He had come here for answers. For the faint hope that something, anything, of Rosaria remained.

Clive.

The name sat heavy in his chest as he moved. His brother was out there. Somewhere beyond the smoke and flame. Alive. He had to believe that.

Another turn through the ruined streets brought more rubble. More broken homes. His gaze swept the wreckage. Every stone overturned. Every darkened corner searched.

A faint sound reached his ears.

It wasn't Clive's voice. It wasn't the call of a soldier or a survivor. It was smaller. Fragile. A quiet, broken whimper buried beneath the rubble.

He moved the fallen debris aside and beneath a collapsed wall, lay a small figure. Limbs trembling. Face streaked with ash. Eyes wide. Silent.

It wasn't Clive. But it was someone still breathing. Still clinging to life.

His hand hovered in the air for a moment, breath catching faint in his throat.

Carefully, he shrugged off his cloak. The fabric was worn from years on the road, the faint scent of smoke and travel clinging to it. He draped it around the small frame, shielding delicate limbs from the cold air.

His hand brushed the ash from tangled hair. His palm settled against a fragile shoulder.

The ache in his chest tightened. The ruins pressing in from every side were all too familiar. The weight of loss, of failure, never truly left him.

He had come here searching for his brother. For the past he could never quite outrun.

Instead, he had found another life untouched by the fire. Small. Frightened. Left behind.

Joshua pulled the child close. His voice was quiet. Worn thin with exhaustion but steady all the same.

"You will not be left behind."

His brother was still gone. His home long buried.

But this life, at least, he could save. And he would not fail again.