The silence that fell upon the clearing was a physical weight, heavier than the fight itself. It was a listening, watching silence, punctuated only by the ragged tear of Marco's breathing. The fire he had summoned was gone, leaving the mountain air thick with the cloying, unnatural scents of ozone and scorched earth, and something else beneath it—a coppery, alien smell that clung to the back of the throat.
Marco stared at the dark, viscous fluid sizzling on the moss where the creature had fallen, his knuckles white where he gripped his arms. The adrenaline that had turned fire into an extension of his will had drained away, leaving a hollow tremor in its wake. Beside him, Tala stood frozen, his small hands still held slightly aloft, as if he feared the earth might betray him again if he relaxed.
From the cabin doorway, Eloisa's voice was a fragile whisper. "Is it… over?".
She clutched Dana's carrier so tightly her fingers ached, her gaze fixed on the exhausted figures of her friends. She had seen it all from her prison of safety—Marco, wreathed in desperate flame; Tala, the very ground rising to his defense. They had fought. They had bled. And she had watched.
A wave of frustration so powerful it made her dizzy washed over her. It was a bitter, useless anger directed entirely at herself. Her heart hammered against her ribs, its erratic rhythm a cruel taunt—a constant, thudding reminder of a power she couldn't grasp. It had flared once, in the sterile quiet of a hospital room when death had come for her, a burst of impossible energy born from a failing heart. But now, when her friends were in danger, there was nothing. She was just a girl with a faulty heartbeat, a liability to be sheltered.
Dana meowed softly inside the carrier, and the simple sound nearly broke her. Even her cat was just a cat. Not a guardian. Not a familiar. Just another fragile thing she was responsible for. She felt the sting of tears and angrily blinked them away. She would not cry. She would not be the weak one. But the feeling of being utterly useless was a poison, seeping into the hollow spaces inside her.
"Stay there, Eloisa," Geneva commanded, her voice cutting through the quiet with cold authority.
Her gaze swept the treeline, a dark, unbroken wall of shadows that felt deeper and more menacing than before. Marco, needing to do something other than stand and shake, finally broke the spell. "Geneva," he said, his voice strained. "What were they? What is 'The Eye'?"
Geneva's jaw tightened. She gestured for them to move back toward the dying embers of their fire. The grim set of her face told them this was not a story with a happy ending.
"The Eye of Ra," she began, her voice low and graveled with memory. "They're an organization. Ancient. They see themselves as guardians of balance, but what they really are is executioners. They believe people like us—the Awakened—are a plague. A disruption to the natural order that must be contained or… cleansed."
She stared into the coals, but her eyes were seeing a different time, a different place. "They've hunted us before. After the lightning strike in 1986, my generation… we thought the government was our only enemy. We were wrong. Soldiers you can understand. You can fight them, you can hide from them. The Eye is different. They sent things like… like that." She gestured vaguely at the stained patch of moss. "They knew our abilities, knew our weaknesses. They moved through the shadows. We lost people. Good people, who were just trying to survive."
The pieces were slotting together with horrifying clarity in her mind. The levitating man in Manila, marked by their invisible crest. The targeted, unnatural predators sent here. They weren't just being hidden from; they were being actively hunted. And the thought solidified a deeper, more immediate dread. Her source of information. Her connection to the wider network.
"Kayoko," she whispered, her eyes closing as she tried to reach for the faint, clairvoyant thread that had connected them. For weeks, it had been a subtle pressure in the back of her mind, a whisper on the edge of hearing. Now, there was nothing. Only a profound and terrifying silence, a static-filled void where a voice should have been.
Her eyes snapped open, a new panic erasing the weariness from her face. "They found us because they found her. Kayoko's connection… it's gone."
As the last word left her lips, a voice slammed into her mind. It was not Kayoko's gentle, echoing tone. This was a razor blade, sharp, cold, and dripping with a cynical weariness that Geneva knew all too well.
Kayoko's been moved. They have her. They're blocking her. You're all exposed.
