! Leave her out—”

  “She tastes great!”

  They square off—beards bristling, boots grinding gravel.

  Two others cheer like it’s Fight Night. “Lay ’im flat, Brokk!”

  “Smash ’is nose into next week!” the other cackles, beard braids swinging as he bounces on his heels.

  Frankie exhales through her nose, unimpressed. “Their stance is all wrong. Too square. Weight on their heels.”

  Rhea grins, eyes flicking between the combatants. “Ye mean they’re fightin’ like drunk uncles at a weddin’?”

  “Drunk, blind, and barefoot,” Frankie mutters. “I’ve seen toddlers in a sandbox throw straighter punches.”

  Rhea chuckles, low and warm. “Aye, but look at ’em—they’re enjoyin’ themselves. There’s a kind o’ art in bad fightin’.”

  Frankie side-eyes her, lips twitching. “Not in my art gallery.”

  “That’s ’cause ye charge admission,” Rhea fires back.

  For half a heartbeat, they share a grin—soldier to soldier—before the next wild swing breaks the moment. One dwarf stumbles, nearly tripping over the palanquin’s rail. The spectators roar, egging them on, while their blows land with the dull thump of meat on meat.

  “Pitiful,” Frankie growls. “If they were mine, I’d run ’em until their beards fell off.”

  “Ye’d still be yellin’ ‘form a line!’ while they were pantin’ their last,” Rhea teases.

  “Discipline saves lives.”

  “So does laughter,” Rhea murmurs.

  “Stop.”

  Catalina’s voice cracks like a whip—cold, sharp, absolute. The combatants freeze mid-swing. Laughter dies to a sheepish cough.

  “Your fight achieves nothing,” she says, stepping to the palanquin, tone dripping disdain. “Results matter—everything else is frosting on a turd.”

  She flicks her fingers, and the dwarves scuttle back into position. “Results matter. French fries are nice, but they won’t advance my plans.”

  She settles into her seat, but her head stays tilted—nose flaring, eyes half-lidded as she tastes the air.

  The palanquin sways forward. Chains clatter. Voices murmur. The night hums with tension.

  My stomach knots.

  She isn’t distracted.

  She’s hunting.

  And sooner or later—

  she’ll find me.