Chapter 15: Chapter 15
The river valley was a scar of green in a world of muted browns and greys. From the air, as they swung on their gear above the treetops, it looked serene, a winding ribbon of life. Up close, it was a cacophony of sound and shadow, the rush of water over rock masking all other noise, the dense canopy swallowing the sky.
Sage moved with a focused, almost brittle precision. Every swing, every landing, was calculated to minimize the twist in her lower back. A hot needle still traced her spine if she pushed too hard, but she’d learned its boundaries. She kept close to Miche, whose quiet, animal-like awareness was a steadying presence. Nifa and the other two, Rene and Holt, formed a loose diamond around them, eyes scanning the endless columns of trees.
The mission was, on paper, mundane. Chart the river’s course for five miles. Note any signs of titan passage—footprints, broken trees, the sour, static absence of wildlife. Look for the reason for the anomaly. It was busywork, the kind of task given to a squad that needed to relearn cohesion.
Sage felt the weight of unseen eyes. Not titans. Her father’s. Every silent clearing felt like a stage.
They made camp as dusk bled the color from the forest. Miche chose a spot on a high, rocky bluff overlooking the river, defensible, with clear sightlines. The fire was kept small, a token gesture against the deep chill of the wilderness more than for warmth. They ate rations in near-silence, the crackle of the flames and the distant river the only conversation.
One by one, the others retreated to their bedrolls, leaving Miche on first watch. Sage stayed by the fire, poking a stick at the embers. The orange light danced on her face, highlighting the tension in her jaw.
Miche watched her from across the flames, his nostrils flaring slightly as he unconsciously sifted the scents of the night: pine, damp earth, the metallic tang of the river, the sweat and leather of his squad, and on Sage, a sharp, bright note of anxiety.
She finally spoke, her voice low, swallowed by the vast dark.
“…Did he ask you to get rid of me?”
The question hung in the space between them, stark and ugly. The stick in her hand stopped moving.
Miche took a long breath, his eyes reflecting the firelight. He wasn’t a man of many words, and he weighed these ones carefully. “Surprisingly, no.” He tossed a pebble into the fire. It hissed. “Even if he did, I wouldn’t do it. He’d regret it later.”
Sage let out a short, bitter puff of air. “Yeah. Sure he would.”
“Sage.” Miche’s voice was a low rumble, softer than she’d ever heard it. He leaned forward, his large frame blocking the firelight for a moment. “He gets pissed at you sometimes. But he loves you. This thing with Levi… it’s more about keeping you and Levi safe than trying to control you.” He held her skeptical gaze. “He doesn’t want something to happen to either of you.”
The words landed, but they didn’t settle. They buzzed like trapped flies. “By threatening to send me on a suicide mission? By making Levi choose between his duty and…” She trailed off, the end of the sentence too dangerous to voice.
“By removing a variable he can’t calculate,” Miche corrected, his tone not defensive, simply factual. “You think he doesn’t see it? The way you look at the Captain? The way Levi, for all his stone-faced bullshit, watches your six? That’s a weakness titans can smell. More than that, it’s a lever. If someone inside these walls, or outside them, ever figured out who you are to him, they could use you to break Levi. Or use Levi to break Erwin. He’s not severing a bond to be cruel. He’s cauterizing a wound before it gets infected.”
Sage stared into the flames until her eyes watered. The logic was cold, military, and utterly her father’s. It made a horrific kind of sense. It painted her feelings not as a rebellion, but as a security flaw. It painted Levi’s reluctant protectiveness as a systemic risk.
“So love is just a liability,” she whispered, the words tasting of ash.
“Love is a distraction,” Miche said. “Out here, a distraction gets you killed. Gets your squad killed. He knows that better than anyone.” He paused, his gaze drifting to the dark line of the trees. “He lost his sister. Your mother. He watched Levi lose his entire first squad. He’s not orchestrating heartbreak for fun. He’s trying to prevent a massacre.”
The truth of it was a physical weight on her chest. She thought of her mother, a ghost in a story. She thought of Isabel and Farlan, names Levi never spoke, shadows that always followed him. Her father’s calculation wasn’t born of cruelty, but of a trauma so deeply ingrained it had fossilized into strategy.
“What am I supposed to do?” The question was for herself, but she voiced it into the night.
“Your job,” Miche said simply. “You prove him wrong. You prove you can be sharp, and focused, and alive, without being a liability. You make that bond into a strength he can’t argue with.” He stood up, his joints cracking. “Or you walk away from it. But you can’t live in the middle. The middle is where people die.”
