Chapter 12: Markings in Blood
The world had narrowed to three things: the white-hot screw of pain in her leg, the cold grit of the alcove wall against her cheek, and the shallow, panting rhythm of her own breath.
Two days. Or maybe three. Time had dissolved into a haze of throbbing agony and feverish chills. The canyon had been a silent, beautiful trap. She’d gathered the intelligence—sketched the migratory paths, marked the odd, purposeful lack of Titans in a sector that should have been swarming—and had been making her escape up the western ridge, just as Levi had dictated. The wind had been a fickle bastard, shifting not at dusk, but in the late afternoon, a sudden violent gust slamming her into the cliff face. The crack she heard wasn't the rock. It was her own tibia, a sound that went straight to her teeth.
Somehow, she’d anchored. Somehow, she’d hauled herself, leg screaming, into this shallow scoop in the rock. An alcove. A coffin with a view.
Her rations were gone. Her water was a few sips left in a dented canteen. Her blades were spent, the edges chewed up from carving. That’s what she’d been doing, in the lucid stretches between waves of pain. Carving. With the last sharp fragment of her primary blade, she’d etched the coordinates of the canyon’s silent sector into the sandstone, over and over. If they found her body, they’d find the intel. It was the only thing that made the pain feel like it had a point.
Her head lolled. The glade beyond the alcove mouth was stupidly peaceful. Sun dappled through the high trees. Birds chirped. It was an insult.
Then she heard it. A sound that didn’t belong to the canyon.
The distinct, rhythmic thud of hooves on hard-packed earth. Not the clumsy, ground-shaking tread of a Titan. Horses. Several of them. Moving at a steady, purposeful clip.
It came from the southwest. The direction of the camp. The direction of home.
Hope, a savage and unwelcome thing, stabbed through her chest, sharper than the bone in her leg. It couldn’t be traders. Not out here. It had to be the quick-reaction force. It had to be them.
But the window. Erwin’s seventy-two-hour window. Had she been here longer? Had they already left? The thought was a black vacuum, worse than the pain.
The sound was fading. They were moving past, maybe half a mile out, maybe a quarter, hidden by the ridge’s curve. They were going to miss her.
“No.” The word was a dry scrape from her throat. “No, no, no.”
Fumbling, her fingers numb and clumsy, she tore at the strap of her chest harness. Her hand closed around the cold metal cylinder of the flare gun. Levi’s flare. The purple one.
You come back. You use the flare.
Her hands were shaking violently. She couldn’t stand. Couldn’t wave. This was her only voice.
She dragged herself an inch forward, agony blazing up her leg and turning her vision grey at the edges. She needed a sightline. She pointed the muzzle of the flare gun up and out, towards the slice of open sky between the canyon walls.
Please. Please be Levi on those horses.
She pulled the trigger.
The thump of the launch was a visceral punch in the quiet glade. A streak of brilliant, chemical purple rocketed into the blue. It climbed, hissing, a violent, beautiful scar across the daylight. It reached its apex and exploded.
Not with a bang, but with a dense, popping crackle, spreading into a lurid purple cloud that bloomed against the heavens like a poisonous flower. It hung there, impossible to ignore, a screaming anomaly in the peaceful sky.
The sound of the horses stopped.
Complete silence.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage of bone. She listened, every nerve ending raw. Had they seen it? Or had they just stopped for a water break? Was it even them?
Minutes bled by. The purple smoke began to thin, drifting lazily on the high wind.
Then, a new sound. Not the casual trot from before. This was urgent. The hard, driving gallop of horses pushed to their limit, the sound growing louder, closer, tearing through the calm of the glade. They’d changed course. They were coming.
She slumped against the wall, the flare gun falling from her limp fingers. The adrenaline receded, leaving the pain to flood back in, a tidal wave of nausea. She was going to pass out. She couldn’t pass out.
The hoofbeats skidded to a chaotic halt somewhere below the alcove. Scuffling. The jangle of gear.
“Up there! The smoke came from up there!”
Eld’s voice. She’d know it anywhere.
Boots scrabbled on loose scree. More than one set. They were climbing.
A head appeared at the alcove entrance, backlit by the sun. Not Levi. Gunther. His eyes widened, taking in the scene: her pale, sweat-sheened face, the grotesque angle of her leg, the bloody blade fragment on the ground, the frantic coordinates carved into the wall.
“Found her!” he bellowed over his shoulder, his voice tight. “She’s alive. Leg’s busted. Bad.”
He moved toward her, his big hands surprisingly gentle. “Ito. Hey. Look at me. Can you hear me?”
She managed a weak nod, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Oluo’s face appeared next, his usual bravado wiped clean, replaced by a grim professionalism. They were a team, assessing a battlefield injury.
“Compound fracture,” Oluo muttered, not touching her, just looking. “Fever. Dehydrated. This is a mess.”
“Where’s the Captain?” she rasped.
“Securing the perimeter. He was on point. He saw the flare first.” Gunther was already pulling a canteen from his pack, supporting her head to let her sip. The water was the best thing she’d ever tasted, a cold flood of reality. “Easy. Slow.”
More boots landed in the alcove. Levi.
He didn’t push them aside. He just stopped, and his presence changed the air, made it static and charged. He was looking at her, but his eyes were doing that thing—taking in everything. The carvings on the wall. The empty ration packs. The swollen, discolored flesh of her leg. The discarded flare gun. His gaze was a physical touch, cool and assessing, mapping the damage.
His expression was unreadable. A blank sheet of parchment.
