Rokhan and Warren had spent most of the day building fragnts, both for themselves and for everyone else in the squad. Their focus locked so tightly onto the work that hours vanished without either of them noticing, each movent turning into a quiet routine of precision and instinct. They shifted from fragnt to fragnt with a rhythm that felt almost ditative, threading micro-marker flows, calibrating structural points, shaping internal connectors, and refining the fragnts with a level of intensity that left no space for conversation. It was the kind of work that consud a person from the inside out, where the world narrowed to the glow of the loom cutting into fragnts, the soft humming background pulse, and the steady beating awareness of their own breath. If House had not dimd the room lights twice to remind them of the passing day, neither of them would have known that ti existed at all.
The quiet of the workshop shattered when Elian finally kicked in the door, the impact echoing through the room like soone slapping a tal sheet with both hands. It was impressive, given that Warren had bolted the door shut earlier specifically to keep people out. Elian stumbled in with his usual mix of irritation and disbelief, rubbing his forehead as if they were the cause of a migraine he had been cultivating for hours.
"I'm not paying for this," Elian said as he looked between them. "I've been knocking for like hour and a half. You two, how long until you're finished whatever it is you're doing right now? You're not starting another project. We need you two out there because we all need to go down into the red and start pushing the Broken that are down there because of the Tunnelers into the deadfalls we set up. This is not optional."
Warren finally tore his gaze away from the fragnt on the bench, eyes bleary from focusing too hard. "Give another day and we'll be out there." He said it like soone giving a reasonable request, entirely unaware of how outrageous it sounded.
Elian stared at him. Blinked once. Then again. His voice cracked upward. "Did you just say another day?" He clearly expected a bad answer, but not one that terrible.
Elian stepped back toward the hall and raised his voice. "House, You can send in Roundy now."
The words hit Warren like an electric jolt. His eyes went wide, the panic imdiate and genuine. "Oh, no, no, no, it's okay. Rokhan, we can finish this last one up, right? Then we’ll go out and help. We’ll go out right now. It’s fine."
Rokhan froze, then slowly turned his head toward the doorway as if expecting to see Roundy already floating in. His voice was tight. "Yeah. Okay. Yes. We’re going. We’re definitely going." The two hurried to complete their work, but each clatter, each shift of the floorboards, each faint echo of movent from the hallway made them flinch. Fear of Roundy dragging their broken corpses out by their ankles was more than enough motivation to not linger longer than necessary.
When they finally finished the last fragnt, they collected every completed one with the care of n carrying precious artifacts. The mont they stepped into the hallway, Warren asked, "House, where did everyone go?"
Both he and Rokhan paused when they realized how quiet the place was. The house was completely empty, unnervingly so, and even Roundy was nowhere to be seen. Warren exhaled in relief.
House answered, "Everyone is out in the courtyard. I believe we renad the park to a courtyard as it is more of a landing area now rather than a park, especially with the Boltfire taking up half of it."
"That's fair," Warren said. "Okay, so everybody's in the courtyard. When you say everybody, do you an all of our people?"
"I an everyone from Mara. The entire city is gathered," House replied.
Warren stopped walking. "How is everybody fitting in here?"
"It is very tightly packed," House said. "There are people who are bordering the house's periter. I have had to warn them multiple tis with the fla turrets and the needle injectors. No one has breached, but just be warned, the whole city is waiting for your orders."
Warren stepped outside and stopped when he saw them. All of them. A living sea of bodies packed into the courtyard so tightly that the edges of the crowd spilled against the periter warnings House had set. The pressure of so many people in one place hit him like a wave. Faces blurred and sharpened as his eyes moved through the mass. People he had fought beside. People he had saved. People he had believed dead until today. People he had once argued with, worked beside, and bled with when they tore Mara loose from the Green Zone’s grip and crushed the one who thought he owned them. The weight of recognition settled in his chest as he realized how many of them, he could still rember by na.
Survivors who had crawled out of the ruins with nothing but scraps. Tribesn who had once lived in drift camps on the outskirts. Scavs who had tunneled through collapsed infrastructure for food and wire. Forr Green who had chosen to break from the Houses that starved them. Every last one of them now citizens of Mara. The city Warren had claid, rebuilt, defended, and in many ways resurrected.
