Skadi kept to the back of the line on their way home, breath frosting in faint curls that drifted behind her like ghosts. The chill hadn't settled, not after what she had seen. It hummed inside her bones, deeper than marrow, a thrum that made her teeth ache if she held still too long.

Ahead, the rest of the team walked in a loose knot. Harvin's broad shoulders rolled as he stretched out a kink in his neck, Tovan checked something on a battered tablet, and Nika led them all with that same clipped stride. Like she already owned whatever stretch of corridor they passed through.

No one mentioned the meager haul strapped to their packs. They'd come for enough to keep the Hold fed for weeks. Now they'd be lucky to stretch it half that. But Skadi had saved them, and that fact rode just under the surface of everything, reshaping the silence.

Harvin was the first to crack. He glanced back at her, his breath fogging. "Didn't peg you for the type to haul us out by the skins of our teeth," he muttered. His words weren't exactly warm, but they weren't as wary as they had been. More like the grunt of someone surprised by a dog that didn't bite.

Tovan snorted, shifting his pack. "Could've used a stunt like that last time. Would've saved us all a scare."

Even Nika's eyes cut back over her shoulder, a spark of approval there, tempered by that same quiet weighing look she always gave. As if Skadi was a blade she'd just tested and found sharp enough to wield.

Skadi didn't know if that should make her proud. Or just more certain she'd stepped into the space her brother had warned her about. The one where you stopped being a person, and started being someone's weapon.

But for now, at least, it meant Harvin and Tovan weren't watching her like a bomb waiting to go off. That small easing in their posture made something tight in her chest loosen, just a fraction.

She blew out a breath, watched it swirl pale in the half-lit corridor, and kept walking.

They moved through the Hold's outer corridors, past low archways marked with resistance sigils and heavy doors rigged to jam if triggered wrong. Skadi let her steps slow until she was close enough to Nika to speak without the others overhearing.

"Your people," she said, voice pitched low, her breath curling cold between them. "They trust you to see trouble coming. To keep them ahead of it."

Nika arched a brow, not breaking stride. "You've got something specific in mind?"

Skadi's jaw tightened at the nickname. She forced herself to focus. "The kitsune. The one out in the wastes. You must've heard the chatter, she's not just some wandering scav. She's tied up in whatever wrecked Haven's hold on this moon in the first place. The longer she's out there, the more likely it is she's going to bring down something none of us are ready for."

For a moment, Nika's expression didn't shift. Then she exhaled, almost a laugh. "You're serious."

Skadi's stomach knotted. "You should be, too."

"Look, I've got enough to worry about keeping Haven's corporate leeches off our backs and making sure my people eat." Nika's mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "If your kitsune wants to dance around in the frost scaring the shit out of some idiot scav crews, that's her problem. Might even keep Haven busy chasing her instead of cracking down here."

"She's not a distraction," Skadi snapped, voice sharper than she intended. "She's dangerous. If she decides this Hold, or anyone in it, is in her way, you think she'll hesitate?"

That earned her a pause. Nika slowed just enough to study her, eyes dark and careful. "You've got history there. I get it. But history's not strategy. We deal with the threats that stand on our doorstep, not the ones haunting your nightmares."

It stung more than Skadi wanted to admit. The worst part was, she could tell Nika thought she was being fair. Keeping her head. Protecting her people in the way Skadi was still learning how to understand.

But it also meant Skadi's concerns, her convictions, ended here, in this dim corridor with no weight behind them.

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She looked away, shoulders stiff, letting the cold curl tighter under her skin. "Fine."

Nika gave her a small clap on the arm, half camaraderie, half dismissal, and strode ahead to catch up with Harvin and Tovan.

Skadi lingered a step behind, pulse loud in her ears. The Hold around her seemed to squeeze in close, steel and frost pressing tight. She wasn't sure if it was her anger that set the ice creeping out from her boots, or the fear that maybe, just maybe, Nika was wrong.

That when Akiko did come calling, no one would be ready.

When Skadi finally stepped into Tala's workshop, the cold seemed to recoil from her all at once, drawn back like breath before a whisper.

Tala was hunched over one of her consoles, the glow of half a dozen screens painting stark lines across her face. Her voice was low, too low for Skadi to catch more than the shape of it. Soft, conspiratorial, almost pleased.

Then Tala's gaze snapped up. The words died. One gloved hand drifted casually over a control, killing the screen's projections so quickly the afterimages still burned against Skadi's eyes.

