POV: Caius

The field is almost finished when the cost arrives.

The second wave is broken. The regional line is driving the last organized resistance toward the transit cut, where the coastal flank is already waiting. Ayla stands on the low rise with the residual readiness of the current still under her skin, the edge held, the full irreversible opening not taken. The unsigned country is being rewritten in real time. For a stretch of minutes that feel almost clean, the picture is one of a closing engagement rather than a crisis.

Then the clean stretch ends.

Ryker is in the center of the final push, where the northern group...