The first day traveling with Luca felt like carrying an extra pack,one that talked incessantly, stumbled over every possible obstacle, asked questions no one had energy to answer, and somehow made everything both impossibly lighter and unbearably heavier at the same time.
We left the castle's shadow behind as quickly as our battered bodies would allow, pushing ourselves to put as many miles as possible between us and that place of stone and sin and blasphemy. Nobody wanted to spend another night anywhere near Azael's fortress. The thought alone was enough to keep us moving despite the pain radiating from a dozen different injuries.
The terrain was unforgiving,cracked earth that had been split and reformed countless times by whatever cataclysm had broken the world, giving way to rolling hills dotted with the skeletal remains of pre-Fall structures. Buildings reduced to foundations and the occasional standing wall, half-buried under decades of accumulated dust and debris, strangled by those same thorny, purple-black vines we'd seen choking Azael's castle. Dead things growing on dead things, a monument to entropy.
Every step was a negotiation with pain.
My broken wrist throbbed with each jolt of movement, sending sharp spikes up my arm that made my vision gray at the edges. The makeshift splint Amie had fashioned did its best to stabilize the break, but walking,especially over uneven ground,sent vibrations through my whole arm that made the bone fragments grind together. I learned quickly to cradle it against my chest, minimizing movement, though that threw off my balance and made me stumble more than I wanted to admit.
Nyx limped beside me, her left wing still tender despite the rapid healing. She could fold it against her back now without the sharp gasps of pain that had marked the first hours after our fight with Azael, but I saw her wince when the wind caught it wrong or when she had to adjust her balance. The membrane looked almost normal,the translucent patches of new growth had thickened and darkened until they were nearly indistinguishable from the rest,but the underlying structure was still knitting itself back together. Bones and muscle and all the complex architecture required for flight, healing at a pace that would have been miraculous for a human but was apparently standard for Xenophores.
Xeno walked point as always, ranging ahead of the group with his shovel resting against his shoulder, eyes,or whatever lay behind that blindfold,constantly scanning for threats. His gait was steady, controlled, showing none of the exhaustion the rest of us felt. He'd taken the worst of Azael's initial assault, been thrown into a pillar hard enough to crack stone, and yet he moved like he was fresh and rested. Whatever Xeno was,whatever the blindfold hid,it wasn't entirely human. Couldn't be.
Lira leaned on Kai when she thought no one was looking, which was most of the time given how well they tried to hide it. Her cracked ribs made deep breathing impossible, each inhalation carefully shallow and controlled, avoiding the expansion that would make the broken bones grind together. The wrapping Amie had applied helped, compressing the injury, but there was no hiding the pallor of her face or the way she moved in careful, measured steps that minimized jarring. Her broken wrist was splinted like mine, though she at least had years of combat training that let her maintain better balance one-handed than I could manage.
Kai supported her weight with one arm wrapped around her waist, trying to make it look casual, like he was just walking close rather than literally keeping her upright. His right shoulder was a mess,swollen to nearly twice its normal size, bruised deep purple verging on black, the joint probably partially dislocated during his fight with the puppets and forced back into place through sheer determination. Every time he moved that arm I saw him suppress a wince, jaw tightening with the effort of not showing pain.
Amie brought up the rear alongside Kael, both of them moving with the stiffness that came from injuries not quite incapacitating but definitely limiting. Her left arm was wrapped in bandaging torn from someone's spare shirt, the gash she'd taken fighting that laboratory Xenophore still seeping blood despite her attempts at field dressing. The fabric was stained dark, fresh red mixing with older brown, and I knew from experience that meant the wound kept reopening with movement. Kael's chest bore four parallel claw marks visible through his torn shirt,angry red lines scabbed over but still weeping clear fluid, the kind of injury that would scar badly if it even healed properly.
And then there was Luca.
He walked at the very back most of the time,trailing behind Amie and Kael like a stray puppy who'd attached himself to a pack and wasn't quite sure if he was welcome,with his violin case slung over his shoulder by its worn leather strap. The case bumped against his hip with each step, and he kept one hand on it constantly, fingers drumming nervous patterns against the leather, checking and rechecking that it was secure.
And he talked.
Gods, did he talk.