Geneva staggered, her hand flying to her temple as a gasp escaped her lips. The mental intrusion was a physical violation, a brutal shove against the walls of her consciousness.
Marco took a step toward her. "Geneva? What is it?"
"Lara," Geneva spat the name like a curse.
The voice returned, laced with irritation. I don't have time for your grudges, Geneva Dela Cruz. With the girl from Osaka offline, you're the only one I could reach with a strong enough mind to handle the contact. An old friend is coming. Get ready to move. Now.
The connection was severed as abruptly as it began, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. Before Geneva could explain, before Marco could ask another question, the air in the center of the clearing began to shimmer. It warped like heat off summer asphalt, a small pocket of the world bending in on itself. A faint hum vibrated through the ground, and then, with a silent rush of displaced air, two figures resolved out of the distortion.
A man, tall and lean, with short-cropped black hair and eyes that held the alert calm of a seasoned soldier. Beside him, perched on his shoulder, was a Taiwan blue magpie, its feathers a stunning royal blue, its gaze unnervingly intelligent.
Geneva's breath caught. The face was older, etched with lines that hadn't been there the last time she'd seen him, but it was unmistakably him.
"Jian," she breathed.
Jian Wei's eyes found hers, and a flicker of recognition, of shared history, passed between them. "Geneva. Lara sent me. We don't have time for a reunion. We have to leave." He surveyed their small, battered group. "Martial Law is a noose tightening around this whole country. Borders are locked down everywhere else. My way is the only way out. We're going to Japan. We're going to get your clairvoyant back."
The sheer impossibility of the statement hung in the air. But the man had just appeared out of thin air. The group scrambled into motion, a sudden, desperate energy seizing them. They had few possessions to gather—a worn blanket, a half-empty water canteen, the small bag of medical supplies.
As they prepared, Jian's magpie hopped from his shoulder to a low-hanging branch, tilting its head. Mavian, Marco's pigeon, cooed nervously from his own perch on a pack, while Bayu, Tala's monkey, chattered from the shadows of a balete tree.
Tala, his fear momentarily forgotten, stared at the magpie in wonder. "She's beautiful," he said, his voice soft. "What's her name?"
A rare, small smile touched Jian's lips. "Lan," he said.
The name, meaning blue, was simple, fitting. Geneva watched the brief exchange, her gaze drifting over the scene. Jian and his calm, watchful Lan. Marco and his restless, loyal Mavian. Tala and his wild, protective Bayu. A tableau of bonds forged in the heart of the storm.
And the image was a key, unlocking a door in her memory she had long ago barricaded. A searing pain, sharp and sudden, lanced through her chest. Gerald. The name was a ghost on her tongue. It wasn't a specific memory of his death, not the horror of it, but the aching void of his absence. She could almost feel the phantom weight of his head on her lap, the warmth of his fur, the unwavering trust in his eyes. He was her anchor, her familiar, her price for a battle she hadn't known she was fighting.
She flinched, her face hardening into a mask of cold resolve. She shoved the memory down into the dark, locking the door behind it. There was no time for grief. Grief was a luxury for people who weren't at war.
"We can't go straight to Japan," she announced, her voice steady and firm, betraying none of the turmoil within. "We need supplies. Weapons. Things I have stored. We have to go to Manila first. My home."
Jian met her gaze and nodded, understanding the unspoken need. A soldier always needed their armory. "Give me the image," he said. "Clear and precise. I have to see it in your mind to take us there."
He moved to the center of the group, placing a steadying hand on Eloisa's shoulder. Marco pulled Tala close. Geneva took a deep, centering breath, the image of her small, fortified apartment in Sampaloc rising in her mind—every cracked tile, every locked cabinet, every hidden escape route.
The air around them began to hum again, the world at the edges of their vision starting to blur and distort. They were leaving the deceptive safety of the mountain, trading one kind of danger for another. The hunt was on, and for the first time since it began, they were finally going on the offensive.