Verdwood was no longer a village.
Six months had passed since the Harvest, six months of the long, brutal winter, and the Verdwood that emerged with the thaw was something harder, colder, and sharper. The outer walls were gone, replaced by new, angled fortifications of gray stone and void-dampening iron. Guard towers, manned 24/7, dotted the perimeter. Wards, new ones based on Lysara's frantic, final notes, pulsed with a dim, constant energy. It wasn't a home anymore. It was a fortress.
And I... I was no longer Ren. Not really.
I stood in the training yard, my arms crossed, watching the network drill. There were eleven of them now. The eight of us who had survived the siege, plus the three Ironrest children, who were finally healthy. Eight of us were going on the expedition. The three youngest would stay behind.
Eight children, walking into a suicide mission.
The thought registered, and I noted it, filed it, and dismissed it. It was a tactical liability, not a moral crisis. The grief, the fear... I had spent six months learning to bury it. Compartmentalizing. The part of me that was Ren, the part that was Takeshi, the part that felt... it was locked in a box. All that was left was the Anchor. The Commander.
"Their coordination is improving," Kaela said, her voice a low rasp beside me. "Torren and Zara... they can hold a three-way link with Elara for twenty minutes now."
"Not enough," I said, my voice flat, automatic. "The stronghold will require sustained resonance. They need thirty minutes. Minimum."
"Then we drill them harder," she replied, her tone matching mine.
We had become this. Two halves of a broken whole, our grief calcified into a cold, functional, pragmatic engine. We didn't talk about Lysara. We couldn't. To speak her name was to acknowledge the gaping, silent void in our lives, and acknowledging it meant feeling it. And if we felt it, we would break. So, we just... worked.
Master Dren reviewed the final roster in the war room. His arm was permanently stiff, his fighting days over, but his mind was as sharp as ever. He was our strategic coordinator now.
"Fifteen of our most veteran scouts," he read from the slate, his voice gravelly. "Eight convergence-marked, ages ten through sixteen. Mira, as intelligence specialist. You, Ren, and you, Kaela, as field commanders. Total force: twenty-six."
"Against a stronghold," I added, tapping the map, "with an estimated garrison of three hundred operatives. Plus Zerran. Plus their twelve marked. Plus whatever other horrors they've summoned."
"The odds are not in our favor," Dren acknowledged, his understatement a cold, hard fact.
"They never are," Kaela said.
Dren looked at us, his gaze heavy with a concern that had become familiar. "You're both... showing signs of what the old commanders called 'siege-shock.' Emotional detachment. Reduced empathy. A... a tactical mindset that prioritizes the mission over the individual. It concerns me."
"That's not 'shock,' Dren," I said, not looking up from the map. "That's adaptation. It's what's required."
"It's trauma response," he corrected, his voice gentle but firm. "And it's dangerous. You're fourteen years old, Ren. You shouldn't be... you shouldn't be this cold."
"Would you prefer I be panicking?" I asked, finally meeting his gaze. "Would that make the children I'm about to lead into a meat grinder feel safer? I don't have the luxury of being human right now, Dren. I have to be functional. I'll... I'll process the emotions when the mission is over. If I survive. Not before."
It was the cold, hard logic of necessity. It was the exact, perfect, ruthless calculation Lysara would have made. The realization that I was becoming her, that I was trying to fill the void she'd left by becoming her... it just made the ache worse. I pushed it down. Compartmentalized.
Kaela found me on the roof that night. Or what was left of it. We'd rebuilt it, but the new wood still smelled of sap and not of... her. Of old books and drying herbs.
She sat beside me, in Lysara's spot. It was a gap, a cold space. Neither of us had ever sat there before.
"We need to talk," she said.
"About what? The infiltration route?"
"No," she said, her voice quiet. "About... us. About... what we're becoming. I... I don't know if we're honoring her, Ren. Or if we're just... just running from her ghost."
I had no answer.
