The Enieyu drove his upturned gauntlets to the ground. A powerful clap of light and destruction washed him away. The ground split. The room splintered and cracked, turning to debris. The storefront windows exploded in a chiming chorus.

Iggy tossed Lenith backward, into the love den. She buried herself in coats, still sticky and wet from intercourse. She thought nothing of it. 

A song of gunfire masked the scream that she unleashed. Lenith stayed flat against the rippling floor. She struggled to regain her sense of place. Her bruised stomach thumped with rekindled pain.

For a brief second, the barrage and skyward shrieking harmonized. Sonic death fell all around. It beat Lenith into submission.

Then, crescendo, and Iggy scooped her into his arms. Regeles Bre was reborn. Made of the same pieces, rearranged like blazing and shredded puzzle pieces. Impact had twisted the clothing poles into infernal contortions.

Scatter-bombs branched across Rugerbin. The first wave obliterated Regeles Bre’s storefront. The store across the walkway evaporated.

Farther away, where the fire had died, the howl of the scatter-bombs competed with the hiss of bullets. The riptide of noise pulled and tugged, dizzying Lenith to the point that she had to push her face to Iggy’s chest. His heartbeat was calm as a hushed stream.

A vacant path remained where the Enieyu had stood.

Iggy tripped. Slammed like a ragdoll onto his side. He rebounded, coddling Lenith. Jutting beams and heaps of rubble fell away under his boots. 

Where the Enieyu had gone, Lenith dared not search.

Iggy passed through the flames and stopped at the tree line. Lenith struggled out of his hold, onto her feet. The vanivani sailed around a second streak of smoke rising from the other side of the mall.

One of the Halibred children lay sprawled out only a few yards away. Shrapnel had torn his throat through to the spine. Curly hair fluttered on the wind. His blank attention fixated on a far-off sign that declared Come back soon! at the parking lot’s threshold. Dark red blood pooled on the sidewalk like a newborn river.

Iggy ran over and turned the boy onto his back. His eyes screamed for help behind a departed glaze.

Lenith knew nothing of the boy beyond his Halibred roots. His name was Svorid. Sonjre? One of those odd, exotic names to be certain. Nothing striking about his features, though. He was quite plain in life and death.

“How’d Enieyu get in without the watchers noticing?” Lenith asked, frantic. She realized the foolishness of her question and raced for a better one. The volunteer watchers who protected them were already dead. “How do we find my dad? How do we find dad? If the Chimayri are here, how the fuck do we find him, Iggy?”

“We meet at the grid.”

Iggy grabbed her by the arm and passed around the rubble toward the encroaching forest. In a fleeting glance between buildings, a black figure careened across the patio. Quick, lithe, she struck the old Halibred woman’s head—despite her knelt pleading—with a levelin. The spiked mallet cracked skull and penetrated brain. The hag flopped over like mush, her head cratered. A cough of dirt rose to swallow her. Lenith felt a flare of regret.

Their feet cut a clean path through shrubberies overgrowing into the trees. The deeper they ran, the heavier their breath. The trees reached higher. The light receded.

They arrived at a clearing between two skinny eri trees. The space had once been a small park. Branches hung overhead, fat with purple eri berries. The so-called grid was more of a statue—a monument erected on a tall pillar for no less than a hundred years. It commemorated the death of a specific, abandoned era.

The white veins of chaling winnow had crept along the pillar, reaching the bottom of the grid’s panels. A single, color-coded prong remained lodged in the grid.

The dwindler and Lenith stopped and searched the foreseeable distance for movement. Nothing.

“What if he forgot? If I forgot, he had to forget, too. It’s his Beliander’s flaring again,” Lenith said. “He thought it was my seventh birthday again last night.”

She pressed her arms against the pillar and sucked in as much oxygen as possible. She could not stop shaking. His distant, forgetful gaze at dinner pierced into her mind. The explosion’s aftershock ricocheted through her bones.

“I had to remind him to eat dawnfeast when it was right in front of him. We expect him to remember some stupid plan from four years ago? Muntk. I’ll never see him again.”

“He’s right there, Len.”

Lenith shoved away from the grid and bowed in relief. Herielt bounded through the thicket with her red and black satchel over his shoulder. He clenched a bloated rucksack.

Once close enough, he tossed the sack to Iggy and swung Lenith’s satchel over for her to take. He wiped the sweat from his brow and coughed in exasperation.

The satchel had three large, square buttons on the front. Stitches of many colors held the original, black shoulder straps together. A majority of the maintenance took place where the strap joined with the bag. It was Lenith’s longest kept possession, on the verge of falling to pieces.

Lenith checked the front pouch where she kept a green journal. She used it to track days and special events.

“Where were you?”

“Oh, Leni-cakes, I’m sorry. I went out while you still slept, collecting any clothes I could for the trip. I—”

Herielt had shoved a stack of clothes into the satchel’s main compartment. Shirts and pants mixed with underwear and socks in a tornado of fabrics. She popped the buttons back into place and hugged her father close. His body quaked under her hold.

“I didn’t have time to grab much. Nothing new, I know. Let’s get moving and put all this behind us,” Herielt said. Guilt pinched his expression.

What he requested was impossible. The Chimayri loved cleaning old messes; Herielt was one of their last. A Graymen who had fought with such conviction that the target over him grew too large.

Their pursuit had destroyed everything in the way, but this attack was a surprise. It was different. Their bloodlust had tapered in recent years. Lenith assumed the Chimayri had moved on.

“What’s the plan this time?” Lenith asked. She once more rested her trembling body against the pillar.

“Keep going ‘til we find peace,” Herielt said. He gave his daughter a kiss on the forehead and brought her in for another hug. The usual ritual. Iggy put an arm around Herielt and gave a firm pat on the back. Lenith refused to let go of her father until time pried them free.

“Time to face the unknown all over again?” Lenith asked.

“I don’t think we’re ever gonna stick somewhere.” Iggy tightened the straps on his backpack until they constricted around his arms.

The prospects of annihilation softened Lenith to Iggy’s existence.

“We’ve become too used to moving. Besides, I got this. Why do I need to stick?” Lenith drummed her fingers against her satchel. She remained at a loss for breath. Her attempt at humor came out desperate between gasps. “What else could I want?”

“You still got that? Through ice, rain, and flame. That thing’ll turn to dust soon enough,” Iggy said.

“And I’ll carry the dust in my pocket.”

Herielt whimpered. Their words distressed him. He took the first step on their search for a new home and fell onto rickety knees. Lenith came to his side as he sobbed against the blades of grass.

With the sleeve of her shirt, she wiped away the stream flowing over his puffy cheeks.

“We can wait. Take your time, dad,” Lenith said. “We’re safe out here.”

If the Chimayri ever caught them, she imagined their disappointment. Herielt was far from the de facto Graymen in his waning years. A sack of compunction, disappointment, and forgotten dreams remained.

“No. It—it can’t wait. Crying won’t stop any of this. We gotta go far away from here. Farther than we’ve ever gone before,” Herielt said. He choked on his breath and mustered the strength to rise once more.

Lenith did everything she could to help him to his feet, as she had done countless times before.

Remorse hammered Herielt’s heart. It reflected in his eyes. She rubbed his back. What else could she do? She might have savored his warmth if she had looked ahead.

A Fury tore through the undergrowth.