“When a man has fury in his bones he can do wild things, some of them fiercer than what he is, and sometimes afterward he wakes to what he has done, and if the waking is graceful he can make it right with his atonement.” ― Joseph Fasano (The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing)

  * * * *

  The wind carried the scent of salt and iron.

  It swept over the cragged shoreline just beyond Ashenridge’s perimeter walls—the air thick with brine and the lingering chill of oncoming nightfall.

  The moon hung low, half-shrouded in mist, casting fractured silver over the black waters that surged and murmured restlessly. The sea here never slept.

  Not since the days of Zone 0. Not since the screams once bled into the tide and vanished with the turning of each tide.

  Beyond the gates, nestled at the edge of the shoreline, stood the lone silhouette of a man who had once been a loyal agent of the ESA. Now, he was just…Lucas.

  He stood there, still and silent, as if carved from the obsidian stone beneath his feet. The dim moonlight framed his tall figure in silver edges, but the shadows clung stubbornly to his tired face, the wear of the past weeks etched deep into his brow and jaw.

  His left arm was still bound in a sling—the result of his reckless fight with Zest just one day prior, while mottled bruises coloured the skin at his neck and collarbone, fading from purple to sickly yellow. Yet it was not the pain that hollowed his gaze.

  He was staring out to the horizon like it had betrayed him.

  And behind him, two figures emerged from the broken path of dried grass and worn gravel that led towards where Aegis had parked their boathouse.

  Sera came into view first. She walked beside Zest, who remained a silent shadow at her side, his red eyes catching the distant flicker of torchlight from the village gates.

  They stopped a few paces behind him.

  “You know that you shouldn’t be alone if you ever leave the vicinity of the village,” Sera said softly, her voice low but edged with quiet firmness.

  Lucas didn’t turn around immediately. When he did, it was slow—like every motion cost him something. His eyes, dark as ink and almost always unreadable, now held something fragile behind them. His mouth tugged into a small, half-hearted smile that never reached his eyes.

  “I needed to think by myself for a while,” he murmured. “I’m still within sight of it.” He gestured lazily toward the gates of Ashenridge, where two of the village’s armed mercs were barely visible in the torchlight, standing guard with rifles slung across their chests.

  Sera followed the gesture with a glance before shrugging lightly. “Which is probably the only reason why the guards let you leave,” she replied. Her voice carried no real reproach, just weary understanding.

  Zest turned his head to look at her, then back to Lucas. There was something subtle in his expression—not quite guilt, not quite remorse. Perhaps an acknowledgment of the chasm between them that still hadn’t healed.

  Lucas didn’t look at him, but the tension that lingered in the air told them both that the memory of their fight was still fresh in his bones.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “I’ll head back first, okay?” Zest murmured to Sera, his voice low, laced with something unspoken—concern, perhaps. Or regret.

  Sera nodded, and Zest offered no further words. He turned, disappearing into the night, his silhouette eventually swallowed by the black beyond the gates.

  Lucas watched until he was gone, but never spoke.

  Sera waited beside him in the silence, her arms crossed loosely over her chest. The sea wind stirred strands of her raven hair, and her eyes reflected both the moonlight and the weight of memory.

  When she finally broke the silence, her words were soft, measured, and far more empathetic than anyone might have expected. “…Zest probably could tell that you needed to talk to someone. And he’s likely the last person you’d want to talk to,” she said quietly. “Honestly, I think I know just why you had such an inferiority complex towards Zest. You and Zest… You both are more alike than you seem. In terms of personality, that is. If things have been different, and fate didn’t deal Zest such an awful hand… I do think he might have turned out like you.”

  Lucas gave a dry chuckle, though it sounded more like an exhale of frustration. “He said something similar,” he muttered. “One different decision… And either of us could’ve ended up like the other.”

  Sera nodded slowly. “He’s not wrong.”

  The sea whispered in the distance, relentless in its mourning. And the sky above them seemed to hold its breath.

  “You both… You’re quite similar,” Sera said at last. “Even back in Blade and Elvryn, there were always people who either loved Zest, loathed him, or feared him. Or sometimes all three. Zest casts a long shadow. And whether people admit it or not, it made them feel small.”

  Lucas’s jaw tensed. “Even me?” he asked quietly.

  Sera tilted her head, considering. “Maybe not small,” she said. “But not seen. Not compared to him.”

