The warfront, too, is gone. I’d spent so many years patrolling our border I can hardly believe it’s no longer there. Instead, there is nothing but forest. There are no Ghosts roaming through those lands, no grinding of teeth we must listen for. There is nothing but another country on the other side.

I observe this as our train winds its way along the outskirts of Newage until it finally turns south through Mara, leaving it behind and entering the hills of northern Basea. Beside me, Red sits with his shoulder gently touching mine, our hands twined as always. In his arms is a basket bearing all sorts of seeds, buds of flowers carefully wrapped, sacks of crushed eggshells. Gifts from the garden that Jeran and Aramin have been cultivating behind their home in Newage’s National Hall, a few miles away from where the Striker arena still stands.

Aramin has been reinstated as the Firstblade of Mara’s Striker forces. But there are no groups of Ghosts to fight anymore, no Federation to face. The Strikers pass on the most useful of their knowledge to other soldiers, and sometimes they are called on when a lone, stray Ghost is found wandering somewhere. But there are no new recruits in training. Maybe in a generation, there won’t be a need for Strikers at all. So Aramin instead spends half of his time advising Jeran, the newly elected Speaker of Mara, offering him guidance on how to use the Striker forces to help repair parts of the country that have been broken.

The formula of crushed eggshells is from Adena, some new fertilizer she’s developed that she wants my mother to try with her plants. Adena has left the Striker forces, concentrating her efforts on innovating new ways of improving the city with her own lab funded by Newage’s Senate. She has outfitted the apartment Red and I share as an additional experimental space, installing it with all manner of piping systems and energy bulbs. Some inventions from the Karensa Federation have been worth adopting, at least.

I turn my attention back to the basket of ingredients. Spices difficult to find in Basea, nuts and seeds and dried herbs that grow wild in Mara’s cool forests. My gaze drifts to my arm. I idly touch my skin, noting the unnatural hardness beneath it, the result of my Skyhunter transformation from years ago. My back has never healed quite right; the scars crisscross hideously across my skin. My ravaged body means I will never fight again. Sometimes, I find myself jolting awake beside Red in the middle of the night, sweating and shaking, my dreams haunted by memories of glass walls and sharp needles. But every year, the dreams fade a little more. Maybe someday, like the Strikers, they won’t exist at all. Other than that, I’ve healed, come to terms with what I am now. It’s something I bear with my chin high.

I had once been a Skyhunter, but I survived it.