Of Ruin and Loyalty
Chapter 1
The tide had pulled back just enough to reveal the streets. The air clung with last night’s mist. Wet stone glistened under a sky the colour of cold ash.
Tobias moved with a soldier’s gait—balanced, alert, like the ground might shift under him at any second. He was lean but hardened, close-cropped hair plastered to his forehead by the wet air. A scar curved from the corner of his jaw to just below his ear. His uniform, once pristine, was torn at the collar. Grey eyes swept the street ahead like he didn’t expect it to stay empty.
He guided Evie along cracked tiles where algae had settled in patterns no one would call art. His boots left dark prints in the slick grit. Hers dragged.
Seaweed looped through the spokes of a rusted child’s bike, the bell still clinging to the handlebars. A pair of rubber sandals floated nearby, bumping a sunken crate. A streetlamp lay fallen across the walkway, its base rusted through, glass shattered in the water. Every corner of the city looked like it had been broken with purpose.
Tobias shifted his grip on her arm. She was barely staying upright, the gash on her thigh soaking through her pants. Her jaw was tight, breath shallow. She hadn’t asked for help.
“I’ve got it,” she muttered.
“You don’t.”
She didn’t argue, but she didn’t lean into him either. Still too proud. Still Evie.
Ahead, a flooded market square shimmered with oil streaks. The lowest parts of the stalls had sunken months ago—kiosks now tilted or half-collapsed, their awnings torn and floating like kelp. Supply bins bobbed in shallow eddies, their contents long spoiled. The only reason they could walk here now was because the tide was at its lowest; in another hour, the sea would start swallowing it again.
The sculpture at the centre—a pair of hands reaching skyward—had lost its fingers. He remembered this place. There used to be music here, weekends with pop-up stalls. He’d bought her fried dumplings from a cart just over there, grease bleeding through the paper while she teased him about his inability to pronounce the vendor’s name. Her laugh had cut through everything. Clear. Reckless. Free.
His chest tightened. That memory hurt more than the ones with blood in them.
Now the only sound was their footsteps and the low creak of water moving where it shouldn’t. Even the gulls had stopped crying.
“I thought this would be gone by now,” she said, nodding to the sculpture.
“You always hated it.”
“I didn’t hate it. I hated what it stood for.”
“And what was that?”
“Hope,” she said. “Bought by people who never had to pay for it.”
He didn’t respond. She was shivering now, blood loss catching up to her.
They crossed the square, careful not to step where the stone had collapsed into sinkholes. Tobias led her to a dry edge near a collapsed kiosk and crouched. Underneath a dislodged slab, hidden where even the tide couldn’t reach, he pulled out the pack he’d stashed months ago.
He opened it slowly. A few ration bars. A rusted flask. And the fox plush.
Its fur was water-stained and stiff. One button eye hung loose on a thread. Still, he held it like it might breathe.
“You kept that?” Evie asked, voice thin.
He didn’t look at her. “Didn’t know I had.”
His fingers didn’t want to let it go. He forced them to.
He zipped the bag and turned back to her. She had one hand braced on her knee, the other pressed to her side. Her eyes were tracking the shadows around them.
“Evie—”
The comm clipped to his collar crackled. Static, then a voice, tinny and sharp.
“Vale. That you?”
Tobias went still. Evie didn’t move, but her body tensed.
The scout stepped from behind a support column, limp obvious, one leg bandaged in blood-soaked gauze. Seventeen, maybe. Fresh-faced, scared. His eyes went straight to her.
“That’s her,” he said, too loud. “That’s Ashfox.”
Tobias moved before he thought. Hand to the boy’s mouth. The other arm pinning his chest. The scout fought back, elbow catching Tobias’s ribs. It hurt. It didn’t matter.
“Don’t,” Tobias said.
“You’re helping her,” the scout gasped as he twisted free. “You’re compromised.”
“I know.”
The kid reached for his comm.
Evie didn’t speak. Didn’t run. Just looked at Tobias like she already knew what he’d do next.
He pulled the knife from her belt. The one she always carried.
He didn’t hesitate. That was the worst part.
One motion. Blade to skin.
The guilt would come later, too late, like everything else.
The boy went down with a choked sound, landing in the shallow pool near the sculpture. His blood mixed with the oil-slick water. Bubbles rose. Then stopped.
Tobias stood still, breathing hard. His hand was shaking now.
Evie’s voice was quiet.
“You used my knife.”
He kept his eyes on the water.
“Planning to tell them I did it?”
“Only if I have to.”
She stared at him a long time. Then she laughed—once, soft, dry.
“You haven’t changed. You’ve just learned how to sound sorry while twisting the blade.”
She turned and walked away, limping worse now. Still scanning. Still reading the exits.
Tobias let the silence settle before following. The worst part wasn’t what she said.
It was that she didn’t sound wrong.
