“Come see who I’ve become.”The words left Ares's mouth like a vow. Not shouted. Not broadcast. Just spoken - straight into the ash-stained wind, as if Magnus might hear it carried through the silence.Behind him, the Resistance Hall pulsed with movement. Supplies were rotated, defenses reinforced. But up here, alone on the northern wall, Ares stood still.Watching.Waiting.Not for war. For recognition.And then - he saw it.One torch broke the ridgeline. Not a flare. Not a drone. A single man, hooded, barefoot, walking straight through the dead brush with that burning stick held high.Ares didn’t call for a rifle.He stepped down the rampart....By the time he reached the outer trench, Reyes and Kara were already moving into position. Mira appeared beside him, hair tied back, rifle strapped but untouched.“He’s alone,” Reyes said, squinting through the scope. “Unarmed. Symbolic.”Ares nodded. “A messenger.”“Or bait,” Kara muttered.“Or both,” Mira said quietly.Still, Ares kept wa

Somewhere in the dark -Magnus smiled.And then, he answered.Not with words.With flame.At precisely 0400, the east hills lit up like a god had struck a match across the earth. Controlled, surgical - just a dozen fires, perfectly spaced, forming a crescent around the Resistance’s perimeter.They weren’t trying to breach.They were trying to be seen.Ares stood at the northern tower, wind catching the corners of his coat, eyes locked on the horizon. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. The fires didn’t scare him.They intrigued him.“This isn’t a threat,” Reyes said from the platform beside him. “It’s a ritual.”Ares nodded. “And it means something.”“Yeah,” Kara growled from below. “It means he wants us watching while he prepares to gut us.”But Mira said nothing.She stood a few paces back, binoculars raised, silent, her eyes following the line of flames to the farthest ridge - where one dark figure stood.Alone.Magnus.Unmistakable even from a distance.He didn’t move. Didn’t gesture.

"Then," he said, "we burn brighter."The words weren’t a shout. They were low, steady - the kind that didn’t need volume to be heard. Reyes looked at him for a long moment, jaw set, before nodding once. Around them, the campfire crackled, casting shards of gold over faces hardened by loss yet sharpened by purpose.Mira was still leaning against the far post, her arms crossed, but her eyes stayed on Ares as though trying to read the part of him no one else could see. Elijah slept between them, curled under a blanket too big for his small frame. The boy’s breathing was slow, even, the rise and fall of his chest a quiet reminder that not everything had been taken.“Brighter, huh?” Hawk muttered, flipping his knife between his fingers. “You better mean that, Kai. Because they’ll throw everything at us before they go dark.”Ares didn’t look away from the fire. “Then we give them something they can’t put out.”It wasn’t bravado. It wasn’t even rage. It was the simple acceptance of a truth h

The rain hadn’t stopped by the time they closed the safehouse door behind them. Water dripped from the edges of their coats, pooling darkly on the warped floorboards. The air inside was warmer, heavy with the smell of burning wood and damp fabric. But it wasn’t the fire that made the room feel alive - it was the faces.The freed prisoners sat huddled near the far wall, blankets thrown over their shoulders, steam rising faintly from their clothes. Some stared into nothing, their eyes still trapped in places the rest of them had escaped. Others looked around the room as if afraid the walls might vanish.Ares paused in the doorway, scanning them. Every scar, every hollow cheek, every trembling hand - it was a ledger of what the Council had taken. And yet, in the way they breathed now, slower, deeper, there was something given back.Hawk came in behind him, shaking rain from his hair. “They’re ours now,” he said quietly, as if it were a truth that didn’t need proof.Reyes set a crate down

…but Ares could still hear the teeth in the dark.It wasn’t imagination, not fatigue, not the phantom sounds of battle ringing in his skull. It was the city itself speaking—groaning under the weight of footsteps that hadn’t yet reached their door, engines growling just out of sight, the way predators circle before they strike.He didn’t move from the window. The glass was cracked in the corner, distorting the lamplight outside into jagged fragments. It reminded him too much of a sniper scope. Too much of nights spent staring through crosshairs, waiting for the breath between heartbeats.Behind him, the safehouse was quiet again. The freed prisoners lay in the cellar, wrapped in makeshift bedding, exhaustion dragging them under despite the threat pressing closer. Hawk snored softly against the wall, his shotgun balanced across his knees like a child’s toy. Reyes had finally drifted into uneasy sleep at the table, his hand still wrapped around a half-empty canteen. Mira hadn’t slept. He