“New beginnings can be so beautiful, can’t they?”

—Renowned Explorer Rene Ulvion before every expedition

“Stay down! Stay down!” Zaina shouted, crawling between the prostrate townsfolk and the biriflers and readying her hex-guard while keeping as close to the ground as possible. Amid the mercenaries’ confused shouts, a familiar whizzing sound entered her ears—Zaina glanced over as an ear-splitting pop cracked the sky.

A high-caliber munition shot five feet above her head—its force dispelled the smoke, giving Zaina a clear view as the repeating scrap cannon tore the exposed biriflers to shreds—their torsos and heads were liquefied with every deafening boom from the warsuit’s heavy gun; Leda, growling in rage, still took care not to hit any of the screaming civilians—or Zaina. Within ten seconds, the biriflers’ cries were silenced. The last few houses still standing in Freewater collapsed as the enemies, more liquid than solid, spread out over the sand.

Zaina glanced back over—Xyrthe stood behind Leda, hex-guard at the ready; a glint of light flashed in the desert—before Zaina could blink, her mentor was knocked back ten feet despite the successful deflection. Leda turned, honing in on Veimla Tescoll from afar with the suit’s heavy scrap cannon.

“NOOO!” came a shriek from the desert as Veimla got another shot off—the repeating scrap cannon’s thunderous pops rang out. The mercenary captain gave a cry as her last shot deflected off the warsuit’s upper shoulder. Sand spewed into the air all around the Delegaran as her body exploded into a pile of blue and green pulp.

The warsuit’s rotating cannon came to a halt with a lively hum as the faint ringing in Zaina’s ears faded. With another round of whirs, the suit’s canopy opened, and Leda jumped out. She walked straight over to Fell’s headless corpse, his blood now dried in the sand, and froze as she stared down at his mangled form. After a deep, heaving breath, she pulled the pistol from his belt. She trained it on Ondor and approached the fallen chairman.

He was sitting up, holding his head. “Wh-what? What happened? N-no—”

A pathetic yelp escaped his lips as Leda kicked Ondor in the chest, then put the barrel of Fell’s phase cycler to his forehead. He whimpered and raised his hands, tears streaking down his face.

“No, no, no, no, please! Please, no, I’ll give you anything, please, just don’t kill me!”

Leda stood over him, taking deep breaths. Her desire to pull the trigger was palpable—at least, Zaina felt it. She wasn’t sure what she would do in Leda’s shoes—but this one was up to the new Warden of Freewater.

With hatred suffusing her words, Leda spat, “Give me your vis-screen.”

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Ondor complied with a whimper, tossing it into her outstretched hand. She put it in her pocket and said, “And now the key to your warship.”

“What—”

“You want to live, don’t you?” Leda pushed the phase cycler’s barrel further into his forehead, eliciting a pained screech from Ondor. “You said you’d do anything.”

“No, no, please—please, fine, I’ll—I’ll—” he said, crying and babbling as he dug through the chest pockets in his robe, pulled out a small, metal box, and shoved it into her hand. “Now please, let me live—don’t kill me—”

Leda put the key in her pocket with the vis-screen and stood straight up, putting both hands on the phase cycler’s grip as she pointed it at Ondor’s head. He closed his eyes, raised his arms, and shrieked. Leda pointed the gun to the sky and fired.

The chairman jumped, his begging and crying intensifying. “No, no, no, no! Please, no! NO! No!” His eyes peeked open—Leda, walking toward the fallen civilians, stooped down to pick up Ondor’s phase cycler.

Ondor struggled to his knees. “What—what are you going to do with me, huh? You’re not going to kill me, so, what? What?”

Leda turned back toward him. With a flick of the pistol, she gestured toward the town and said, “Welcome to Freewater. You own it, don’t you? Now you can live in it.”

Horror flashed in Ondor’s widening eyes as he realized what she meant. “No—wait—you can’t—you have to leave the vis-screen, at least, or I won’t be able to—no, you can’t just leave me here! You can’t—you can’t treat me like this!”

As Leda helped the townsfolk to their feet, she called over, “Maybe you could fix it up a little. We did.”

Ondor stumbled and muttered, his expression one of pure disbelief.

Leda turned to Zaina and extended a hand, which the lancer gratefully took.

“Thank you,” Leda said, “truly. I’m glad you came up with an idea, because I was fresh out. And—thank you for saving them.”

The boy who had been hostage was being held by his doting mother, who was crying in happiness and loudly thanking Zaina. The others were all right, too, relatively speaking, all singing Zaina’s praises to show their gratitude.

A smile came over Zaina’s lips. Fell was right. Everything does matter here. Every single little life.

Leda raised her vis-screen to her mouth and said, “All right, everyone. Come on out—we’re meeting in the town center in ten minutes, hear?”

Without another word, Leda turned away and walked over to kneel by the body of Reister Fell. While she put her face in her hands and wept for her friend, Xyrthe walked over to Zaina.

Her mentor clapped her on the shoulder and said, “Good plan, kid. Wonder where you got the fake surrender idea.”

Zaina rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever. Take credit for everything, why don’t you?”

“Only your achievements,” Xyrthe said with a smirk, then cast a sorrowful glance over at Leda. “You did the right thing, kid. Hard as it was to see in the moment, you did—even I didn’t. Maybe you got a little lucky. But you really did save these people. Soak it in, good and bad—this is what a win feels like, kid.”

Zaina’s eyes fell on the town, utterly destroyed by the battle; it was leveled, with anything flammable up in smoke. The shredded and torn bodies of Ondor’s mercenaries, still spilling fluids, were scattered about the town’s center; and Leda was weeping over the headless corpse of her friend. Even the desert only held ruin—plumes of smoke billowed from the wreckage of the dreich, its pieces spread across the sands near Freewater.

Her gaze dropped to her own arms, covered in dried blood. Images of her horrific battle flashed through her head as her hands trembled. She didn’t want to hurt those people—they made her do it, right? Her only other option was to die—didn’t that mean they made her do it?

Another clap on the shoulder snapped her out of it. Zaina yelped.

After a chuckle, Xyrthe said, “You’re going to be all right, kid.”