The sky was impossibly blue.

  White clouds drifted past the ship in slow, lazy currents, close enough that Paola felt like she could reach out and rake her claws through them. The ground was so far below now that it barely felt real. Mountains had flattened into texture. Forests into dark smudges. The world had shrunk beneath them, distant and quiet.

  Ayla leaned against the railing beside Yucca, both of them steady despite the height, coats tugged gently by the wind.

  “The council will want structure,” Ayla said, voice low, practical. “Timelines. Authority. They’ll expect us to move carefully.”

  Yucca nodded. “They will present themselves as unified. They are not. Councils rarely are.” She adjusted her grip on the railing, glass wings catching the sunlight. “Our task is observation first. Assessment. Intervention only if necessary.”

  Paola hovered a few steps away, pretending very badly not to listen.

  Technically, the job was Yucca’s and Yasmin’s. Official envoys. Magists. Representatives with credentials Helios would respect. Paola and the others were support. Insurance. A contingency no one wanted to name out loud.

  That was fine.

  She just… wanted to know what she was walking into.

  “We’re being kept deliberately uninformed,” Ayla continued. “No political brief beyond the disappearance. No names. No internal tensions.”

  “Intentional,” Yucca agreed. “If we are to give an unbiased assessment, we must arrive without narrative pressure.”

  Paola frowned faintly.

  So they were going in blind.

  On purpose.

  That didn’t sit right. But it made a certain kind of sense. If Helios was already shaping stories, they didn’t want to arrive carrying one.

  A gust of laughter exploded from the other side of the deck.

  “No, no, no,” Yasmin said loudly. “You cannot reroute power like that mid-flight, it’s insane.”

  “It’s efficient,” Fira shot back, goggles perched on her head, hands waving wildly. “You just don’t understand airflow resonance.”

  “I understand explosions,” Yasmin replied. “And that’s how you get one.”

  Fira grinned. “Exactly!”

  “That is not helping your argument!”

  They were nose-to-nose now, both vibrating with energy, voices overlapping as they talked faster and louder, each convinced she was absolutely, undeniably correct. Crew members gave them a wide berth, clearly used to this kind of thing.

  Paola sighed softly, torn.

  On one side, strategy. Unknowns. Helios. A city that refracted truth instead of revealing it.

  On the other, pure, unapologetic chaos in the form of two women arguing about ship mechanics like the sky itself was their playground.

  She leaned back against the railing between both worlds, listening to everything and understanding only one thing for certain.

  Whatever Helios was waiting to show them—

  They weren’t going to arrive quietly.

  Medusa hated trips into the village.

  Not because the walk was long, or because the jungle pressed close along the paths. She hated it because of the silence that followed her. The way voices dipped. The way eyes slid away too late to pretend they hadn’t been staring.

  She was quiet by nature. Shy, even. Words never came easily to her, especially when she could feel them weighing expectations instead of meaning. So she kept them to herself and let her presence speak the language everyone already knew how to hear.

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  She lived apart, as she always had. As they all had.

  Her mother was gone. Off with her father. That was how it always worked. Generation after generation, the pattern repeated itself like a curse pretending to be romance.

  A man would arrive. Tired. Wounded. Usually running from something he couldn’t outrun alone.

  Her grandmother had fallen for one like that. Her mother too.

  They took him in. Fed him. Healed him. Fought the village for him. And eventually, they left. Love, escape, hope—whatever name it wore that generation. Always the same ending.

  Her mother had stayed longer than most. Lived outside the village walls. Took the hatred head-on, standing between Virelya and the thing they feared wearing her skin. She claimed she hated them. They claimed they hated her. It became a lifelong war fought in looks and whispers and slammed doors.

  And then one day, she was gone.

  Leaving Elythra behind.

  The tattoo burned faintly beneath her clothes as she walked, a sensation she’d long since stopped reacting to. She didn’t need to see it to know it was there. It started just below her left breast, curved upward between her cleavage, followed the line of her breast like a living vine, then climbed her throat to stop at the base of her neck.

  Forest green against pale skin.

  And shiny. Always faintly luminous, like it caught light even when there was none.

  Every bearer had one.

  A mark of guardianship. Of punishment. Of being made into something rather than choosing it.