He moved to the edge of the bluff, merging with the darkness, leaving her alone with the fire and the echoing truth.
She pulled her knees to her chest, ignoring the protest in her back. The river’s endless roar was a white noise that slowly cleared her mind. He loves you. Miche’s interpretation reframed every harsh word, every cold order, every manipulative move. It didn’t excuse them. But it cast them in a light so desperately sad she could hardly bear it.
Her hand went to the pocket of her jacket, her fingers closing around the smooth, cool shape of the river stone. The truest thing I own. Levi’s challenge echoed in her head. You already know how to read the fight.
This wasn’t a fight with titans. It was a fight with a legacy of loss, with a father who expressed love through ruthless protection, and with her own heart. To prove her father wrong, she had to be impeccable. To honor the truth of the stone, she had to survive.
She looked out at the vast, titan-haunted darkness, and for the first time, saw it not just as a physical wilderness, but as a mirror of the emotional one she had to navigate. The path wasn’t clear. But the necessity was.
She had to be so good, so vital, that her existence—and the bonds she chose—could no longer be seen as a flaw, but as an essential, unbreakable part of the structure. It was an impossible task.
Sage Renn tightened her grip on the stone, and watched the embers die, planning her impossible war as the first hint of grey touched the eastern sky.
The dawn was a cold, grey smear through the trees. They broke camp with the efficiency of long practice, kicking dirt over the dead fire, checking straps and gas canisters with silent nods. Sage’s body felt stiff, but the hot needle in her spine had dulled to a manageable ache, a familiar companion she could ignore. She stowed the river stone deep in her pocket, sealing the night’s thoughts away with it.
They moved east along the riverbank, their ODM gear unused, boots sinking into the soft, damp earth. The mission required ground observation. Holt pointed out a series of deep, recent gouges in the bank—too small for a titan, too large for any forest animal. They documented it without comment, the quiet pressing in.
A jay screamed somewhere high above, a sharp, warning sound. Miche held up a fist, freezing them all. His head tilted, his nostrils flaring wide as he sampled the air. His expression, usually so placid, tightened.
“Smoke,” he murmured. “Burnt leather. Blood. Due west.”
Before anyone could respond, the thunder of hooves and the shriek of ODM gear shattered the forest’s quiet. Riders and soldiers burst through the treeline upstream in a chaotic wave, churning the river to froth. At the front, Commander Erwin rode tall on his horse, his blue eyes scanning and locating them instantly. Beside him, Hange Zoe’s face was stripped of its usual manic curiosity, replaced by a stark, operational focus.
The squads behind them were a blur of motion, already re-supplying from pack horses, faces set in grim masks. This wasn’t a relief column. It was a mobilized strike force.
Erwin reined his horse to a skidding halt before Miche. Dust and leaves settled. The silence that followed was heavier than the previous quiet.
“Squad Levi is stuck on the western ridge.” Erwin’s voice cut through the air, clean and cold as a scalpel. “We need all hands on deck. They have no way out. They were ambushed by rogue scouts. Oluo managed to get back to us to tell us.”
The words didn’t fully land at first. They buzzed, meaningless. Then they crystallized, each one a shard of ice.
Levi. Stuck. Ambushed. No way out.
Sage felt the forest tilt. The river’s roar flooded her ears. Her hand clenched in her pocket, the edges of the stone biting into her palm. Rogue scouts. Humans. That changed everything—titans were predictable forces of nature, but humans laid traps, aimed for weaknesses, understood tactics.
Miche was already nodding, his squad absorbing the shift in mission with a soldier’s numbness. “What’s the composition of the hostile force?”
“Unknown. Oluo was incoherent, badly wounded. He mentioned crossbow traps in the trees, diverted a titan herd toward their position.” Hange’s voice was rapid, clinical. “Their retreat path is collapsed. They’re pinned on a cliff face with limited gear gas, holding off both titans and hostiles.”
Erwin’s gaze swept over his daughter. She saw the calculation in his eyes, the instant risk-assessment. A liability or an asset? Her spine was a live wire of pain, her mind screaming with a fear that had nothing to do with titans.
“Sir.” Her own voice sounded strange. “What’s the plan?”
He held her gaze for a fraction too long. “A direct assault. We draw the titans and the hostiles’ fire. We create a vertical corridor for their escape.” He turned his horse. “You’re with the rear support line, Renn. Your mobility assessment is still provisional.”