"So, uh, how long have you all been traveling together exactly? You seem really, really close. Like a family or something. That's nice. Really nice. The world ends and you find family anyway. That's beautiful, actually, when you think about it. Is it weird that I think that's beautiful? That's probably weird. I'm making it weird again, aren't I? Oh gods, is that a crack in the ground? Is that natural or is that a trap? Are we going to fall in? I really don't want to fall in. Falling is bad. I fell once when I was a kid and broke my arm and it hurt for weeks and—"
The nervous chatter was constant, filling the silence with a stream-of-consciousness monologue that seemed designed to prevent his own thoughts from catching up with him. Every fear vocalized. Every concern shared whether we wanted to hear it or not. Every observation announced to the world.
It should have been annoying.
It was *definitely* exhausting.
But there was something almost comforting about it too,proof that someone still had enough energy to worry about small things, to fear mundane dangers, to think beyond just the next step and the next breath.
"—and I'm not really built for this kind of travel, you know? I'm a musician. I have soft hands. See?" He held up his hands as if we were all watching, which we weren't. "These are hands meant for violin strings, not,not hiking through post-apocalyptic wastelands. Is this a wasteland? It feels like a wasteland. Very wasteland-y. Lots of waste. Lots of land. Oh gods, what if we run out of water? Do we have water? Please tell me we have—"
He tripped.
Of course he tripped.
His foot caught on something,a loose rock, maybe, or a root from one of those dead vines,and his legs tangled in a way that should have been impossible, that defied basic physics and motor control. He windmilled his arms wildly, violin case swinging, voice rising in a yelp of pure panic as momentum carried him forward.
Forward and sideways, body twisting mid-fall in a motion that looked completely uncontrolled.
He hit the ground hard on his right side, violin case clattering but miraculously undamaged, breath exploding from his lungs in a loud *oof*.
Behind him, with a soft rumble like distant thunder, the ground collapsed.
A sinkhole opened exactly where he'd been standing,not where he'd been going to step, but where his foot had been planted a half-second before he tripped. The earth just gave way, decades of erosion or underground water flow finally overwhelming structural integrity, creating a pit easily ten feet across and twelve feet deep.
The bottom was lined with sharp rocks,not placed deliberately, just geological bad luck, stone fragments that had broken off and tumbled down to create a bed of natural spikes that would have impaled anyone unlucky enough to fall in.
We all froze, weapons coming up in automatic response, scanning for threats or explanations.
Luca lay on the ground where he'd fallen, staring back at the hole with eyes wide as dinner plates, face draining of color until he looked almost translucent.
"Did I..." his voice was barely a whisper. "Did I just almost die? Again?"
Kai lowered his pistol slowly, exhaling a breath he'd been holding. "Yeah. You did."
For a long moment, Luca just lay there, processing. Then he started laughing,high-pitched and nervous, bordering on hysterical, the kind of laughter that was one step away from crying or screaming or both.
"See?" He pushed himself up to sitting, brushing ineffectually at the dust coating his clothes. "Lucky! I'm always lucky! It's literally the only reason I'm still alive! That and the violin. Azael liked the music too much to kill me. Said it..." His voice cracked, laughter dying as abruptly as it had started. "Said it soothed him. While he worked."
The last two words came out flat, empty, carrying weight that had nothing to do with volume.
Nobody responded. What could we say?
Luca climbed to his feet, checked his violin case with trembling hands,inspecting every latch, running fingers over the leather, making absolutely sure his instrument had survived,then shouldered it again and kept walking.
The chatter didn't resume for a while after that.
***
We paused for water an hour later, everyone collapsing in a loose circle on a relatively flat stretch of ground that offered clear sightlines in all directions. No cover if something attacked, but at least we'd see it coming. That was worth the tradeoff.
Amie passed around one of the two remaining canteens, and we each took careful sips,rationing, always rationing, never quite knowing when we'd find more. The water was warm and stale, tasting faintly of the metal container, but it was wet and that was all that mattered.
Luca took his turn drinking, then sat slightly apart from the main group, still nervous, still not quite sure of his place among us.
His eyes kept drifting.
To Lira's sharp features,high cheekbones and intense eyes and the kind of beauty that came from strength rather than softness.
To Amie's dark skin glowing with a sheen of sweat in the gray light, her neat braids somehow still perfect despite everything.
To the way exhaustion made everyone's movements slower, more vulnerable, guards lowering incrementally.
I saw his expression shift,something in his eyes that made my stomach tighten with second-hand embarrassment before he even opened his mouth.
He focused on Amie first, inevitably.
