THE UNBROKEN

The small family stood with their comrades in arms, weary but whole, gazing toward the sea that had tried and failed to claim them.

Phineus, ever the optimist, ever the shield, cradled little Esperanza in his arms as they waited for extraction. Her cheeks were sticky with salt and sand, hair curled from the mist. She babbled nonsense, one chubby hand reaching toward the sky as if plucking stars from daylight.

Elena leaned heavily into Niegal's side, her shoulder still bandaged, her body weak but her heart light for the first time in weeks. They were leaving this cursed shore. They were going home.

Niegal exhaled deeply, arms wrapped around them all. For a moment, it was enough.

Then the lion stiffened.

His eyes went wide- silver turning molten green, pupils narrowing. He twisted, nose lifting to the air. Mana. Thick. Wrong.

"It's a-" he began.

But it was too late.

A split-second flare of blue light surged from the belly of the ship. Mana traps, layered and silent, detonated with the precision of a divine curse. The blast cracked the air open. Fire screamed across the sand.

Elena was thrown backward, something sharp tearing across her torso. Her ears rang. Smoke poured into her lungs. When she blinked the ash from her eyes-

Phineus was gone.

Only a smear of blackened earth remained where he'd stood.

Esperanza.

The child was screaming. A raw, high, animal sound. Her tiny arms flailed weakly beneath a wave of burns. Her skin blistered. Her curls were fire. Her voice broke mid-scream into a gurgle of breath and blood.

"No," Elena croaked, dragging herself toward her.

Her shoulder split wide again, the old harpoon wound gushing fresh. Mana leaked from her fingertips, but she didn't care. She reached her baby, scooping her into trembling arms, skin-on-skin where both of them burned.

"Stay with me," she begged. "Please, baby, please."

But Esperanza was still. No sound. No breath.

Elena collapsed to her knees.

"No, no, no- no!"

She pressed her mouth to the child's, forcing breath into those tiny lungs. She poured mana through her palms, screaming as the divine current tore through her ravaged body. Blood spattered the child's chest. Elena shook, fading.

"Come back to me. Come back to me!"

And then-

A spark.

A gasp.

Esperanza jerked, her heart fluttering like a bird caught in wire.

She was alive.

But Elena was not.

She slumped forward, unconscious, her blood soaking the sand, the child clutched to her chest.

Niegal woke to silence.

His vision swam with black and red. Smoke stung his lungs. All he could smell was salt and burning flesh. He pushed himself upright with a roar of agony.

The beach was a graveyard.

His hands glowed. He forced them to glow, even when it drained what little mana he had left. He ran to the unmoving pair lying by the rocks.

Elena.

Esperanza.

He dropped to his knees, power pouring from him in thick, pulsing waves. He placed a hand on each chest- one large, one impossibly small.

"I'm here," he whispered. "I'm here."

For a moment, he didn't know if it would work. The child's breath caught again. Elena stirred, barely, lips parting to mouth his name.

But she was dying.

Something deeper than flesh was unraveling inside her.

And the wound- that wound- refused to close.

Even now.

Even with all his power.

The sea watched. The cliffside winds howled. The gods did nothing.

He carried them back up the ridge. Laid them gently on the mossy stone near the old fire pit. Kissed their foreheads, one after the other.

Then he stood.

His face was blank. His hands curled into fists.

The lion within stretched. No longer content to rest.

It was time.

Niegal did not weep.

He walked away from the wounded.

He walked toward the smoke.

He walked to Parliament.