It was the correct, logical order. It was also a cage. The rear line would be safe, distant, useless. She would watch, not fight. She would have to trust her father’s calculus with Levi’s life.
Miche was mounting a supplied horse, his squad following suit. The massive rescue operation was a machine beginning to turn, gears meshing with a sound of shouted orders and hissing gear.
Sage didn’t move.
You already know how to read the fight.
Levi’s voice, from the stairwell, from the stone in her hand. This wasn’t just a rescue. It was the fight. The one her father was trying to keep her from. The one where she proved what she was made of, or where she buried the truest thing she owned.
She looked at Erwin’s retreating back, the commander already moving, already strategizing. She looked at the chaotic swirl of soldiers preparing to launch into the deadly sky toward the western ridge.
Her fingers unclenched from the stone.
She walked, not to the rear supply horses, but to a skittish chestnut mare being calmed by a young soldier. She took the reins from his hands.
“Hey, that’s—!”
“I need it,” she said, her voice leaving no room for argument. She swung up into the saddle, her back screaming in protest at the motion. She ignored it, grabbing a fresh canister of gear gas from a passing loader and slapping it onto her own rig.
She kicked the horse forward, weaving through the chaos until she pulled up beside Erwin. He didn’t look at her, his eyes fixed on the western tree line.
“I’m not going to the rear,” she said, the words clear and steady.
“That was an order.”
“I’m aware.” She adjusted her grip on the reins. “But you need every blade that can cut. My blade can cut. I know the western ridge formations. I scouted them last year. I know where the rock is unstable, where the old animal paths are. Intel Oluo wouldn’t have.”
Finally, he looked at her. His expression was unreadable, a mask of command. She saw no father in it now, only the strategist weighing a new, unpredictable variable.
“Your back.”
“Will hold.”
“If you falter, you die. You could get them killed.”
“If I stay back, I might as well be dead.” She held his gaze, the truth of it hanging bare between them. “Let me be useful. The way I know how to be.”
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the readying corps. Then Erwin gave a single, sharp nod. It wasn’t approval. It was an acknowledgement of a deployed resource.
“Stay on Miche’s left flank. Do not deviate. Your only objective is to help clear the vertical corridor. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
She nudged her horse forward, falling into the forming line. Miche glanced at her, gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod, and faced forward. Hange caught her eye from a few horses down and pushed their glasses up, a fierce, unspoken solidarity in the gesture.
Erwin raised his arm. A hundred hands went to ODM triggers. A hundred breaths were drawn in.
His arm swept down.
The simultaneous blast of gas was like the world tearing open. They launched into the forest canopy, a storm of steel and humanity hurtling toward the smoke-streaked western sky. The wind whipped Sage’s braid straight back, and the ache in her spine became just another part of the machine of her body, a gear meshing with purpose.
She flew toward the ridge, toward the ambush, toward him, her path no longer provisional. It was etched in fire and necessity, and for the first time, it felt entirely her own.
The forest became a blur of green and brown, a tunnel carved by the screaming jets of their gear. The peaceful river valley vanished behind them, replaced by the growing stench of smoke and something fouler—the coppery tang of blood and the ripe, decaying smell of titan flesh. The sounds reached them next: the distant, wooden thwack of crossbow fire, the bestial roars of titans, and underneath it all, the shrill, desperate whine of ODM gear pushed to its limit.
Sage’s world narrowed to the back of Miche’s uniform, the swing of her blades, and the fire in her spine. They skirted a clearing where two fourteen-meter classes were grappling, their roars vibrating in her teeth. A bolt whistled from the trees, embedding itself in a trunk where Nifa’s head had been a second before. The rogue scouts were here, integrated into the chaos like venomous snakes in the grass.
“Eyes up!” Miche barked, not looking back. “They’re in the canopy!”
They ascended the rocky slope of the western ridge. The cliff face came into view, and Sage’s breath hitched. It was a butcher’s tableau. Four, maybe five titans were clustered at the base, their clumsy hands scrabbling against the rock. Higher up, on a narrow, crumbling ledge, flashes of steel moved in a confined, desperate dance—Levi’s squad, cornered. Crossbow bolts peppered the rock around them, keeping them pinned. Even from here, she could see their movements were slow, conservative. Their gas was nearly gone.
Erwin’s force hit the titans from the side like a hammer. The distraction was immediate and brutal. Hange’s squad used specialized nets and hooks to enrage the giants, drawing their attention away from the cliff. The air filled with titan screams and the sickening crunch of severed limbs.