"I think... I think we're both," she continued, her voice a low, rough whisper. "We're... we're trying to finish what she started. I... I get that. But... we're also... we're avoiding it. We're avoiding her. We're avoiding the grief by... by just... working. By drilling. By... by being this... this cold... thing. And it's... it's not sustainable."
"What do you want from me, Kaela?" I asked, my voice defensive, tight. "You want me to stop? You want me to sit in the yard and grieve? We've got five days. We're about to walk into the cult's home. Those children we're... we're 'rescuing'... they're being burned as we speak. They're being used as fuel. I don't... I don't have time for grief."
"I want you to be human!" she snapped, her voice finally, blessedly, breaking with emotion. "I want you to... to acknowledge it! That you're... that you're terrified! That you're... you're grieving! That you're not... you're not some machine... some... 'First Anchor'... just... just making 'tactical calculations'! Because... because I'm... I'm standing next to someone who looks like Ren... but... but Ren is gone. My... my... my best friend... he's... he's gone, too. And I... I can't... I can't lose both of you."
The words... they were a physical blow. She wasn't just grieving Lysara. She was grieving me.
And she was right.
"The Ren you knew... the one who agonized over every choice," she whispered, her voice cracking, "who... who tried to find a... a better way... he... he wouldn't be this... this empty."
"There are no alternatives," I said, my voice flat, the machine still talking. "The cult is building the bridge. We stop them, or reality ends. It's... it's just... it's just the math."
"And she would tell you," Kaela countered, her voice rising, "that sacrificing our souls to win the war is a bad calculation! That... that martyring these kids... it doesn't make you a hero, Ren. It just makes you... it makes you them."
We sat in a terrible, tense, vibrating silence.
And finally, the box I'd locked all my fear and grief inside... it broke.
"I'm terrified," I whispered, the admission tearing out of me, a raw, ragged, ugly sound. "Every... every night. I... I see their faces. The... the ones who died. Jorin. Finn. And... and her. I... I see the... the beam. I... I see her eyes. And... and I'm... I'm leading eight more children... into... into that. And I... I'm so... I'm so scared that I'm... I'm going to fail them. That... that she died for nothing. And... and that even if we... if we win... it'll... it'll cost... everything."
Kaela's hand found mine in the dark. It was the first time we'd touched, really touched, in six months. Her hand was trembling.
"There he is," she whispered, her voice thick. "There... there's the Ren I know."
"He's... he's not very useful," I choked out.
"He's essential," she corrected, her grip tightening. "Because... because command without... without a heart... that's... that's what Zerran is. That's what Verinna was. We... we can't... we can't become them."
She was right. I let the grief, the fear, the... the humanity... I let it wash over me. It was... overwhelming. It was an ocean of pain. But... but I wasn't carrying it alone anymore. Kaela was there, her hand a lifeline.
"I miss her so much," I whispered, the words finally coming. "Every... every day. Every decision. I... I just... I want to... I want to ask her what to do."
"I know," she said, her voice breaking. "Me too. I... I keep... I keep turning... to... to tell her something. And... and she's just... she's not... there."
We sat, and for the first time in six long, cold, empty months... we grieved. Together. We cried for our friend, for our lost third, for the children we'd been. It wasn't... it wasn't healing. It was just... real. And real was better than the cold, empty, functional nothing I'd been.
The night before we left. The entire village, what was left of it, gathered in the Great Hall. It was our final briefing. Not just for the strike team. For everyone.
Elder Stoneheart stood before us. "Tomorrow," he said, his voice echoing in the packed, silent hall, "twenty-six of our people... our friends, our family, our children... they leave for the Eastern Mountains. Their mission... is not one with a guaranteed return. Many... many will not come back."
The bluntness was a cold shock. But it was the truth.
"They go," he continued, "to rescue the children the cult has stolen. They go... to stop a ritual that... that threatens everything. This... this is not a choice. This is a necessity. We... we could stay here. We could rebuild. We could... 'stay safe.' But... that would mean... that would mean abandoning those children. And Verdwood... Verdwood does not... abandon its children."