"Madam Amie," he said suddenly, voice taking on that dramatic, performative tone that suggested he thought he was being charming. "If I may be so bold,and please, *please* don't shoot me for saying this,but your skin is absolutely, breathtakingly radiant. That rich, deep tone, like the finest polished ebony catching light, glowing from within. It's stunning. Genuinely stunning."
Amie's eyebrow rose slowly, hand moving subtly,almost unconsciously,toward where her pistol rested in its holster. "Thanks?" The word was more question than statement, inflection suggesting she wasn't sure if she was being complimented or insulted or propositioned.
But Luca, oblivious to the warning signs, was already continuing, warming to his theme. "And your hair! Those braids,the precision, the care, the way they're woven so perfectly, framing your face just so. It's like living art. Functional and beautiful. You're like a warrior queen from one of the old stories, the ones they'd tell about heroes and legends and—"
Kai was on his feet before Luca finished the sentence.
Big brother mode activated at maximum intensity, years of protective instincts flooding through every line of his body as he stepped between Luca and Amie with deliberate, controlled movement that somehow managed to be more threatening than any rushed charge could have been.
"Watch it," he growled, and his voice had dropped to that dangerous register that suggested violence was being held back through supreme effort of will. "That's my sister you're talking to."
Luca's face went from merely pale to absolutely scarlet in the span of a heartbeat, red flooding up from his collar to his hairline, eyes going even wider if that was possible. "Oh no! I didn't mean,I'm not,I just appreciate beauty! It's an artist thing! I see something beautiful and the words just come out! I *have* to say it! It's not,I'm not trying to,I mean, you're both beautiful but in completely different ways and that's not,oh gods I'm making it worse aren't I—"
Lira's knife was out.
I hadn't even seen her draw it, but there it was,pointed casually but with perfect accuracy at Luca's throat, the blade steady despite her broken wrist, close enough that he could probably feel the cold steel against his skin even though it wasn't quite touching.
"One more word," she said, voice flat and calm and absolutely serious. "Just one."
Luca's mouth snapped shut with an audible click of teeth. His hands shot up in surrender, violin case sliding around to his back, every line of his body radiating *please don't kill me.
"Shutting up!" His voice came out strangled, pitched higher than normal. "Shutting up right now! Mouth closed! Not another word! Please don't kill me I'm sorry I'm an idiot I know I'm an idiot I—"
"You're still talking," Lira observed.
Luca made a sound like a wounded animal and physically clapped both hands over his mouth, eyes streaming with what might have been tears or might have been sheer terror or both.
Nyx laughed,a real laugh, small but genuine, the kind of sound I didn't hear from her often enough. "He's fun," she said, grinning. "Like a pet that does tricks."
Luca risked a glance at her,moving only his eyes, body frozen in place with Lira's knife still hovering near his throat,and the moment he really looked, really saw, his face transformed again.
Wings.
Black wings with that slightly translucent quality new membrane had, edges still healing from being torn and mangled.
Claws extending from delicate fingers.
Black-rose eyes that bloomed and contracted like living flowers, pupils doing things human eyes definitely didn't do.
Xenophore features that regeneration hadn't fully hidden, that marked her as *other* no matter how human she acted.
"You're..." Luca's whisper was barely audible, horror and fascination warring in his expression. "You're a Xenophore. A real one. An actual Xenophore. Oh gods. Oh gods oh gods oh—"
He scrambled backward so fast he tripped over his own feet,again,this time actually falling, sprawling on his back with his violin case thumping heavily to the ground. He kept scrambling, crab-walking away from Nyx like she was on fire or radioactive or both, hands scrabbling in the dust, breath coming in panicked gasps.
"You're going to eat me!" The words tumbled out in a rush of pure terror. "Or corrupt me! Or turn me into one of you! I knew it! I knew joining you was a terrible idea! Beautiful music can't save me from being devoured by a—"
"Stop."
Xeno's voice cut through the panic like a blade through silk,quiet, controlled, carrying absolute authority despite its lack of volume.
Luca froze mid-scramble, body locking up, eyes going to Xeno's blindfolded face.
Xeno stood perfectly still, shovel planted point-down in the ground beside him, both hands resting on the handle, posture relaxed but somehow radiating presence. Even without being able to see his eyes, the weight of his attention was palpable,heavy, focused, inescapable.
"She's with us," Xeno said, each word deliberate, leaving no room for argument or discussion. "She's Nyx. She's six years old. She doesn't eat people."
Luca blinked rapidly, mouth opening and closing, clearly wanting to argue but unable to form words under that blind stare.