Sage followed Miche, cutting a deep gash across a titan’s heel as she passed, sending it crashing forward. They were creating the corridor, just as ordered. But the ledge was still too hot, the crossbow fire from the opposite ridge still too steady. Levi’s team couldn’t drop down into the opening; they’d be picked off.
They touched down on a jagged outcropping at the base of the ridge, the rescue operation’s new frontline. Soldiers landed around them, gasping, reloading. The din was overwhelming. Erwin dismounted from his gear, his boots scraping on stone. His eyes scanned the lethal geometry of the cliff, the opposing ridge, his trapped soldiers. The calculation was failing. The distraction wasn't enough.
He strode to Sage, grabbed her arm, and pulled her behind a massive boulder, out of earshot of the others. The sudden contact was electric, his grip firm.
“Do you still have that pink flare?” he asked, his voice low, urgent, cutting through the battle noise.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She looked panicked for a moment, her mind racing through the implications. But he put a hand on her shoulder, a gesture that was neither comforting nor harsh, purely functional.
“I’m not mad if you do but I need to know.” he said.
The weight of the flare gun in her thigh holster felt like a lodestone. She hadn't even consciously decided to bring it. It was just part of her kit, a habit from the forest. “Yes…I do.” she responded, the words tight.
“Okay. Here’s the plan.” His blue eyes held hers, devoid of paternal softness, pure tactical ice. “We cause a distraction the rogues can’t ignore. Hopefully Levi takes the opening. If he doesn’t. Which is likely. You shoot that flare. We both know it’ll force him to move.”
She understood. This wasn’t about signals. It was about psychology. It was about him. A pink flare was a mistake, a crisis, a broken rule. It was her. Levi would see it and his programming would short-circuit. Protect the squad. Correct the error. Save the reckless soldier. It would bypass his tactical assessment, his stubborn will to hold the line. It would make it personal.
“Okay…okay.” She swallowed, her throat dry. “I can do that.”
“And. Afterwards you can do what you want after we get him out.” Her father said, his gaze shifting back to the cliff. “Just get him moving. Give him a reason to move.”
He released her shoulder and was gone, barking orders to form a frontal assault on the sniper ridge. The weight of the assignment settled on her, colder and heavier than any weapon. She was the contingency plan. The emotional trigger.
She unholstered the flare gun. The polished metal was slick in her sweaty palm. She looked up at the ledge, searching for a glimpse of him amidst the flashes of steel and puffs of rock dust. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps that had nothing to do with exertion.
On Erwin’s signal, a concentrated volley of thunder spears screamed toward the rogue scouts' position. The explosions were deafening, showering the opposite ridge with stone and splintered wood. The crossbow fire stuttered, then ceased.
The opening was there.
Sage watched the ledge. The figures up there hesitated, coiled, but didn’t leap. They were waiting for something, or someone was holding them back. Levi was assessing, weighing the silence, suspecting a trap. He was choosing the safety of his position over the gamble of the corridor. He was being rational. He was going to get them all killed.
“Now, Renn!” Erwin’s voice cut across the brief quiet.
Her fingers were numb. She raised the flare gun, not at the sky, but at the empty air between her and the cliff face. A direct line of sight. She squeezed the trigger.
The POP was absurdly small against the battle’s roar. But the projectile burned an impossible, vibrant pink against the grey smoke and rock. It trailed a garish, beautiful arc of neon light, a ridiculous flag of color in the monochrome hell. It was the brightest thing in the world.
On the ledge, a figure froze mid-motion.
Sage saw him then. Levi. He was looking not at the newly cleared corridor, but down at the source of the flare. His head was turned toward her, his posture utterly still amidst the chaos. Even at this distance, she felt the full force of his shock, his recognition, and the instantaneous, volcanic anger that followed. The flare was a message, a scream, a reminder of the river and the mill and a debt unpaid.
It was a reason to move.
His grey eyes locked onto hers for a single, timeless second. Then he turned, and his arm shot out, a blade pointing decisively downward. His squad, without hesitation, launched themselves off the crumbling ledge, following the fading pink streak down into the heart of the rescue corridor. He moved last, a black and white streak of pure motion, diving straight toward the chaos, straight toward the source of the flare.
The gambit had worked. Erwin’s distraction, her provocation. He was moving.
Sage dropped the spent flare gun, her hand trembling. The relief was instantly swamped by a new, more visceral terror. He wasn't just escaping. The trajectory of his descent, the fury in his movement—he was coming directly for her.