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The woman heard her before she saw her. The soft crunch of boots on frost-crusted grass. The shift of wind. She spun around instantly, the glowing panel vanishing as if it had never been there, her hand going to the hilt of a knife at her belt - rusted, blunt, clearly scavenged from a ruin. Her eyes blazed bright gold, wide with terror and defiance all at once.

“Stay back,” she said, her voice rough with disuse, her accent nothing like any dialect Aria had ever heard. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. But I will if I have to.”

Aria stopped ten paces away, keeping her hands loose...