"Six?" he finally managed. "But she's,she has wings,and claws,and—"
"She's Nyx," Xeno repeated, and there was something almost gentle in his tone now, patience for someone struggling to understand. "She's one of us."
Silence fell, heavy and awkward.
Luca looked at Nyx again,really looked this time, seeing past the Xenophore features to the small body beneath them, the child's face, the wings that were still healing from being broken, the way she was sitting cross-legged in the dust like any kid might.
Six years old.
A child.
"Oh," he said quietly, and the fear in his expression transmuted into something more complex,shame and understanding and lingering wariness all mixed together. "I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to,I just—" He swallowed hard. "Xenophores killed a lot of people. Including some kids I used to play for. Kids I knew. Kids who'd smile when I played Happy Birthday for them. And then they were just... gone. So when I see,when I realize,I get scared."
Nyx's wings folded slowly, carefully, tucking against her back. "I know," she said, and her voice was soft, almost sad. "I was one of them. Before. Before all this. But I've never killed anyone before."
The admission hung in the air like smoke.
Luca sat up slowly, carefully, brushing dust from his clothes with shaking hands. "I'm an idiot," he said finally. "A complete and total idiot. I'm sorry."
Nyx shrugged, the gesture making her wings shift slightly. "You're alive. That's more than most people can say."
"That's generous," Luca muttered, retrieving his violin case and inspecting it for damage with the kind of focus that suggested he was using the task to avoid meeting anyone's eyes. "I don't deserve it, but thank you."
We gave him a few minutes to compose himself, then resumed walking.
The coward moments continued throughout the afternoon.
Every rustle in the dead vines—"Is that a Xenophore? Oh gods we're all going to die aren't we this is it this is how it ends—"
Every shadow that fell across our path—"Trap! That's definitely a trap! Or an ambush! Or both! Can it be both? Please tell me it's not both—"
Every strange sound,the wind whistling through broken structures, rocks settling, distant animal calls—"What was that? Did you hear that? Everyone heard that right? We should run. We should definitely run—"
And every single time he tripped,which happened with alarming frequency given how flat most of the terrain was,his impossible luck saved him.
He fell away from a patch of ground that collapsed into another sinkhole seconds later.
He stumbled sideways into a half-buried structure and dislodged a loose stone, which revealed a pre-Fall supply cache,three cans of preserved food, dented but sealed, contents still good.
He face-planted while trying to avoid what he thought was a snake (it was a stick) and his flailing hands hit something metallic buried in the dirt. When we dug it out, it turned out to be a pre-Fall canteen, battered but functional, solving our water container shortage.
"See?" he'd say each time, breathless but proud, dusting himself off with trembling hands. "Lucky! Incredibly, improbably, impossibly lucky! It's my only talent!"
By the time the gray light began to fade toward evening,which in this perpetually overcast world just meant the sky got slightly darker rather than the sun actually setting,we were all thoroughly exhausted. Not just from walking and injuries, but from the sheer mental effort of dealing with Luca's constant presence, his running commentary, his fears and observations and inappropriate compliments.
We made camp in the ruins of an old building,walls still standing on three sides, roof long gone but at least offering shelter from the wind, floor relatively level. Kai built a small fire using debris and dried vines, keeping the flames low and feeding it carefully to minimize smoke. We couldn't afford to advertise our location.
Dinner was meager,dried meat and hard bread from our supplies, supplemented by the canned goods Luca had accidentally discovered, which turned out to be some kind of preserved fruit that was probably years past its expiration date but tasted like heaven compared to our usual fare.
Luca sat apart from the main group at first, cross-legged with his violin case cradled in his lap, looking overwhelmed and uncertain. He picked at his food without really eating, eyes distant, clearly processing everything that had happened since leaving his prison in Azael's castle.
Then Nyx stood, brushed crumbs from her lap, and walked over to him.
She sat down uninvited, wings folding carefully, and looked at him with those unblinking black-rose eyes until he squirmed uncomfortably.
"Play something," she said. Simple. Direct.
Luca blinked. "What? Now? Here?"
"Yes. For the kids."
"There are kids?" He looked around in confusion, then realization dawned slowly across his face as he looked at me, at Xeno, at Nyx herself. "You mean... you three."
"Yeah," Nyx confirmed. "We're kids. And you said you used to play for kids. So play."
Luca hesitated, fingers drumming nervous patterns on his violin case, clearly torn between wanting to and being afraid to.
