The improvised shelter lay within the remains of an old watchtower, half-devoured by the forest. Roots had swallowed the stone base, but the interior stayed dry. Lysa had found it while scouting the area around the burned village. She had carried Kael there on her back, step by step, ignoring the pain in her own still-healing bones.

  Now, hours later, he slept. Wrapped in coarse blankets, he sweated through a fever. The wounds left by the Czhal’s attack had been cauterized, but the internal code rupture — what the monster had caused — still manifested as muscle tremors and a faint distortion in the aura field around him.

  Lysa sat nearby, legs crossed, cleaning one of his swords with a damp cloth. It was a slow, almost meditative gesture. Veyla’s dagger remained at her side, sheathed.

  She hadn’t slept. She couldn’t. The sensation of being watched never fully faded. Maybe it was paranoia. Or maybe the System still followed her like a predator, waiting for her to stumble.

  Kael stirred with a weak groan.

  “Stay lying down,” Lysa said without turning.

  He groaned again, but obeyed. His voice came out rough, scratched.

  “I’m starting to think you only ever find me when I’m on the verge of dying.”

  Lysa allowed herself a brief smile.

  “Maybe it’s fate. Or just the pattern of the broken world we live in.”

  Kael looked at her. His eyes, even tired, still held that golden glow that never truly faded. He studied her in silence for a moment, as if trying to gauge how much she had changed.

  “How long since Telran?”

  “Three days. Almost four.”

  “And the orc?”

  “I don’t know. It separated us. I woke up in the middle of the forest, was taken care of by... strange people. Then I came here, tracking the village smoke.”

  Kael took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment.

  “I thought you were dead.”

  “So did I.”

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  The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable, but heavy — as if too many words had built up and were now fighting to get out.

  Kael broke it.

  “You’re going to keep going, aren’t you?”

  Lysa stopped cleaning the blade.

  “Yes.”

  “Even without me?”

  “Even without anyone.”

  He nodded, as if he’d already expected the answer. But there was more in his eyes.

  “And what do you see at the end of all this, Lysa? When... it’s over?”

  She turned her face toward the tower’s opening, where the night stretched like a starless veil.

  “I don’t see an end. Just the names.”

  “Names?”

  “The ones who did this to me. The ones who laughed when I fell. The ones who sold me. The ones who said I wasn’t worth anything. Everyone who helped build this world where a number decides whether you deserve to breathe.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment.

  “I want revenge. One by one. I want each of them to feel what it’s like to have their worth ripped from their chest. I want to look into their eyes and see the fear of being erased. I want the System they created... to crumble with them inside it.”

  Kael didn’t answer right away. There was something sad in his expression — not disapproval, but understanding.

  “You’ve changed a lot, Lysa. You’re colder.”

  “I’m more alive.” — The answer came quick, without hesitation.

  She looked at him now. Her eyes glowed with that crimson light that had appeared since she hacked the System. A glow of living code. Of power. But also of pain.

  “What do you want, Kael? When it’s over?”

  He took a long time to answer.

  “Peace. That’s all.”

  Lysa raised an eyebrow.

  “Peace?”

  “Not in the world. In the heart. I want a place where I can breathe without looking over my shoulder. A place where we don’t have to measure our souls with floating numbers.” — He looked up at the ceiling, as if imagining it. — “Maybe a cabin. Maybe a forest. Maybe... to die knowing I did something right.”

  Lysa lowered her gaze.

  “I don’t know if that place exists.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t. But it’s still what I want.”

  She moved closer and sat beside him, watching the way his breath fluctuated between pain and relief.

  “Kael... if I lose myself in all this... if I become nothing but a machine of vengeance...”

  “I’ll pull you back,” he said, firm.

  “And if you’re not here anymore?”

  He smiled, weakly.

  “Then I hope you remember me. Even if it’s just as someone who believed in you... even when you didn’t believe in yourself.”

  She felt a strange tightness in her chest. Not pain. Not fear. But something she couldn’t name. A crack in her armor.

  For a moment, she wasn’t a renegade. Or an anomaly. Or an assassin.

  She was just a girl sitting beside someone who saw beyond the number.

  The next morning, Lysa awoke to the first rays of sun and the sound of distant birds.

  Kael was still asleep, but the fever had broken. She touched his forehead with the back of her hand, relieved.

  She stood slowly, picked up her weapons, and stepped outside the tower. She walked to a small stream nearby, knelt, and washed her face. The water was cold, but invigorating.

  Upon returning to the shelter, she knelt on the packed dirt and made a small note with the tip of her dagger:

  Current Objective:

  – Find Andrel

  – Track the other renegades

  – Defeat the pillars of the System

  – Eliminate the names on the list (1/?)

  Kael (wounded) — recovering

  She crossed another name off mentally. The village monster had been just a pawn. But there were others. Bigger. Crueler. More aware.

  The System’s time was running out.

  And Lysa would not stop.