He crossed toward Wren and Belthea. His son spotted him instantly and reached out with both hands, the little fingers grabbing for Warren’s shirt before he even made it close enough to pick him up. Warren tickled his belly, earning a bright, hiccuping giggle that cut straight through the tension hanging over the crowd. For one small mont, the noise softened, and he let himself enjoy the weight of his child’s laugh.
Then Florence forced her way through a knot of people and slapped the back of Warren’s head so hard his ears rang. The sound cracked loud enough that several nearby flinched.
Warren stared at her. "Why did you need to slap ?"
"Because I’ve been aning to slap you for a while now," Florence said. "And this felt like a good ti since everyone gets to see do it. Also tells them you’re human and not above mistakes. Felt satisfying."
Warren blinked at her, one brow rising. "Okay, I an... sure. So, what are we doing now?"
Florence folded her arms with a long breath. "We’re going down to the red to gather up all the Broken and push them out into the bog so they fall into the deadfalls. The whole plan you were supposed to rember before you buried yourself in your work for two hours longer than you said you would."
Warren opened his mouth to answer, but a murmur rippled through the crowd. A shift. A tightening. The kind of movent that made Warren straighten imdiately. Two n stepped forward from the second row. Warren recognized them at once. Forr Green Zone citizens and others he did not recognize. Their faces were twisted with a mix of hatred, fanaticism, and sothing hollow behind the eyes.
They shouted, "Death to the ghost!" as they lifted lances.
Warren inhaled sharply, but there was no ti to close the gap.
One of them triggered an explosive charge strapped under his coat.
The blast ripped the courtyard apart. Bodies launched backward as a shockwave thundered through the space. The front ranks collapsed under the pressure, screams rising in raw, panicked bursts as dust and smoke turned the air thick. Children shrieked. Adults dropped, so dragging others to the ground. The shockwave hit Warren like a punch, forcing him to shield Wren and Belthea as the chaos surged. People stumbled. People fell. The world dissolved into a violent tangle of noise, ash, and motion as the courtyard erupted into mayhem.
It did not take long for the rebels, or whatever they were, to be cut down. Chaos tore through the courtyard, but the crowd responded with a ferocity born from survival, grief, and the instinct to protect what little they had rebuilt. These attackers had not expected resistance, not from the people they ant to slaughter. Maybe they had hoped confusion would shield them. Maybe they had marched here wanting to die in a blaze of glory. Warren could not decide which thought enraged him more.
He stood frozen in the aftermath, staring at the devastation sared across stone and soil. Friends. Family. Loved ones. Warriors. Children. Elders. People he had lived alongside and fought beside. People whose nas were carved into the mory of Mara itself. Three separate explosions had ripped through the crowd, tearing jagged wounds through the mass of bodies. The gouges left behind were wide enough to swallow entire households, the ground scorched and littered with limbs, broken weapons, shattered ornants, and the still forms of those who had not survived the blasts.
Warren dropped to his knees as a rush of dust and smoke rolled past him. Ernala stood over the mangled body of Muk-Tah, her face blank in the way only soone who had lost too much too fast could manage. Muk-Tah had been one of the strongest n Warren had ever known. The chieftain of the Boneway. The greatest of the tribal leaders. The man who had adopted Warren into his tribe, calling him kin after Warren defeated his son in five on one combat. Now the man who once seed immovable lay broken, blood pooling beneath him. Warren had not even had the chance to speak to him today. Not even a mont.
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Sylen knelt nearby, her arm twisted at a brutal angle and bleeding heavily, but still conscious, still breathing. She had survived only because she had thrown herself over Johanna, the guard from the bazaar. Johanna’s broken form lay beneath her, shielded from the blast by Sylen’s body. Tamsin sat a few feet away, shock hollowing his expression as he stared at the place where both of his legs had been only monts before. Around them were tribesn Warren had grown up with, scavs he had seen barter in the bazaar, mbers of the forr Green who had sworn loyalty to Mara. Many of them lay still. Too still.
The weight of the loss pressed into Warren’s chest until his breath ca ragged. The air itself tasted like grief, tallic and thick. He could feel panic rising through the survivors, a ripple of frantic energy building beneath the raw silence.
Warren pushed himself upright, his fists clenching so tightly his knuckles cracked. Rage surged through him like a tide. "Where are the bodies of the ones who did this?" he asked, his voice low, trembling with a force that made even those standing farthest away fall silent. It was the kind of voice stone would make if it could scream.