“Report,” he said. The single word was like a chip of ice.
She tried to muster military crispness. It came out a broken whisper. “Intel… carved on the wall. Canyon sector seven… completely clear. No signs of Titan passage for… maybe months. It’s deliberate. A route.”
He glanced at the wall, his eyes tracking the pain-etched numbers. He gave a short, sharp nod. “Understood.”
Only then did he kneel beside her. He didn’t touch her leg. He looked at her face, really looked, and she saw the first crack in the blankness. A flicker in his grey eyes, something dark and furious and scared. It was gone in a second.
“The wind shifted early,” she whispered, an apology.
“I know.” His voice was low, for her alone. He reached out, not for her injury, but to brush a strand of sweat-soaked hair from her forehead. His fingers were calloused and surprisingly cool. The touch lasted less than a second. “You used the flare.”
“You… told me to.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. He stood up, turning his back on her, his focus shifting to the squad. The moment of vulnerability was sealed shut.
“Oluo, Gunther—splint the leg. Use the small timber from the supply pack. Tight and clean. Eld, get the stretcher rigging ready. We move in ten minutes. This position is exposed.”
He walked to the edge of the alcove, looking out, a sentinel again. But his order hung in the air, the only acknowledgement she was going to get.
You used the flare.
As Oluo and Gunther moved in with practiced, efficient hands, their touch firm and painless as possible, Amiya let her head fall back. The carving was done. The flare was spent. The sound of horses was now the sound of her team, muttering curses and instructions around her.
She watched Levi’s rigid back, the line of his shoulders against the sky. He had come. The purple smoke had been her cry, and he had heard it. He was here, turning his fear into orders, his relief into logistics. The pain was still a white fire in her leg, but the hollow, screaming loneliness of the alcove was gone.
They were lifting her onto the stretcher now, the world tilting. She saw him turn from his vigil, his eyes finding hers one more time as they secured the straps. No smile. No gentle words. Just a hard, promised look that said everything the orders didn’t.
The mission was over. The extraction had begun.
The journey back was a jolting, gray dream of pain. Each sway of the stretcher between the two horses sent a nauseating shock up her leg, despite the careful rigging and the firm splint. She bit down on a leather strap to keep from crying out, her knuckles white where she gripped the poles.
Levi rode ahead, a silent, watchful silhouette. He never looked back, but his orders were crisp. “Slow the pace. The ground dips there.” His voice was the only anchor in the sea of agony.
They stopped as dusk bled the color from the sky. Not at the original camp, but at a smaller, secondary site Levi had scouted. It was a shallow cave, more of an overhang really, but it was shelter. “We’re not moving her again in the dark,” he stated, dismounting. “Get a fire going. Heat some water.”
They lifted her from the stretcher and placed her near the back wall on a bedroll. The relative stillness was a profound relief. Shadows danced on the rock as Eld got a small fire crackling. The smell of pine smoke and boiled water slowly replaced the scent of her own fear and sweat.
Levi brought over a steaming cup. “It’s just broth. You need the salt.” He didn’t hand it to her. He knelt, one arm sliding behind her shoulders to lift her, holding the cup to her lips himself. The intimacy was stark, performed without hesitation in front of the others. They tactfully busied themselves with the horses.
She drank, the warm liquid settling her shaking. He was so close she could see the fatigue etched around his eyes, the dirt smudged on his jaw. The firelight softened nothing in his face. He watched her swallow, his gaze intense.
When the cup was empty, he set it aside but didn’t move his arm from behind her. The squad’s murmured conversations faded into the background. The world shrank to the circle of firelight and his unwavering attention. The dam of stoicism he’d maintained since the alcove finally showed a hairline fracture.
Her own composure, held together by sheer will and military training, began to crumble. The delayed terror of the canyon, the crushing loneliness of the alcove, the overwhelming relief of hearing those hooves—it all hit her at once, rushing into the space his nearness created.
“I’m sorry.” She whispers to Levi.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “For what?”
“I couldn’t get back…” The words tumbled out in a rushed, panicked whisper. “I tried I swear I tried. I was worried you guys had left…Erwin’s orders—”
“Amiya.” His voice cut through hers, low and absolute. His arm tightened around her shoulders, a firm, grounding pressure. “I wasn’t leaving until you were with us. I don’t care what Erwin’s orders were.”
He paused, letting that declaration hang in the air between them, a direct insubordination that was more tender than any endearment. “And I know you tried to get back. You heard us. You set off the flare.”
His free hand came up, his thumb brushing a streak of grime from her cheekbone. The touch was deliberate, a physical seal on his words. “You’re here. With us. With me.”
He leaned down then, his lips pressing a firm, lingering kiss into her hair. It was not a gentle gesture. It was a claim, a reassurance, and a promise, all communicated in the simple press of his mouth against the crown of her head. He stayed there for a long moment, his breath warm in her dark strands.
When he pulled back, his expression had recomposed into something more familiar, though the edges were softer. “Get some sleep. We ride at first light for proper medical.”
He lowered her gently back onto the bedroll, his hand lingering for a second on her shoulder before he stood. He turned to the fire, his posture once more that of a captain. “Eld, you have first watch. Oluo, check the perimeter wires again. I don’t want any surprises.”
The orders were normal. The night was quiet. But everything had shifted. Amiya closed her eyes, the ghost of his kiss and the solid certainty of his words weaving a shield against the dark. The pain in her leg was a distant thunder. The real, terrifying work was over.
Now, they just had to get home.