Councilor Daven found her at dawn.
Yuna had been practicing in the training room since before first light, working through the exercises Korvain had taught her. Extend the reach. Feel the pull. Pull back before it becomes damage. The anchor stones hummed around her, their resonance familiar now, almost comforting. She'd pushed further each session, mapping her limits the way a cartographer charts dangerous waters.
She didn't hear Daven enter. She felt him: a knot of grief and desperate hope at the edge of her awareness, wound so tight it made her own chest ache.
"You're the one who can feel them." His voice was rough, either unused or worn thin by sleepless nights. "The Hollowed. You can sense them from here."
Yuna opened her eyes. Daven stood just inside the doorway, his farmer's hands clenched at his sides. In the council chamber, he'd seemed hard, cold, a man who'd buried his heart along with the daughter he'd been forced to kill. But here, alone with her, the mask had cracked. She could see the father beneath, raw and bleeding.
"Sometimes," she said carefully. "When conditions are right. When I push far enough."
"Can you find her?" The words came out strangled. "Sera. Can you find my daughter?"
Yuna rose slowly, muscles protesting after hours on the cold floor. She wanted to give him the answer he needed: yes, absolutely, I'll bring her back to you. But she'd learned enough about this world to know that false hope was its own kind of cruelty.
"I don't know," she said. "I sensed something the other day, east of here, deep in the wastes. It might have been her. It might have been nothing."
"But there's a chance."
"There's always a chance." She met his eyes without flinching. "The question is whether that chance is worth the risk. Going into the wastes, getting close enough to a Hollowed to attempt the Bridge, I can't do that alone. It would require a team, supplies, protection. And even then, there's no guarantee I can reach her. She's been Hollowed for seven years. Whatever spark she had might be gone entirely."
Daven's jaw worked. "You reached the Herald. He was Hollowed for forty-three."
"He came to us. He surrendered himself. He wanted to be saved." Yuna chose her next words with care. "Sera won't want anything. She can't want; that's what being Hollowed means. If there's anything left of her, it'll be buried so deep that reaching it might kill me. And even if I manage to connect, I don't know if I can pull her back. Korvain had decades of practice resisting the emptiness. Sera was twelve when she was taken. She never had a chance to build that kind of strength."
The silence stretched between them. Daven's hands unclenched, then clenched again.
"You're telling me not to hope."
"I'm telling you what I know, which isn't much." Yuna took a step toward him. "But I'm also telling you that I'm going to try. When I'm ready. When we have a plan that doesn't get everyone killed. I'm going to find your daughter and I'm going to reach for whatever's left of her."
"Why?"
The question stopped her. "What do you mean?"
"Why would you risk yourself for a girl you've never met? A father you don't know?" Daven's voice cracked. "You're from another world. None of this is your fight. You could focus on getting home, on staying safe, on a hundred other things that don't involve walking into a wasteland full of monsters to save a child who might not be saveable."
Yuna thought about that. About her mother in the hospital bed, growing smaller and weaker while Yuna stood frozen in the hallway. About all the moments she'd failed to act, failed to reach, failed to be present when it mattered most.
"Because I spent my whole life not trying," she said quietly. "I let fear stop me. I let uncertainty paralyze me. I stood outside my mother's room for hours, telling myself I wasn't ready, I couldn't handle it, the timing wasn't right." Her voice steadied. "And then she died alone."
She let the words settle before continuing.
"I'm not doing that anymore. Not here. Not when I finally have the ability to actually reach someone."
Daven stared at her. His expression shifted, not into trust, but into the beginning of understanding.
"The council thinks you're special," he said. "A gift from the heavens. A weapon against the Maw."
"I'm not a weapon. I'm just someone who fell through a hole in the world and landed in a place where reaching matters." Yuna held his gaze. "I can't promise I'll save Sera. But I can promise I'll try. When I'm ready. When it's time."
"And when will that be?"
"Soon." The word felt like a commitment, a weight settling onto her shoulders. "Give me a few more days to train. Let Korvain finish mapping the routes. We'll put together a team and we'll go."
Daven nodded slowly. Then, without another word, he turned and walked out.
Yuna stood alone in the training room, surrounded by humming stones, feeling the echo of his grief long after he'd gone.
* * *
Korvain was waiting in the courtyard when she emerged.
His ward-collar had been upgraded since the council's decision, less restrictive, allowing him more freedom of movement within the refuge's walls. He'd traded his ragged robes for simpler clothes borrowed from someone roughly his size. The transformation was subtle but significant: he looked less like a monster in chains and more like a man recovering from a long illness.
"Daven found you," he said. It wasn't a question.
"How did you know?"
"I felt him pass my cell earlier. The grief coming off him is loud." Korvain fell into step beside her as she walked toward the kitchens. "What did he want?"