Batu, Cassian, and several others dragged the traitors forward, their expressions a mix of fury, disgust, and horror. The rebels, insurgents, cultists, traitors, whatever na fit, were hauled in a line, their bodies bruised and battered from the crowd’s retaliation. Warren stared down at them, jaw tight. So were strangers, n who were clearly not from Mara, with accents and clothes that didn’t fit anything he recognized.
But so were not strangers.
There were tribesn among them. Forr Green. People who had chosen to stand with Mara when the city changed hands. People Warren had spoken to, trusted, fought beside.
And two faces shattered sothing inside him.
Senn and Cu-Tal.
Both proud. Both loyal to Muk-Tah. Both sworn as Sons of Muk-Tah. Their loyalty had never wavered, or so Warren believed. Senn, the newest among them, had shown such promise, such fierce dedication. Warren had trusted her. He had believed she would rise to greatness.
Now she lay dead among the traitors she had chosen to stand beside.
The sight twisted Warren’s stomach until he felt sick.
He stared at their bodies, vision blurring with heat and rage.
"How did no one stop this?" Warren scread. The sound tore out of him raw, carrying fury, grief, betrayal, and the weight of everything he had just lost. His voice rang across the courtyard, echoing against stone, shaking even those who had not seen what he had seen.
No one answered. The silence itself felt like another wound.
Warren stood over the bodies as the courtyard settled into a heavy, nauseating silence. Smoke drifted low across the ground, mixing with the dust still hanging in the air from the explosion. The survivors kept a cautious distance, most of them frozen in place, too stunned to process what they were seeing. A few whispered prayers. Others sat on the ground with their heads in their hands. Children clung to adults who were barely holding themselves together. The courtyard that had been filled with anticipation only hours earlier now felt like a burial pit.
Warren crouched beside one of the dead attackers. His hands hovered over the corpse, but he did not touch it. Sothing in the man’s face pushed at an old mory, sothing he had hoped never to see again. Not unnatural. Not Broken. Not molded by nanites or altered by disease. Sothing old. Sothing real. Sothing that belonged to the darkest corners of Mara’s past.
Car stepped up beside him, boots crunching over shattered stone. His artificial eye whirred as it tuned itself, scanning the corpse from head to toe with cold precision. He leaned in, squinting, then clicked his tongue in disgust.
"Those pieces of shit are Flesh Eaters," Car said. "Look at the stress lines. Around the jaw. Under the eyes. That twitch pattern in the lips. You only get that when you live off your own species. We thought we purged all of them. Clearly we missed a nest."
Warren leaned closer, forcing himself to take in every detail. The man’s face was drawn so tightly the skin looked brittle. His cheeks were sunken, bone jutting forward as if trying to break through. Deep creases ran along the jawline, not from age but from the involuntary spasms that ca with prion decay. The eyes were glassy and unfocused. The gums were darkened almost to black. His teeth were chipped, ground flat in places, and a few were missing entirely.
Then Warren caught the sll. A faint, coppery sweetness layered with rot and sothing else. Sothing human in the worst way.
Pure biological decay from eating only their own kind.
Car pointed to another corpse. "See the tremor lines on that one’s neck? And the gray splotches on the skin? That’s heavy tal buildup. They’ve been recycling whatever was in the bodies they ate. Lead. rcury. Everything their victims carried, they carried too. Their organs are probably half mush by now."
Warren swallowed hard. His stomach twisted. "How long have they been hiding?"
"Long enough to get that look," Car said. "Long enough that soone has been feeding them. And long enough that we should have noticed."
Warren stared at the bodies, trying to steady his breath. The rage that had been boiling since the blast curled tight in his chest until it felt like it might break through his skin.
Zal-Raan approached slowly, his expression carved from stone. He ca to stand beside the bodies of Senn and Cu-Tal, both laid out with the others. He looked down at them, jaw tightening, then spoke in a low voice.
"I think those two were involved in Ohra’s death," Zal-Raan said. "The timing. The way they acted afterward. I never liked the story about how Ohra betrayed us. I helped raise him. He was not the kind to seek out the Green for anything. He was loyal to the Boneway until the day he died."
Warren felt the words like a knife slipping under his ribs. He stared at Senn’s face, then Cu-Tal’s, feeling sothing inside him fracture. Ohra’s death had cut deep when it happened. Now the old wound reopened with brutal clarity.
The pieces were falling into place.
Flesh Eaters hiding inside his city. Traitors working beside them. Plots seeded during the fall of the Warlord. Enemies he thought long dead crawling out from the rot.