  Elythra carried more than a shield. She carried the weight of every woman before her who had tried and failed to change how the village saw them. Her mother had fought it with anger. With defiance. With open teeth.

  Elythra had done something different.

  She stayed.

  She learned the people’s names. Fixed what broke. Bled quietly. Stood between danger and home without asking for thanks. Slowly, painfully, she bridged a gap no one else had managed to cross.

  And now she carried it all alone.

  She had changed her name. Taken the title. Protected Virelya when Helios would not. And still, no one could see past the stories her mother had left behind. No one could separate the guardian from the lineage.

  Monster before protector. Always.

  So she walked with her head down toward the market, boots silent on wet stone, moss-green hair falling like a curtain around her face.

  Medusa did not expect kindness.

  She only expected to endure.

  Because, to endure was all there was.

  Virelya crouched beneath the jungle canopy like a thing trying not to be noticed. Stone homes pressed low against the earth, their walls wrapped in vines and rootwork that served as both reinforcement and camouflage. Moss clung to everything, glowing faintly blue where crystal veins threaded through soil and stone. The glass pebbles underfoot were jagged here, unpolished, crunching softly with each step. No one walked without sound in Virelya.

  The market was little more than a widened crossroads near the central well. A handful of stalls, patched awnings, crates stacked and restacked as goods came and went. Dried roots. Preserved meats. Cloth dyed in muted greens and browns. Nothing ornate. Nothing extra. Survival laid out plainly.

  Elythra moved through it like a shadow that everyone pretended not to see.

  A child started to run toward her, then stopped short when their mother caught their arm. Averted eyes. Polite distance. Gratitude held behind clenched teeth.

  She stopped at a small stone-front shop near the well, its door reinforced with old timber and crystal rivets. Inside, shelves were lined with jars and bundles, the air heavy with the smell of herbs, oil, and damp earth.

  The man behind the counter looked up as the door creaked open.

  Branik was broad and thick through the middle, his apron stretched tight over a belly earned through years of too many meals eaten too quickly. His beard was greying, trimmed short, his arms scarred from old labor and not-so-old mistakes. His eyes narrowed automatically when she entered—habit more than fear.

  Then he sighed.

  “Morning,” he said gruffly, like he was greeting bad weather instead of a curse given shape. “You’re early.”

  Elythra nodded. “Needed supplies.”

  “Figures.” He turned to fetch a sack without being asked. That alone set him apart. “You’ll want the dried grain again. Roots too. The good ones, not the bitter batch.”

  She inclined her head in thanks.

  He worked while he talked, filling the counter with familiar items. Dried grain. Bundled herbs. A small vial of oil. Bandages. Salt.

  “You keep goin’ through this stuff faster lately,” Branik muttered. “Means you’re busy.”

  Elythra didn’t answer.

  He cleared his throat. “Bandits again. Traders caught outside the palisade two days ago. You probably heard.”

  “I handled it,” she said softly.

  He paused, just for a moment. Not long enough to be dramatic. Long enough to acknowledge.

  “…Course you did.”

  His gaze flicked up, met hers briefly, then slid away. Respect, yes. But worn thin by years of stories he couldn’t quite forget. “Still,” he added, “there’s been more of ’em. Passing through. Bold ones. Like they think someone else is stirrin’ trouble.”

  She gathered the items into a cloth bag. “I’ll be ready.”

  Branik snorted. “I know. That’s the problem.”

  He hesitated, then pushed a small bundle across the counter. Extra bandages. Better quality. “On the house.”

  Elythra stiffened. “You don’t—”

  “Don’t argue,” he grumbled. “You bleed so we don’t. That’s worth somethin’, even if the others won’t say it.”

  She paused, then nodded. “Thank you.”

  The words were quiet. Earnest.

  Branik waved a hand like he didn’t want to hear it. “Just don’t go dyin’ on me. Bad for business.”

  She shouldered the bag and turned toward the door.

  “Elythra,” he said suddenly.

  She stopped.

  “…Stay safe,” he added, eyes on the counter.

  She didn’t smile. But her voice, when it came, was warm.

  “I will.”

  Then she was gone, the door creaking shut behind her, leaving Branik staring after her with an expression he would never name.

  Outside, Virelya watched her pass in silence.