Gunfire fractures the treeline before the smoke settles.

The Sky People push hard today—metal beasts grinding through root and soil, tearing into what does not belong to them. I move with my unit along the ridge, breath steady, arrows spent and replaced without thought. The clan I was absorbed into fights well, but they do not move the way Trr’ong moved. They hold lines. We curved them.

A blast erupts to my left. Earth rains down in a hot, choking wave. I roll, rise, fire. A Sky Person drops. Another advances.

And then—

The forest trembles differently.

Not from machine.

From hooves.

A direhorse breaks through the smoke like a spear thrown from the past.

For a moment, I do not breathe.

No Trr’ong direhorse should exist. Not after the last battle. Not after Na’ring burned. I watched the sky turn red from miles away. I buried my clan in silence because there were no bodies left to carry.

Grief does strange things to a warrior’s mind.

That cannot be real.

The rider leans low against the beast’s neck, bow drawn in a fluid motion I know better than my own shadow. Three arrows loose in quick succession. Three clean strikes. The mount pivots without command, hind legs cutting through smoke and debris as if the fire itself taught it how to move.

No.

That rhythm is not imitation.

That is Trr’ong.

My heart pounds once, hard enough to blur the edges of my vision. I have imagined this before—ghosts in battle, shapes in smoke. I tell myself it is memory conjuring comfort where none exists.

But then the rider straightens.

White.

A single stripe down the center of her face.

Not ceremonial. Not decorative.

Mourning.

Unbroken.

The world narrows to that line.

My grip tightens on my bow until the wood groans beneath it. I step forward through smoke and falling leaves, eyes refusing to blink.

It cannot be her.

It cannot be the last Olo’eykte of Trr’ong.

Eyawne fell in the final push at Ayram Alusìng. I accepted that. I carved it into bone and learned to fight without her shadow beside me.

The direhorse rears, forelegs striking the air as bullets tear through bark. The rider does not flinch. She adjusts with the mount as if they share one spine, one breath. She looses again—precise, economical. No wasted motion.

That is not grief’s illusion.

That is discipline.

That is leadership.

My mind fractures between disbelief and recognition. I have fought for months with the weight of extinction pressing against my ribs. I have swallowed it. I have told myself that survival is duty, even if it is under another clan’s banner.

But that stripe—

That movement—

That is not memory.

That is living flame.

“No…” The word leaves me without permission. “I have been lost to grief.”

Another explosion rattles the trees. A Sky Person charges toward her flank, weapon raised. I move before thought catches up, crossing the distance through smoke and shattered wood. I do not shout her name. I do not call out warning.

I take position at her blind side.

The old place.

The sacred place.

An arrow leaves my bow and buries itself in the throat of the advancing enemy. The body drops before it reaches her mount. Without looking at me, she shifts her weight slightly to compensate, giving space for my angle of fire.

She remembers the formation.

Or her body does.

We move as we once did—curve and pivot, high flank and ground strike. The direhorse surges forward; I advance in its wake. Gunfire cracks. Metal screams. We cut through the line.

Only when the immediate wave falls do I allow myself to turn.

Smoke thins enough for me to see her clearly.

Ash streaks her skin. Braids torn loose at the ends. The stripe bright against soot. Her eyes are hard, focused, alive.

Alive.

The breath leaves me slowly, reverently.

“My lost Olo’eykte,” I murmur, the words nearly stolen by the wind.

Not claim.

Not possession.

Recognition.

The forest roars again as more Sky People advance, but the silence between us holds for half a heartbeat longer than war should allow.

Trr’ong did not fall.

It rides through fire.

Trr'ong Rises through the Ash