"I did not tell her I loved her. I gave her the sigil of our beginning, our shared death, and the thousand children we never raised. She understood." - Three Who Walked Beyond Thought. None returned.
When night came, the squad made camp beneath the open stars. A fire crackled at the center, casting long, flickering shadows across their tired faces. The cold air bit through their clothes, laced with the sounds of distant howls and the eerie chittering of unseen creatures.
Naomi returned from her watch, boots crunching over gravel, her long-barreled sniper rifle slung across her back. She dropped into a seat beside Corvus, exhaling slowly. "Nothing for miles," she reported. "We should be safe here. Or, well—" she gave a wry smirk, "as safe as the wilderness gets."
Corvus handed her a ration bar, which she accepted with a grateful nod. "You sure you're not just tired of looking?" he asked.
Naomi rolled her eyes but said nothing. Kali sat close to the fire, warming his hands. His muscles still ached from the fight, but it was a welcome pain. Earned pain. He glanced around the circle—Markus cleaning his rifle in silence, Naomi and Corvus bantering like siblings, a younger recruit nodding off with his helmet on.
Then there was Priene. She sat across the fire from him, sharpening her blade, the light catching the edge like a flare of starlight. Her expression was unreadable as always.
"Not a bad first mission, rookie," Corvus said, raising an imaginary glass.
He gave a tired smile. "Glad I didn't die."
Naomi chuckled. "We'll see about next time."
"You'll be waiting a long time," Kali quipped, stretching out as he leaned back, eyes half-closed in contentment.
Markus laughed—a sound like gravel in a drum, raw and loud. "We'll see about that." He turned toward Priene, lifting an eyebrow. "What do you think?"
Priene didn't look up from her blade. "Not interested," she said flatly, the metallic whisper of her sharpening continuing unabated. Then, after a beat, she added, "I'm more worried about the scavvers. Those trucks weren't their usual kind. And how did they know to wait for us?"
Markus's grin faded slightly. He rubbed his jaw, thinking. "Maybe they poached them off SynSpec Corp. Who knows?"
"Maybe," Priene echoed, but there was doubt in her voice.
Silence settled for a moment like ash after a fire.
She stood, tucking the blade back into its sheath. "I'll take first watch. Rest of you should get some shut-eye."
Kali opened one eye. "You sure?"
"Always am," she replied, already walking toward the perimeter.
Markus exhaled deeply and lay down beside his pack. "She's right though. Those weren't scavvers. Not the usual kind anyway."
The fire had burned lower, embers glowing in the pit as the squad fell into a lull. It was Corvus who broke the silence.
"You know," he said, tossing a pebble into the flames, "I used to be a cook. Back on Kirel. Real food, not this freeze-dried crap."
Naomi raised a brow. "Get out."
"I'm serious," he said, grinning. "Family-run thing. My dad handled meat, mom was on seasoning, I did all the plating. We even had regulars. Real customers."
"What happened?" Kali asked.
Corvus shrugged. "Warlords razed the entire district. Guess they didn't like the seasoning."
Silence returned for a beat too long, until Naomi tossed a twig at him. "Liar."
Corvus smirked. "Yeah. I was a street rat in Kirel. But I wanted to be a cook."
Naomi gave a snort. "I used to steal off the same streets. Might've chased you once or twice."
"Could explain why I was always out of breath," he replied with a grin.
Naomi leaned back, gazing at the stars. "Got poached off the streets when I was young by mercs. Had a kill count before I turned twenty."
"Damn," Kali muttered.
"I don't keep track anymore," she added quietly. "Stopped meaning anything after a while."
Kali turned to Markus. "And you?"
Markus scoffed. "No tragic backstory for me. Just a grunt. Did my time. Saw too much. Decided to make sure the next batch of kids had someone who knew what the hell they were doing."
The fire crackled again. Kali stared into the flames, the heat brushing his face.
"Seems my life's been terribly boring by comparison."
"Boring is better," Naomi replied, her voice low.
Markus stood, brushing ash off his coat. "Story time's over," he said, voice firm. "Get some sleep, the lot of you. We move at dawn."
No one argued. One by one, the squad curled into their bedrolls, rifles within arm's reach, eyes toward the stars.
Kali lay back last, the glow of the fire fading behind his eyelids. His heart beat steady now, but somewhere in his chest, the new weight of steel and purpose pulsed softly—like a second rhythm. Sleep came slow, but when it did, it was dreamless.
It was Markus who woke him at dawn. The rest of the team still slept, save for Priene, already geared up and silent.
"You're scouting ahead with her," Markus said, voice low but firm. "Can't afford another ambush like yesterday."
Priene wheeled out two bikes from the hauler, their frames loaded with light packs, rations, and ammo. She didn't say anything—just nodded at Kali.
He shook off the last of sleep, grabbed his rifle and the twin blades, and mounted up.
"We'll ping you every half hour," Markus added, stepping back as the engines rumbled to life.
Kali gave him a nod, then throttled forward. Priene led the way, a blur of dust and motion disappearing into the pale light of morning.
A few minutes into the journey, the wasteland stretched out in endless waves of heat and dust. The sun was just beginning to crest the jagged hills, casting long shadows across the broken road. Kali rode in silence beside Priene, the hum of their engines the only sound between them.
Then, without looking over, he spoke. "I've been meaning to ask you something."
"What?" she replied, her voice cutting through the wind, steady and sharp.
"What is a sayer?"
He adjusted his grip on the handlebars, guiding his bike closer until their vehicles moved almost in sync, two parallel lines drawn across the wilds.
Priene didn't answer at first. Her gaze stayed on the horizon, unreadable behind her visor. Just when he thought she might ignore the question entirely, she spoke.
"I could try to explain it," she said flatly, "but you wouldn't understand."
"Try me," Kali pressed, his voice calm but persistent.
She glanced at him for a heartbeat, something measured in her eyes, then turned back to the road. "What Markus told you was right… and also completely wrong.
He waited.
"The Nine Syllables—Genesis, Mirror, Grief, Vow, Distance, Friction, Ascent, Hollow, Unname—they're not sounds or words. Not really. They're the building blocks of sigils. A sigil can have one syllable or a thousand. Doesn't matter. It's not about quantity. It's about entanglement. About resonance."
"Resonance with what?" he asked.
"With everything," she said. "Sigils aren't marks. They're not spells. They're conceptual matrices. Interwoven structures of intention, memory, identity, and causal potential. They bend reality—not by force, but by inviting it to shift."
Kali frowned, trying to wrap his head around the words. "And sayers?"
"Sayers are the ones who've awakened. Who've cracked the shell of baseline thought into post-reality cognition—being able to perceive and hold those matrices without collapsing. Sleepers," she added with a shrug, "are everyone else."
"I think I get it," Kali said, though his voice lacked conviction.
Priene gave a dry laugh, sharp and brief like the crack of a whip. "You don't," she said bluntly. "You never will… unless—" She trailed off, the silence between them thickening like dust in the wake of their wheels.
"Unless what?" he asked, pressing her gently.
She didn't answer immediately. Her eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead, scanning the ruins of the old world half-buried in grit and time. Then, quieter this time, she spoke again. "Unless you wake up."