The headquarters smelled of metal and old stone—a place built to outlast wars.

  Garth crossed the central hall with his cloak thrown back, boots striking hard against the polished floor. People moved aside for him. Some nodded. Some stared. He didn’t give them enough time to decide what their faces meant.

  He entered the briefing chamber. The commanders were already seated.

  At the far end, a projection-map hovered above the table—red points pulsing over towns and trade routes, thin lines tracing movement, notes flickering as reports updated.

  Garth took in the density of the red marks and felt his jaw set.

  Commander Vael didn’t bother with ceremony. “We have a problem.”

  Garth folded his arms. “You always do.”

  Vael’s mouth twitched. “This one is yours.”

  The map tightened its focus. A cluster of settlements lit up. Names scrolled beside each mark: raids, massacres, disappearances. Witness reports: a lone swordsman wrapped in a blackened aura. Bodies left out in the open like warnings.

  Garth’s eyes narrowed.

  Vael tapped the table. A portrait resolved—an ugly, stitched-together sketch compiled from survivors. Tall. Broad-shouldered. A stance Garth knew in his bones.

  Heroko.

  Garth’s stomach dropped. “No.”

  Vael’s voice stayed level. “Heroko has switched sides.”

  Garth stared at the image, and memory fought the present. Heroko laughing beside a campfire after a battle they’d survived by inches. Refusing reward money because the villagers needed it more. Carrying wounded enemies out of burning buildings because they were still people.

  “That’s not possible,” Garth said.

  Vael’s gaze hardened. “We have survivors. Tracks. Evidence. The pattern is consistent.”

  Garth leaned forward, palms braced on the table. “Then what happened?”

  Vael hesitated—only a breath, but enough. There were details they didn’t want to speak.

  “An ambush,” Vael said at last. “Someone close to him died. His wife—” His eyes flicked away. “We believe she was murdered.”

  The words landed heavy, dull as stones.

  Garth exhaled through his nose. Anger rose—sharp, clean—not at Heroko, not yet, but at whoever had decided this was the right way to break a man.

  Vael continued. “We’re also seeing energy anomalies around the incidents. Vavic reactions.”

  Garth’s focus snapped tight. “Vavic? In the field?”

  Vael nodded once. “Strong enough our sensors spiked from two regions away. Either he’s channeling vavic directly… or he’s carrying something that is.”

  Garth straightened. “So you want me to stop him.”

  Vael’s reply came quieter. “You’re the only one he might hesitate for.”

  The door behind Garth opened.

  A man stepped in—light on his feet, eyes that missed nothing. Zacheas. Zach to most. He leaned against the doorway like he owned the air, arms crossed, expression casual.

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  “Sounds like a party,” Zacheas drawled.

  Garth didn’t turn. “This isn’t your kind of work.”

  Zacheas’s smile dimmed by a fraction. “You sure?”

  Garth looked at him then. “I’m sure.”

  Zacheas held the stare, then sighed as if losing an argument he didn’t feel like having. “Fine. But if you’re going after Heroko, someone should keep an eye on Alisa.”

  At her name, Garth’s chest tightened.

  Alisa wasn’t here. She wasn’t part of this meeting. That was the point—keeping her away from it.

  Garth nodded once. “Watch her.”

  Zacheas lifted a hand in a lazy salute. “I’ll keep her safe.”

  Vael slid a file across the table. “Last sighting puts him moving toward the southern routes. Desert towns. Lawless territory. He’s… leaving a trail.”

  Garth took the file.

  He didn’t want to believe it.

  But the red points on the map didn’t lie.

  He turned and left without another word, already laying out the route in his head, already feeling the weight of what this might become.

  Because if Heroko had truly fallen…

  Stopping him might mean killing him.

  And Garth didn’t know if he had that in him.

  Taco had always liked the quiet.

  Not the peaceful kind—the kind that comes after too much noise, when the world finally runs out of breath and leaves you alone with your thoughts. She’d taken her camping gear and driven as far as she could without abandoning the roads entirely, sleeping under a sky so crowded with stars it felt like the universe was daring her to believe in destiny.

  She hadn’t wanted to go back.

  Not to the arguing. Not to the factions. Not to the endless choose a side conversations that never ended well.

  But then she’d found the crater.

  Fresh. Smoking. Still warm—a wound punched into the earth.

  And at the bottom, embedded in rock like it belonged there, sat a shard of something that wasn’t from this world.

  It had pulsed when she got close, faint as a heartbeat, as if it could feel her attention.

  Taco didn’t know what vavic was in any scientific sense. She only knew some people could sense power the way others could smell rain coming. That shard had felt like both a promise and a warning.

  She’d stood over it for a long time, swallowing hard, and left it where it lay. She wasn’t ready to touch it.

  But she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  About what it meant that something had fallen from the sky near her—like the universe had dropped a clue and walked away.

  Now she trudged back toward town with her pack on her shoulders, boots dusty, hair tied into a messy knot. She rehearsed the lie she’d tell herself once she arrived.

  Just check on everyone. Then leave again.

  Just make sure nothing’s burned down.

  As she crested the last hill, she saw the smoke.

  Not one thin column.

  Multiple plumes rising from the center of town.

  Her stomach tightened. “Of course,” she muttered. “Of course.”

  She broke into a jog.

  The closer she got, the more wrong it felt. Not just fear—absence. Like something had chewed through the rules and left nothing holding the world together.

  When she reached the first street, she understood why.

  Fighters prowled the roads—men and women in mismatched gear. Some wore faded insignias from old factions. Some wore nothing at all.

  Asterbound.

  People with power—or the hunger for it—moving through her town like predators.

  No guards. No order. No one in charge.

  A shop stood smashed open, goods strewn across the street. A man lay face-down in the dirt, unmoving, and nobody even looked at him as they stepped over his body.

  Taco slowed behind a broken wall, heart hammering.

  She wasn’t a hero. She wasn’t trained like the big names people whispered about.

  But she’d seen enough to know what happened when the Bound went lawless.

  They didn’t stop until someone stopped them.

  Taco clenched her hands until her nails bit into her palms. She thought of the crater in the woods. The shard. The pulse, like recognition.

  Destiny, she’d thought—half mocking herself.

  Now, watching her town get torn apart, it didn’t feel like a joke.

  She drew a breath and stepped out.

  Not because she was ready.

  Because nobody else was.