  Lucas didn’t reply. His gaze returned to the sea, and when he spoke again, his voice had gone hollow. “…I was really na?ve, wasn’t I?” he asked. “It’s not like I didn’t know what the ESA did. Or how corrupt they were. I just…refused to look too closely. And the hunters… I knew what they were. I’d seen what they did. But I convinced myself they were the exception, not the rule.” His voice shook, just barely. “I was afraid. Afraid that if I admitted the truth, then everything I believed in… Everything I fought for… It would all fall apart. I kept running. From the truth. From myself.”

  Sera said nothing. She let the silence wrap around his confession like a cloak.

  Lucas swallowed thickly. “I think I always knew. Even when I was a kid… I suspected my dad had ties to the hunters. We moved constantly. Always just ahead of danger. Always just before the hunters got too close. When Misha and I awakened, he didn’t even flinch. He just knew exactly what to do. Exactly how to avoid them.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “Like he knew their playbook.”

  Sera’s expression was unreadable, but her eyes had softened. She spoke only when he’d run dry. “All you can do, Lucas, is live according to your own principles. You aren’t your father. We judge you by your own choices, not his.” Her voice lowered. “It’s why my aunt gave you a chance. She believed in you. Even when others didn’t. Karl didn’t agree with her decision when my aunt decided to take you into the ESA. Neither did Timo. It’s probably one of the things they actually disagreed on.”

  Lucas clenched his fist at his side, his bandaged arm hanging limp. “…The director,” he said. “I wonder what she saw in me, to place that kind of trust in someone like me.”

  Sera’s eyes flickered with something wistful. “I guess we’ll never know,” she said softly. There was a slight pause. Then, her voice turned reflective. “You know… When we first met, it was by the sea too. Aurora.” She smiled faintly at the memory. “Neither of us knew who we’d become. You weren’t ESA yet. And I hadn’t started Aegis. Funny how much can change.”

  Lucas smiled too, just barely. A flicker of warmth amidst the ash.

  “If things had been different…” Sera began, then trailed off, shaking her head. “Never mind.” She turned, gazing out at the cliffs behind them—to the charred remnants of a place that no longer existed, and where in its place is Ashenridge. “This place… It was once Zone 0. Where Project Nonary happened. Where Rex and I were kept.”

  Lucas nodded. “I know.”

  “Yeah,” Sera sighed, rubbing at the back of her neck. “I figured you do, by now.” Her voice lowered. “After we were rescued, Karl was entrusted with my care. I learnt later on that it was my aunt who asked him to. I was a mess back then—half-feral, barely able to sleep without relieving the lab. But he didn’t give up on me. He didn’t just teach me how to fight. He taught me how to live again. He gave me principles, values, and even a foundation. He equipped me with the tools and the skills I needed to survive. To be strong. And one thing Karl always said stayed with me. He said: Your enemies can strip you bare. Take everything. But they can’t take your pride. Not unless you hand it to them yourself.” She stared out over the waves. “That’s how I live. How I make decisions. Because in the end, I have to be able to look myself in the mirror. And live with what I see.”

  Lucas looked down at the stone beneath his feet, his lips tight. “…You had Karl. I had my father.” The difference was thunderous in its silence. “I never stood a chance, did I?” he murmured. “Against Zest.”

  Sera turned to Lucas, her voice calm but resolute. “It’s not a competition, Lucas.” He met her gaze, but she didn’t look away. “Even without Zest,” she said, “I would never have chosen you.”

  Lucas flinched. But she wasn’t cruel about it, only honest.

  “Zest and I… We’re broken people. And that’s why we fit. We understand each other. The worst parts, the shame, the pain. I’m sorry if that hurts, but you deserve the truth. Not hope where there is none.”

  Lucas said nothing. His silence said everything.

  “But you have a future,” Sera said. “And regrets will only anchor you to the past. Stop looking backward. Start moving forward. Look forward and live. It’s the only way you’ll survive in the world we’re in now.”

  She began walking, her boots crunching against gravel and grass. She didn’t look back.

  Lucas didn’t follow.

  He stared out at the sea long after she disappeared through the gates of Ashenridge, into the warmth of firelight and distant voices.

  Alone now, with only the dark water as witness, Lucas exhaled a ragged, hollow breath.

  The tide lapped gently at the base of the cliff.

  “…Look forward and live, huh?” His voice was no louder than a whisper.

  But the sea, ever watchful, carried it away.