The Scar did not stay still.
By the second week, Aero had learned that nothing in the wasteland was lifeless—not really. The land breathed. The rocks watched. The dust whispered. And somewhere in the emptiness, things hunted.
He had no food. No water. No fire to ward off the beasts that came crawling out at night, eyes gleaming like polished bone.
He survived anyway.
He listened to the pulse beneath the ground—the Resonance. When he moved with it, plants bloomed from the earth, just enough to feed him. When he sank into it, his wounds knit closed. Slowly. Painfully. But they healed. When he screamed into the wind, it screamed back.
He didn't know if it was magic.
It didn't matter.
It was alive. And so was he.
It happened on the twelfth night.
He was tracing a dead canyon, fingers brushing the cracked stone wall, when he felt it—wrongness. A disturbance in the flow. A noise too clean for the Scar.
Steel. Screaming. Wind.
Aero dropped flat to the ground. His instincts—sharpened by the wasteland—screamed louder than any voice.
Then he saw her.
A figure tearing across the canyon floor. Hair wild and gold-red, eyes flashing like a storm trapped in a bottle. Blood streaked her legs. Her arms were bare. Her knuckles torn. Around her neck, a slave collar—shattered.
Aero blinked.
She wasn't running.
She was laughing.
Behind her, three riders on skimmers surged forward—men in black glass armor, wielding nets and forked spears crackling with wind enchantments.
Slavers.Stormguard.
She skidded to a stop atop a rise of rock. Her chest heaved. She turned, raised her middle finger high, and screamed—
"Come on then, you overgrown wind-farts! You want your property back? Come get me!"
The canyon echoed with wind and fury.
The men didn't hesitate. The first one lunged—
She met him mid-leap.
Her palm glowed as she slammed it into his chest. Not fire. Not light.
Wind.
It howled from her bones, blasting the man backward into the canyon wall with a sickening crunch. His skimmer shattered on impact. The dust scattered.
The second was smarter. He circled, raised his net. Energy crackled around the bindings—enchanted thread that would slice skin like blades.
Aero's breath caught.
But the girl didn't dodge.
She jumped into it.
The net wrapped around her—and the moment it touched her skin, she twisted, spinning with the storm. Wind exploded outward in a spiral. The threads whipped free, and she hurled them back like a whip, slashing the rider's face clean open.
Blood arced.
The third rider hesitated.
The girl's grin widened. "Oh. You're smarter than the rest."
She cracked her knuckles.
Aero could feel the air pressure build—the Resonance bending, responding to her heartbeat.
That's when the third man whistled.
And Aero heard it—the fifth presence. Hidden. A sniper, concealed above the canyon.
A net-cannon. Aimed directly at her back.
She didn't see it.
But Aero did.
He didn't think. He didn't choose.
The Resonance chose for him.
He raised his hand—and the ground moved.
Roots shot up from the canyon wall, twisting like spears. They snapped the projectile midair before it could fire. The force was enough to shake the ledge and send the hidden sniper tumbling down.
The girl spun around.
Their eyes met.
Her gaze narrowed. "Who the hell—?"
Then the third rider attacked.
She moved like lightning—elbow to throat, wind-charged heel to the ribs, flipping him off the skimmer before he could scream. His head hit stone with a dull thud.
Silence fell.
Dust settled.
The only sound left was her breath and Aero's heart beating.
She stood over the broken men, panting, wild-haired and bleeding, eyes locked on him.
Slowly, she approached.
Aero didn't move.
She stopped three feet from him, squinted, then crossed her arms.
"You don't look like a Stormguard."
"I'm not."
"You don't look like a slaver either."
"I'm not that either."
She gestured to the roots still writhing beside him. "You a mage?"
He hesitated. "...No."
"Huh." She tilted her head. "Weird."
Silence stretched again. The canyon wind whistled.
Then she stuck out her hand.
"Name's Mica. Escaped slave. Current goddess of chaos. You?"
Aero looked at the hand.
No judgment. No fear. No hesitation. She didn't care about his past.
She just saw a boy who saved her.
He took her hand.
"Aero," he said quietly. "Exiled noble. Mage without magic."
She grinned. "Sounds dramatic. I like it."
That night, they camped beneath the canyon arch.
Mica told stories—loud, wild, inappropriate stories full of blood and laughter. She danced with the wind and made crude jokes about the guards who used to beat her. When she saw Aero flinch, she only laughed harder.
"Don't get all quiet now," she said, tossing him a dried fruit she'd stolen from one of the skimmers. "You're not the only broken toy in this sandbox."
He looked up. "You don't act like someone who was… hurt."
"Oh, I was," she said cheerfully. "Still am. But I figure if I act like I'm free long enough… maybe someday, I'll believe it."
Aero looked into the fireless pit between them. "They told me I had no value without flame. That I was cursed."
"Then they're idiots," she said instantly. "You're breathing. That's proof you're worth something."
He looked at her.
She smiled—not the manic grin of a girl high on revenge, but something warmer. Sadder. Real.
"Trust me, Aero. Fire burns out. But we? We keep going."
That night, the Scar whispered again.
And for the first time…Aero wasn't listening alone.