He looked at me. "Ren."
I stood. I faced the crowd. The children I was about to lead. The families who were entrusting them to me.
"Six months ago," I started, my voice clear, and for the first time, not cold, but steady, "we... we paid a terrible price. We lost... so many. We lost... we lost Lysara. Our... our heart. Our mind."
I took a breath. "Tomorrow... we're risking everything... again. I... I can't promise you we'll succeed. I can't promise that everyone I'm taking... will come home." I looked at the parents of the children. "I can't. All I can promise... is that we will try. Because trying... trying when it's impossible... that's what matters. That's what separates us from them."
"Lysara... she left us a gift," I said, holding up the blue journal. "She... she gave us the path. She... she knew... she knew she might not be here. And she... she gave us what we needed... to continue... without her. That's... that's her legacy."
I looked at my team. At Torren, his new leg gleaming. At Zara, Elara, Mira. At the Ironrest kids. "For those of you coming with me... I won't lie. This... this will be the hardest thing you have ever done. But... you will not be alone. We... we will fight together. We will protect each other. And... and we will honor everyone we've lost... by finishing what they started."
Torren stood, his face serious, his crutch at his side. "For Lysara," he said, his voice clear.
"For Lysara," Zara and Elara echoed, their voices strong.
And then... from the crowd... "For Lysara."
And again. "For Lysara."
It wasn't a cheer. It was... it was a prayer. An oath. A promise.
That night, I packed. Sword. Armor. Rations. And the blue journal, wrapped in oilskin. I was carrying her with me.
Kaela found me at my door. "Can't sleep?"
"Too much to think about."
She sat beside me, checking the straps on her own pack. "I keep... I keep thinking about the first time we met. Five years old. You... you were just this... this weird kid... that everyone was afraid of. And... and I decided... I decided you needed a friend."
"Best decision you ever made," I said, a small, ghost of a smile touching my lips.
"Debatable," she shot back, the old spark, the Kaela spark, in her eyes. "It's led to an... an excessive... amount of life-threatening situations."
"But... interesting," I offered.
"There is that," she agreed.
We sat in a comfortable, familiar silence.
"If... if we don't..." Kaela started, her voice suddenly small. "If... if we don't make it back, Ren... I... I just... I want you to know..."
"Don't," I interrupted, my voice gentle. "No... no dramatic, last-minute, 'I love yous.' That's... that's how you guarantee one of us dies. It's... it's just... bad writing."
She looked at me, stunned. And then... she laughed. A real, actual, Kaela laugh. It was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard. "You're... you're... 'bad writing'?"
"It's a narrative pattern," I said, shrugging. "Tempts fate."
"Fine," she said, her smile watery, but real. "Fine. After. After we save the world, and... and get back. Then... we can have... dramatic, emotional conversations."
"Deal," I said.
But we both knew. We both knew the statistics. Lysara's own, final, cold calculation, scribbled in the margins of her journal: Probability of success for stronghold infiltration, child-rescue, and bridge-destruction, with casualty rates below 50%... 8.3%.
The probability of me... the First Anchor, the primary target... of me surviving... was, of course, much lower.
But eight percent... eight percent wasn't zero.
At dawn, we left. The entire village was there. Not cheering. Just... watching. A silent, grim, hopeful vigil.
We were twenty-six. Twenty-six people, walking into the heart of the enemy, into the Eastern Mountains, to fight for a .3% chance.
As Verdwood disappeared behind the trees, I thought of Takeshi. I thought of his promise. His legacy.
This... this mission... it would probably kill me.
But... if it... if it stopped the bridge... if it saved even one of those kids... if it gave our world a chance... then it was worth it.
That's... that's what Lysara would have calculated. That's what she chose.
And... and I... I was going to honor that choice.
"Three weeks' travel to the stronghold," Kaela said, her voice all business now, consulting her map.
"Three weeks," I confirmed.
Three weeks, to find out if eight percent was enough.