“Lilly, status.” Welthan spoke into the microphone between slow, measured breaths.

  Everything’s gone quiet around him after he had shattered the Thorn’s core. As a result, the entire creature turned into a rigid piece of dark-gray stone, with some vein-like blue streaks.

  “All—order. No more—nearby and no—of Casters. Over.” The tone of Lily’s voice was now calm as well... or maybe it was only Welthan’s imagination, because the transmission quality between the opposite sides of the valley left much to be desired.

  And so the Captain thought hopeful that there was only the single Caster left...

  Casters. The threat that caused Welthan to employ the ludicrous tactic of 'surrounding' an entire swarm of enemies with a unit of four soldiers. While elites they may have been, the move could easily be called suicidal... but not stupid.

  That was because most of the creatures of the exacrystals’ origin were, put bluntly, dumb. Once the group had triggered the trap, the fodder, the thorns... these would do nothing but try to kill them. They were... reliable in that sense. But the casters were not. They had first appeared only a little over a decade ago and completely changed the war. It wasn’t necessarily the damage they could cause, which they could do a lot of, but their intelligence.

  Had a caster escaped this encounter, a greater force was sure to come after the four humans later on. It would have been a death sentence.

  In truth, it could still be, but they were almost done pulling off this little miracle... and Welthan suddenly felt the urge to light up a cigarette, but thought better of it. “Cole, how are you holding up?”

  The Corporal was leaning against a rock wall opposite of him. The two had formed a triangle with their lines of sight to make sure the Caster stayed put behind a pillar in the middle of the open field, where Cole had initially 'fought' the Thorn. They knew that it remained there, because an ice shard had almost skewered the Corporal as soon as the dust had settled.

  “Nothing worse than bruises for me.” His shallow smile stood in stark contrast to what Welthan was seeing—the man before him looked like he’d been through hell. The group had become well-acquainted with dust and dirt, but Cole’s uniform was now torn in ways that Welthan found puzzling to explain. “But Captain was right, the ankle joint didn’t last till evening.” His exoskeleton hardly looked any better than the clothing. Few—if any—parts of its frame were shaped within production tolerances...

  Cole couldn't read Welthan's face, but at that moment it had the look of a captain whose unit had just bled most of its combat resources; that of a human happy that they had all survived; and that of an engineer who was already annoyed at the thought of putting their gear back into working condition...

  And finally, they heard footsteps—the Caster did too.

  An ice lance came flying from behind the pillar towards a nearby scarp, where Aetheris had arrived running. Rather than dodge it to the side, she jumped over it and off a three meter drop in the ground. Seeing this stunt, Welthan smiled internally at the suspicion that Aetheris’ exoskeleton might not even be in the worst condition at the end of this...

  But Welthan did not watch idly, as he rushed the Caster; either he would take it down by surprise, or buy Aetheris time.

  The outcomes were both still possible when behind the pillars’ edge he found a humanoid figure turning in his direction. It was clad in what looked like a cloak, but the dark material played tricks on Welthan’s eyes. One moment he saw it covered in a crimson pattern and the next—it was gone, changed. That threw his mind off-balance just enough for the Caster to respond before he pulled the trigger.

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  A different set of glowing patterns appeared around the creature. The air warped and the bullets never reached their intended destination that was the being’s face. Though to call it a 'face'... was not right. What 'looked' back at Welthan, was a head with no features. It was a plain oval, behind which the Caster’s core glowed.

  All this lasted only a moment—then the crystal got blown to pieces from behind.

  But Aetheris didn't slow down, she had to—“Aetheris, stop. Over.” Welthan had to terminate the command he had given her earlier, because the Thorn was already dead.

  “It’s over.” The words that left his mouth almost sounded dreamy...

  Later that day, when the last of blush highlights had departed the clouds in the sky.

  “—my opinion?” Lilly asked rhetorically, but she had been genuinely taken by surprise. “I think that we should make camp here, sir.” Her mood had soured after today’s events and remained that way till now.

  “Yes...” Welthan nodded and breathed in his cigarette. “Everyone, we sleep under the stars tonight. Leave your gear here, and Cole—cooking duty is yours.” To which he heard an affirmation from the Corporal.

  Lilly had also quickly unlocked her exoskeleton and went to help Aetheris out of hers, but Welthan grabbed her arm. “Captain?” She asked in a soft voice. His grip was firm, yet gentle.

  They stood like that in silence for a moment and Lilly ended up following Welthan’s gaze that was directed at the horizon. There, the eastern sky had already turned near-black, but the plains stretching before them still caught a bit of the indigo afterglow. Far beyond them, a mountain range looked as if it was biting into the darkness—that’s where they had hoped to have gotten today...

  “I’m sor—”

  “No. This time it’s the wrong answer.”

  Lilly blinked as her apology got interrupted. She was perplexed, especially since Welthan’s expression didn’t betray his thoughts.

  “Sir?”

  Welthan didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to her and offered his cigarette. Lilly accepted it, albeit after a moment’s hesitation. It had been a long time since she last had one, so she coughed lightly after taking the first drag.

  Satisfied, Welthan gazed back at the horizon. “You are too smart for your own good.” He finally spoke in a subdued voice, which only further confused Lilly.

  “Why, sir?” She asked after breathing out smoke.

  “That thing—” The device she always carried on her hip. “You can make sense of it like no one I’ve ever known. You are the only person who can know if today was avoidable.” The today’s fight. “And you are also the only one who could have realized our current situation.” The discovery she made after the battle...

  Back then, they took a rest once the Caster had been eliminated. It was because Welthan had to ensure their exoskeletons wouldn't break beyond repair until the day’s end. So, Lilly had of course gone to check the valley’s perimeter, but was still left with free time on her hands.

  She had chosen to take a closer look at the Caster, as this was maybe her third occasion ever to do so. That's when she found a crystal in its rock-solid palm—it was still aglow. With her curiosity peaked, she took out the sensor and... there was an extremely faint, but highly unusual signal.

  Captivated by the readings, she tripped when adjusting her position while crouching. Her hand that was holding the sensor was thrown off target, but... the signal was still there. It didn't take long, before she understood two things—it spread similarly to sound, not light, and it travelled far beyond the valley.

  At that point, she was already filled with tension as her eyes followed the sensor's needles. However, it was only after she recognized a different, new signal, that anxiety took over her mind. The fear that something was responding...

  After another short bit of silence, Welthan turned to face her again.

  “But you should also know, that we are here at all thanks to you.” He looked deep into her umber eyes. “Do not let these thoughts torment you.” The thoughts that she could've done better. “For your own sake and ours.” After all, if theirs was the correct interpretation, things were about to get far harder than they had been.

  Lilly nodded, but said nothing as she slowly brought the cigarette to her lips again.

  Another few seconds passed and Welthan's gaze turned upwards, where a plethora of stars had already appeared.

  “Even out here, the Pegasus has lost its wing.” He said to change the subject.

  And Lilly looked up as well. “I haven’t seen it in so long that I don’t even remember what it looked like.” She added while gazing at the constellation.

  “Around a year ago, you could still make it out. Far from the city lights...” Welthan’s words trailed off into memories.

  In the books, it had been recorded that there once existed a constellation that vaguely resembled a horse with two wings—now, the shiny spots that had formed the wings were nowhere to be found.

  “Has sir ever wondered... where do the stars go?” Lilly's voice may not have sounded happy, but Welthan thought that she had calmed down a bit.

  “To a better place, maybe.” And he thought of the stars like the comrades he had lost...