"His daughter. What every parent wants." Yuna rubbed her temples, fighting off the headache that was becoming her constant companion. "I told him I'd try. When the time was right."
"And when will the time be right?"
"That's what I need you to help me figure out." She stopped, turning to face him. "You said you know the routes. The paths through the wastes that are less guarded. I need to know everything: terrain, patrol patterns, the best approach to wherever Sera might be."
Korvain's expression grew serious. "You're planning an expedition."
"I'm planning a reconnaissance. A scouting run. See what's out there, how close we can get, what kind of resistance we'll face." She kept her voice low; guards and workers and refugees moved through the courtyard, going about their morning routines. "I promised Daven I'd try. But I'm not going in blind."
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"Good. Going in blind would be suicide." Korvain glanced around, then nodded toward a quieter corner of the courtyard. "Come. There's something I need to show you."
The something was a map.
Korvain had drawn it himself over the past several days. Not the tactical maps he'd been providing to the council, the ones showing troop movements, staging grounds, supply routes. This was different. More personal. A record of the eastern wastes as seen through forty-three years of Hollowed consciousness.
"The Maw's influence radiates outward," he explained, tracing lines across the parchment. "The closer you get to the center, the stronger the pull, the more Hollowed you'll encounter. But it's not uniform. There are channels where the emptiness flows strongest, and gaps where it's thinner."
"Gaps?"
"Places the Maw hasn't fully claimed. Old ward-sites, abandoned refuges, locations where the land itself resists the corruption." He tapped a point on the map, about fifty leagues east of their current position. "Here. The Broken Monastery. It was a sanctuary once, before the Hollowing spread this far. The wards have mostly failed, but the structure creates a kind of interference. Hollowed avoid it when they can. It makes them uncomfortable."
"Can we use it?"
"As a staging point, yes. If we can reach it." Korvain's finger traced a winding route through the wastes. "The direct path would take us through three major Hollowed concentrations. Suicide, even with a full complement of fighters. But there's an older road, a trading route from before the Maw opened, that skirts the worst of the contamination. It'll take longer, but we'd face scattered resistance instead of organized hordes."
Yuna studied the map, memorizing landmarks, calculating distances. "How long?"
"Four days there, if we move fast. Four days back. Plus however long you need at the monastery to reach for Sera." He paused. "Assuming she's even in that area. The Hollowed wander. She could be anywhere within a hundred leagues of where she was last spotted."
"Then I need to find her first. Before we go." Yuna touched the map, feeling the rough texture of the parchment under her fingertips. "If I can pinpoint her location from here, we can adjust our route accordingly."
"That kind of reach would push you beyond anything you've attempted." Korvain's voice was careful. "The pull you felt yesterday was at maybe sixty leagues. Sera could be further. Much further."
"Then I need to get stronger. Fast." She looked up at him. "Can you teach me?"
"I can teach you what I know. Which isn't designed for the Bridge; it's designed for the Maw's kind of reaching, the kind that consumes rather than connects." His jaw tightened. "But the principles might translate. How to extend without losing yourself. How to anchor your consciousness while your awareness travels."
"How to come back."
"Yes." His eyes held hers. "The most important lesson. You can reach further than you think, if you remember how to find your way home."
* * *
They spent the rest of the morning working through the logistics.
Chen Wei joined them after lunch, her gray eyes sharp as she reviewed Korvain's map. She asked questions, detailed tactical questions about force disposition, terrain advantages, fall-back positions. Korvain answered each one with the careful precision of someone who'd spent decades planning military operations. The dynamic between them was strange: former enemies becoming reluctant collaborators, neither quite trusting the other but both recognizing the necessity.
David arrived later, bringing supplies he'd requisitioned for the training: more anchor stones, dried provisions for extended sessions, medical supplies in case the reaching went wrong. He listened to the planning without interrupting, but Yuna could feel his worry like a low hum at the edge of her perception.
"You don't have to come," she told him during a break, when the others had stepped away to review additional maps.
"Yes I do." His voice was quiet but firm. "Someone needs to watch your back while you're reaching. Someone who can pull you out if things go wrong."
"David."
"I'm not arguing about this." He met her eyes, and she saw something fierce there, something that surprised her. "You saved my life in the forest. You've saved dozens of lives since then with the Bridge, with the Herald, with everything you've been doing. Now you're planning to walk into the wastes to rescue a little girl who's been Hollowed for seven years." His jaw set. "I'm going with you."
Yuna wanted to protest. Every practical consideration said she should minimize the team, keep the group small and fast, reduce the risk to others. But she could also feel how much this mattered to him, not just the mission, but being part of it. Being there for her.
"Okay," she said. "But if I tell you to run, you run. No arguments."