Then something shifted in his expression. Softened.
"Okay," he said quietly, and opened the case.
The violin emerged with reverent care, and he went through his pre-performance ritual,checking tuning with quiet plucks of each string, testing bow tension, applying rosin with precise circular motions. Professional habits maintained even in the apocalypse.
Then he lifted the instrument to his shoulder, positioned the bow, closed his eyes, and began to play.
This wasn't the lullaby he'd used to draw our attention in the castle, or the gentle melody he'd played when we'd first freed him.
This was something else entirely.
Softer. Sadder. A melody that spoke of loss and longing and memories of things that could never be recovered. Of childhood ended too soon. Of innocence stolen. Of a world that had been beautiful once and might never be beautiful again.
But underneath the sadness was something else,fragile but present. Hope, maybe. Or at least the memory of hope. The suggestion that beauty could still exist even in darkness.
The notes hung in the cold air, pure and clear, and for those few minutes the world outside the circle of firelight ceased to exist.
I found myself leaning against Xeno without consciously deciding to, my small body fitting against his shoulder, eyes drifting closed. The music wrapped around us like a blanket, chasing away the cold and the fear and the constant awareness of danger.
Nyx sat with her wings partially spread, catching the heat from the fire, face peaceful in a way I rarely saw. The permanent wariness that marked her as both child and Xenophore had smoothed away, leaving just the child behind.
Even Xeno's rigid posture relaxed fractionally, his head tilting slightly toward the music, fingers loosening their constant grip on his shovel.
Around the fire, the others responded too. Lira's tight shoulders dropped, her breathing evening out. Kai's hand found hers, squeezing gently. Amie's eyes closed, stress lines around her mouth softening. Kael's grip on his staff loosened, and for just a moment he looked young rather than world-weary.
When the last note faded and Luca lowered his violin, silence fell,but it was a different quality of silence than before. Warmer. Easier to breathe through.
"Thank you," I whispered, not opening my eyes, not moving from where I leaned against Xeno.
"That was beautiful," Amie said quietly.
Luca smiled,small and real and lacking any of his earlier nervous bravado. "Thank you. That's... that's why I play. For moments like this. For making the world bearable, even when it's not okay."
He carefully wiped down his violin, treating it with the kind of tenderness usually reserved for living things, and returned it to its case.
As the fire died down and we arranged ourselves for sleep,watches established, weapons kept close, everyone huddled together for warmth,Luca spoke again.
Quieter this time. Directed at no one and everyone.
"I hated playing for Azael," he said, staring into the embers. "Every single note felt like betrayal. Like I was making beauty for something ugly. Soothing a monster while he did... things. Terrible things. Things I could hear but tried not to think about."
He pulled his knees up, wrapped his arms around them, made himself small.
"I played because I was scared. Because I wanted to survive. Because I thought maybe if I was useful, he'd keep me alive." His voice cracked. "And he did. He kept me alive and fed and unharmed while other people died. While he experimented on them. While he corrupted them. And I just... played my violin and pretended I didn't know."
The firelight cast shadows across his face, making him look older. Haunted.
"I hate myself for it," he whispered. "For surviving that way. For being a coward. For choosing my life over... over anything resembling courage or morality or doing the right thing."
Silence stretched.
Then Kai's voice, gentle but firm: "You survived. That's not nothing. Don't let anyone,including yourself,tell you it is."
"But at what cost?" Luca asked. "How many people died while I played music?"
"How many would have died if you'd fought?" Kael countered quietly. "Would your death have saved anyone? Or would it just have been one more corpse on Azael's altar?"
Luca didn't answer.
"You're here now," Amie said. "You got out. You joined us. Maybe that's your chance to make it mean something. To play for something better."
Luca looked at us,at the ragtag group of children and teenagers, broken and battered but still alive, still fighting, still refusing to quit.
"Maybe," he said softly. "Maybe I can try."
The fire crackled, sending sparks drifting up toward the starless sky.
Right now instead of seven.
The weight heavier in some ways,another mouth to feed, another body to protect, another person whose death would hurt if it came.
But lighter in others.
Music in the darkness.
Someone who remembered beauty.
Proof that the world had contained more than just survival, and might again.
I fell asleep to the sound of Luca's quiet breathing and Xeno's steady presence beside me, and for once I didn't dream of symbols or curses or ancient bargains.
I dreamed of music.
And woke feeling, if not safe, then at least less alone.