M broke through smoke, the air bitter with blood. Elias stood amid the wreckage, dawn’s light pierg the gloom. His body ached—each step a stab through torn flesh, shirt tattered, hands crusted with grime. Yet the pain faded beside his resolve: a fight for something vast.

  A figure emerged from the haze—Liza, young, her blond hair dusted with soot, framing a weary yet fierce face. Barely past girlhood, she clutched the hammer she’d swung beside him. She stopped, eyes sharp. “You whole?” she asked, voice cutting the stillness.

  “I’ll hold,” Elias rasped, hiding the ache. “But this pace will break us.”

  Liza nodded, stere her youth. “True, but we’ve shakehey staggered—we cracked their iron.”

  Elias sed the survivors—scarred, uheir will flickered, a coal no wind could douse. It stirred in him—not craft’s pride, but the bond of those who’d bled with him. The d’s still face lingered, a weight he couldn’t shed. Could it mean more?

  “A start,” he muttered, steadying himself. “We might endure.”

  Liza’s hand gripped his arm, firm despite her slight frame. “We must,” she said, low and sure. “For those left—for the oo e.”

  Her words sparked something sharp. The future, once vague, now loomed near, carried by hands csped in the dark. His legs wavered, but her fire braced him—a thread held against the storm.

  “They’ll know us,” Elias swore, voice a quiet edge. They faced the factory’s husk, battle’s echo in their bones. A spark burned—faint, fierce—driving them on. For their rades, for the blood spilled, they’d rise again, till fate took its toll.