"We'll see."
"David."
"Fine." He almost smiled. "If you tell me to run, I'll run. After I make sure you're coming with me."
It wasn't quite the promise she'd wanted, but it was probably the best she was going to get.
* * *
By evening, they had a plan.
Small team: Yuna, David, Korvain, and three of Chen Wei's best scouts. Light equipment, fast movement, avoid engagement wherever possible. The goal wasn't to fight; it was to reach the Broken Monastery, establish a safe position, and give Yuna the time and space she needed to search for Sera.
Chen Wei had approved the mission with reservations. "If this works," she'd said, "it could change everything. If it fails, we lose one of our best assets against the Hollowed." Her gray eyes had found Yuna's. "Don't make me regret authorizing this."
"I won't," Yuna had said. She'd meant it. She just wasn't sure she could keep the promise.
Now, as darkness fell over the refuge, she stood on the walls alone, watching the wastes stretch toward the horizon. Somewhere out there, in the emptiness and hunger, a twelve-year-old girl was wandering. Lost. Hollowed. But maybe, just maybe, not entirely gone.
I'm coming, Sera, she thought, letting the words carry across the Bridge. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if there's anything left to hear. But I'm coming anyway.
No response. She hadn't expected one; the distance was too great, her reach too limited. But she could have sworn she felt something shift in the darkness. A flicker. A tremor. Like the wastes themselves were watching her back.
"You're doing that thing again." Sora's voice came from behind her, followed by the soft thud of her friend settling against the wall. Her injured leg was healing well; she'd be ready to travel soon, though not in time for this mission. "The brooding-on-the-walls thing. Very dramatic."
"I'm not brooding. I'm thinking."
"Same thing, different word." Sora bumped her shoulder. "Big day tomorrow, huh?"
"The biggest." Yuna didn't look away from the wastes. "We leave at first light. If everything goes according to plan, we'll reach the Broken Monastery in four days. Then I try to find Sera. Then we come back."
"Assuming nothing goes wrong."
"Nothing ever goes wrong."
Sora laughed, the sound short and surprised. "That's the most optimistic thing I've ever heard you say. Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm feeling terrified." Yuna finally turned to look at her friend. "I'm walking into a wasteland full of Hollowed to try to rescue a girl I've never met, based on a plan drawn up by a former enemy, using abilities I barely understand. Every part of this could go wrong in a hundred different ways."
"And yet you're going anyway."
"Yes." Yuna took a breath. "Because if I don't, Daven spends the rest of his life wondering if his daughter could have been saved. Because if I don't, we never find out whether the Bridge works on long-term Hollowed. Because if I don't, I'm still the same person who couldn't walk ten steps to her mother's bedside."
Sora was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. "You know that's not fair, right? What happened with your mom, you were grieving, you were scared, you were human. Not being able to act in that moment doesn't make you a coward."
"I know." Yuna's throat tightened. "But this is different. Here, I have power. I have the Bridge. I have people who believe in me and are willing to risk their lives beside me. If I don't act now, with all of that, then what was any of it for?"
"For you." Sora reached over and took her hand. "All of it was for you, Yuna. So you could grow and heal and become someone who doesn't freeze anymore. But that doesn't mean you have to prove it by dying in the wastes."
"I'm not planning to die."
"Good. Because if you die, I'll have to explain to David why I let you go alone, and that conversation would be extremely awkward."
Yuna laughed despite herself. "He's coming with me."
"I know. I was the one who talked him into actually asking instead of just stalking you protectively from a distance." Sora squeezed her hand. "Look, I know you have to do this. I'm not trying to stop you. I just want you to remember that coming back matters too. Not just for the mission. For us. For the people who need you here."
"I'll remember."
"Promise?"
Yuna looked at her friend, this woman who'd saved her life in the forest, who'd taught her to fight, who'd believed in her even when she'd been nothing but a confused Otherworlder with no idea what she was doing. Sora had lost so much to this war. They all had. But she was still here, still fighting, still hoping.
"I promise," Yuna said. "I'll come back. And I'll bring Sera with me, if there's anything left of her to bring."
"Then go get her." Sora released her hand and pushed herself upright, wincing as she put weight on her injured leg. "And when you do, I want full credit for the pep talk."
"Noted."
Sora limped toward the stairs, pausing at the top to look back. "Hey, Yuna?"
"Yeah?"
"You're not insufficient anymore. You know that, right?" Her smile was crooked, genuine. "Whatever you were before you fell through that portal, that's not who you are now. You're something else. Something more."
She descended before Yuna could respond, leaving her alone with the moons and the wind and the weight of everything that was coming.
Something more, Yuna thought. Or maybe just someone who finally learned to try.
Tomorrow, she'd find out which.