Warren rose slowly. His hands shook. His breath ca sharp and uneven. The courtyard tilted, not from dizziness, but from the weight of realization.
This was not just an attack. This was not fearmongering or desperation.
This was a rot hiding in the bones of Mara.
A rot that had survived purges, executions, revolts, and the reshaping of a city.
Warren looked over the bodies one more ti. His jaw tightened until his teeth hurt.
He would tear this out, root and stem, no matter how deep it had grown.
Warren looked around as Wren and the healers moved from person to person, patching those who could be saved and stabilizing those who could not stand on their own. The courtyard had beco a triage ground, filled with the low murmur of pain, the crackle of fires still dying down, and the soft clatter of dical tools. Tamsin would need his legs regrown. It was possible, but the shock of it, and the shock of losing Johanna, had hollowed him. Warren could see it in his eyes, the look of a man whose spirit had cracked so deeply it might never fully nd. There was a lost person staring back at him, the depth of his soul drawn shallow by pain, grief, and disbelief.
Warren forced himself to move. He walked toward Ernala, Nanuk, and Deanna, his steps slow and deliberate as if the air itself had thickened around him. Nanuk held his father’s head in his lap, Muk-Tah’s glassy eyes staring silently up at the sky as though he were looking for sothing beyond reach. Nanuk wept without sound, his shoulders trembling as he cradled the man who had led their people for years. Ernala stood beside him, one hand on Nanuk’s back, the other gripping her spear so tightly her knuckles had turned bone white. Deanna knelt nearby, her eyes unfocused, as if trying to understand how a pillar of their world could vanish so suddenly.
Car stood over all three of them with Grix and Florence at his side, their faces hard and pale. Muk-Tah had not only been a leader, he had been a brother to Car. They had grown up in the tribes together, shared hunts, shared battles, and shared losses long before the fall of Mara. As Muk-Tah had been chieftain to Warren and the others among the Sons of Muk-Tah, so had Kal-Gish been chieftain to Car and to Muk-Tah himself. The tribal lines were knotted and deep, binding their loyalties across decades. The loss of Muk-Tah tore through all of them like a spear to the heart.
There had been so much happening. They had prepared for a siege. They had prepared for a war. They had been ready for Broken swarms, for Princedom raids, for Neuman ambushes, for any threat that ca from beyond their walls. But they had not prepared for traitors hidden among their own people. The realization pressed against Warren’s ribs like a tightening vise, squeezing until every breath felt sharp.
The world felt like it was collapsing around him, piece by piece, as if soone had started pulling stones out from the foundations of his life. He knew that if he let it continue to crumble, they would lose everything. The thought coiled through his mind in a way he did not want to admit. Maybe they could run. Maybe they could take the strongest and leave Mara behind. Abandon the city, abandon the hundreds who looked to him for strength. Flee into the world and survive. Maybe sowhere else he could still beco a god. Maybe he could grow powerful enough that no one would ever touch him or those he cared for again.
But would any of that be worth it? He did not know. He could not imagine the weight of that decision without feeling sick.
The instructors were gone. Vanished. They had slipped away during one of the brief monts Warren had not been paying attention. Maybe it had been when he was in the forge with Rokhan crafting fragnts. Maybe it was during his conversation with his monsters in the morning. Warren could not be sure. But the traitors had chosen this exact mont for a reason. It had been the one ti they knew the most powerful warriors of Mara were scattered or otherwise unable to react. They had tid their attack with chilling precision.
It had been a good plan. Warren could admit that. Cold, calculated, and opportunistic. They had expected chaos to shield them. They had expected fear to stifle resistance. They had expected their strike to land and continue landing, unchallenged.
What they had not expected was the people of Mara cutting them down before they could take another breath. The citizens, the tribesn, the forr Green, the scavs, the children of a broken city, they had risen together, turning on the attackers with a fury born from survival, unity, and the refusal to fall again.
Warren looked across the field of bodies, at the ruined courtyard, at the dead and the dying, and he wondered who had orchestrated all of this. Who had fed the Flesh Eaters for months. Who had convinced Senn and Cu-Tal to betray their own. Who had planted these seeds of rot. Who had designed a plan this cruel, this patient, this precise.
Soone had begun this long before today. Soone had been waiting, hidden in the cracks of Mara’s rebirth. Soone had been watching for the mont the city would let its guard down.
And Warren understood that this was only the beginning.
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