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then Tala leaned back in her chair, stretching with deliberate laziness. "You look like hell, Snowdrift. Rough night out?"

Skadi's eyes narrowed. "Who were you talking to?"

Tala arched a brow, smile thin. "Just my systems. You know how it is. Sometimes you have to sweet-talk old hardware to keep it running." She gestured loosely at the bank of darkened screens. "You're crowding the place up with all that frost again. Come to shed more on my floor?"

Skadi ignored the jibe, drifting closer to peer at the faint traces of runic schematics still fading from the glass. "What are you working on?"

For a moment Tala didn't answer. Then she let out a breath, drumming her fingers once against the console before pushing off and rising to stand beside Skadi. "Fine. Since you're already nosing around."

She keyed up a new display. This one wasn't dense lines of code or familiar resistance traffic. It was a schematic. Circular, complex, humming faintly with a blue under-light that made the etched lines seem to dance.

"A little side project," Tala said, almost breezy. "Call it… insurance."

Skadi's gaze flicked to her. "Against what?"

"Anything." Tala's grin didn't reach her eyes. "Against Haven, if they roll in here with heavier hardware. Against their fancy new magitech shielding. Or…" She tilted her head, studying Skadi sidelong. "Against more local threats. Say, if a certain kitsune decided this Hold was easier to carve up than another mining station."

Skadi's hands curled slowly at her sides. "What does it do?"

Tala shrugged. "It's a bomb. Mostly. Enhanced by… well, whatever the hell this script does. I don't pretend to know the metaphysics. But based on the models I've cribbed off the frigate's architecture, it should be enough to punch through fields like the ones that pinned your magic, and keep burning after."

"Or kill something that can't be killed by ordinary means," Skadi said, voice low.

Tala gave her a look that was too sharp to be casual. "Exactly."

Silence stretched. The diagram pulsed gently on the screen, casting long lines of blue across Tala's cheekbones and Skadi's outstretched hands.

"You're serious about this," Skadi said finally.

Tala's grin turned brittle. "Dead serious. Power's shifting out there, Snowdrift. Faster than you realize. If we're not ready to meet it, to stop it before it decides we're in the way, we'll end up dust on the frost."

Skadi didn't reply. Her thoughts snarled tight in her chest, dragging through memories of her mother's last moments, through every glimpse of foxfire that had haunted her steps since. And here was an answer. Brutal. Simple.

Later, after Tala had shut herself back into the tangle of consoles and Skadi had retreated to her meager pile of blankets, the stillness of the workshop felt heavier than usual.

The hum of the servers was a low, patient heartbeat. Cool air sluiced around her shoulders. Somewhere overhead, old duct fans turned with a slow grind, like the breath of something waiting.

Skadi pulled her knees in close. Rested her forehead against the edge of her folded arms. Tried to draw comfort from the familiar bite of the cold, the way it prickled at the edges of her thoughts.

But her mind wouldn't settle.

Tala's words kept circling. So did the faint blue glow of that schematic, burned into her sight long after the display had gone dark.

She wanted to protect Isvann. Wanted it with the same raw instinct that had driven her to raise the shock-baton against Karn's men when they came for her mother. To freeze a stranger solid in the corridor rather than risk the mission failing.

And hadn't she told Nika to be ready? Hadn't she warned her that something worse could still be coming?

But a bomb… pointed not at Haven, not at the boots that had kicked down their doors, but at someone she had once shared a roof with, that was different. That was deliberate. Planned. A line crossed so cleanly it would carve her in two.

Skadi clenched her jaw, breath shivering out between her teeth.

Tala would do it anyway.

That thought came as a small, cold comfort. Like packing snow over something festering.

Tala had her own ambitions, her own reasons. If Skadi did nothing, the plan would roll forward on its own. The bomb would exist with or without her. And if the kitsune really was the threat the whispers said, if the blue of her foxfire still burned through the moon's heart like a scar, then maybe it was better this way.

Skadi just had to step back. Let Tala do what Tala did best. Let it all unfold without adding her own hands to the making of it.

And if that lie helped her sleep, she'd cling to it a little longer.

She drew in a slow breath, pressing her knuckles against her mouth to keep the tremor out of it. Then let her eyes slip closed, trying not to imagine the pale star of her magic reflected back at her from a distant pair of hungry, laughing eyes.

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