Sound

The sky was pale, stars flickering to life one by one in the fading light. A chill crept through the cave mouth, brushing across Ylfa’s skin, but she hardly noticed. She sat with Jere at her side, her fingers unconsciously stroking Eny’s hair where the girl lay curled on the knit top. For a fleeting moment, everything felt whole. Complete.

Then Jere stiffened like a struck chord, his posture snapping rigid.

“Jere?” Concern spilled across her face. “Are you alright?”

His gaze unfocused for a breath, then he blinked and returned to her.
“I’ve finished deciphering Eny’s energy,” he said evenly. “It’s safe for us to fly.”

Relief softened Ylfa’s chest, and she let out a small smile.
“Really? That’s great! But… what is it? What is she?”

He shook his head.
“I don’t know either of those things yet. But I’ve confirmed she’s only half-human. A hybrid.”

Ylfa’s throat tightened. Hybrids. The word carried a bitter weight. In this world, they were rarely treated as people. Most lived enslaved - or worse, sold off into the entertainment pits. She shuddered at the memory of the last time she had seen one caged. To untrained eyes, she herself could be mistaken for a hybrid. The wolf ears, the tail - dead giveaways. Only the pointed ears hidden beneath her hair marked her as something else.

The safe havens they searched for were rumored sanctuaries for hybrids, small pockets of freedom where they could live unchained. Ylfa glanced at Jere, her voice steady.
“Then I suppose we really have to look after her now.”

He nodded once.

And then his head snapped up. His wings twitched.

Ylfa’s ears flicked upright as the sharp crack of a branch echoed faintly from below. The three of them froze, listening. The forest stretched out in silence, but the stillness was too deliberate, too weighted.

Slowly, Jere rose to his feet. The panels in his back shifted, wings sliding free with a hiss of servos. He strode out of the cave mouth, every movement sharp, predatory.

“Jere-” Ylfa began, but he was already gone. He dropped down the slope without a sound.

For a moment there was nothing. Just the rustle of leaves in the cooling breeze. Then-

A cry split the night. A raw, blood-curdling scream that froze Ylfa’s heart.

Eny startled awake, blinking and sitting up, rubbing her eyes.
“What’s going on?”

Ylfa gathered her quickly into her arms, holding her close.
“It’s alright,” she whispered, her own pulse hammering. “Wing-man’s just checking something.”

The seconds stretched, brittle and thin. Then Jere appeared, silent as a phantom at the cave mouth. The last light of dusk caught his wings - extended, dripping with something dark. His face was carved in shadow, his gaze hard, distant.

“We have to leave,” he said flatly. “They’ve found us.”

Ylfa didn’t hesitate. She rose with Eny still cradled, heart pounding, and hurried after him. They reached the slope, the forest below thick with shifting shapes and faint, rising voices. The shouts of men who had found the body.

Jere turned to her, arms out. Ylfa passed Eny into his grasp. The girl’s eyes lit up with a sudden, innocent thrill.
“Am I old enough to go flying now?”

He gave a short nod.

She pumped her little fist in triumph, her voice bubbling with excitement. “Yes!”

Jere crouched, turning so Ylfa could climb on. She pressed against his back, arms circling his neck, tail brushing his side as the shouts grew louder.

Too late.

With one powerful sweep of his wings, the ground dropped away beneath them. The wind roared, branches snapping as they tore skyward. Eny squealed with joy, laughter whipping away into the rushing night.

Then Jere’s ion engine screamed to life, its piercing wail splitting the dark, and the forest fell behind them in an instant.

Ylfa’s mind was a whirlwind. How had they found them so quickly? Panic clawed at her thoughts. Did they leave a trail? Drop something? Were they seen? Her heart hammered as she tried to make sense of it. Surely, once they’d left the Kingdom, the chase should have ended. Surely they weren’t still intent on destroying them. But the answer eluded her. The King’s motives were a knot she couldn’t untangle.

And then another, sharper thought pierced through. What if it wasn’t just them? What if they were after Eny? She wasn’t a normal child. While she looked, acted, and behaved like any ordinary human, Jere had detected something unusual about her energy. That strange, pulsing force must have drawn attention.

Then the realization struck her like a lightning bolt. The black collar. She’d almost forgotten it - it had become part of her, a weight around her neck, invisible in her daily movements. But it was imbued with tracking magic. Only demons could access it, which meant… someone on their side must be colluding with the humans. Ylfa’s chest tightened. She could hardly fathom such betrayal. One thing she knew with absolute certainty: the moment they landed, she would tear that collar from her neck, no matter the pain.

They cut through the night sky, the wind slicing past them as they soared. They thought they had left their pursuers behind - but Jere’s hyper-advanced eyes caught movement ahead. Heat signatures - hundreds, maybe thousands. An army. A single, massive force marching through the forest toward their hiding spot.

His processors whirred. His heart pounded. How much were they willing to throw at them? Every instinct screamed at him to act. He had to send a message. Something. Anything. To convince them to give up.

He inhaled, steadying himself. He was going to eradicate that army.

Without a word, he banked sharply and began circling back toward the hill. Ylfa, clinging to him, gripped his shoulders as he twisted in midair.

“What are you doing? Why are we going back?” she called, fear threading through her voice.

He didn’t answer.

As soon as he landed, Ylfa leapt from his back and hurried to his front.
“What’s going on-”

She froze as he handed Eny to her. The little girl’s face was radiant with joy.
“Wolf-girl! We flew in the sky!”

Ylfa’s tension softened for a heartbeat as she smiled down at… at her daughter. Then she looked up at Jere. The glint in his eyes - the sharp, dangerous glint - was one she hadn’t seen since the intruders had broken into their room in the capital. Her pulse quickened.

“Jere…” she whispered, half in awe, half in worry.

He held her gaze for a tense moment, silent but commanding. Then his wings unfurled again, powerful and deliberate, and he launched into the air. She watched as he circled once, the muscles in his back rippling as he angled toward the army below. Eny pointed, fascinated.

“Where’s Wing-man going?”

Ylfa hugged her tightly, her chest heavy with a mixture of fear and pride.
“He’s going to save us… so we can live again.”

Eny didn’t fully understand, but she hugged back, trusting Ylfa completely.
“Okay! Will he be back soon?”

Ylfa nodded, tears prickling her eyes. She’d lived through centuries of death and loss, and each one had left its mark. Now, with a child in her care, the stakes had shifted. She couldn’t allow Eny to grow up learning the ways of killers, the ways she and Jere had been forced into.

She held her close, bracing herself. The inevitable scream would come - the signal of Jere’s attack run. And she waited, heart clenched, for the moment the forest would erupt beneath him.

The army trudged between the trees, tense and uncertain. Fear coiled in their stomachs, but ambition burned hotter. The reward promised by the King - second only to him in power - was too enticing to ignore. They had been rerouted from their original assignments to hunt these so-called “evil” demons, creatures the Kingdom claimed must be purged for the world to be cleansed.

They moved cautiously, crunching through the undergrowth and stepping over roots and fallen branches. The forest seemed to favor them at first; its density should have hindered the winged demon. His wingspan stretched six meters, but the gaps between the trees never exceeded three. They believed themselves safe. They counted their numbers - over a thousand soldiers - and believed they had every advantage.

Then the air began to vibrate. It wasn’t sound in the conventional sense, but a strange distortion, a subtle warbling. On the hill, Ylfa felt it too. She had sensed this phenomenon before, but never this intensely. High above, Jere circled lazily, his massive wings slicing through the wind, but the effect of his presence was more than physical - it seemed to resonate in the very atmosphere.

A faint light appeared, flickering in the sky like a blue star reborn. The soldiers froze, their faces drawn upward, mesmerized. The warbling grew into a hum, a low, hypnotic sound that seemed to pulse with inevitability. They watched, entranced, as the light circled above them.

And then, abruptly, it went dark. The hum cut off in an instant, leaving the forest in silence so complete it felt unnatural. Five seconds passed like eternity.

Then the earth shattered.

A great dome of blue light erupted, expanding outward at impossible speed. The forest trembled. The soldiers screamed, their cries swallowed by the overwhelming roar of the energy. The dome grew, then reversed, collapsing inward at ever-increasing speed until it converged into a singular explosion - a fireball the size of a castle, erupting with a thunderclap that tore through the forest and shattered the night.

Flames leapt from the blast, incinerating everything in their path. Trees vaporized in seconds; undergrowth ignited instantly. Smoke rose like a volcanic plume, choking out the stars. When the fireball vanished, it left a smoking crater so vast it could have held a lake.

Ylfa’s eyes were wide, her breath ragged, as she struggled to comprehend the devastation. Eny tugged at her arm, attempting to speak, but the child’s words dissolved in the air - her ears were deafened.

Then, with a rush of cooler air, Jere landed behind them, wings still extended. His eyes, usually so unreadable, were downcast. He was hurting. Like Ylfa, he no longer wanted to kill.

“I… I can’t hear anything,” Ylfa tried to say, her voice muffled and strange even to her own ears.

Jere’s heart hammered. He had hurt her. The weight of guilt pressed down, unyielding, as he categorically logged her reaction - a mix of sadness, fear, and helplessness. His processors detected his second ever instance of the emotion remorse.

Ylfa stepped forward, supporting Eny with her elbow, and placed her trembling hand on his cheek. Her eyes glistened with tears, but she tried to reassure him.

“Don’t cry. It’s okay. We’re all okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. Jere knew it. He had shattered her hearing in that single, overwhelming strike. He couldn’t undo it. Her ears, normally twitching and alive with sensation, were silent and still. His tears ran down her hand, and he pressed his own on top, holding her gently against his cheek as Eny stared from between them, confusion and worry etched on her small face.

“What’s wrong?” the child asked.

Neither could answer. Words failed in the wake of devastation, leaving only the shared weight of fear, love, and guilt.