Kangeq Outpost, Day 18.
The snow had stopped falling.
The sky stretched wide above them—silver and endless, like a dome of polished glass, still and vast. Not a bird. Not a breath of wind. Only the soft crack of ice melting on the eaves, the creak of aging beams, and the quiet rhythm of Cain's work.
He moved like he had been built for it.
Not rushed. Not frantic.
Efficient. Controlled. Inhumanly fluid.
He tore apart the sleds first—splitting the runners with ease, driving the tips into the frozen ground for leverage, then pulling the frame boards free one by one.
He stripped the barracks next.
Old crates. Broken shelving. Rope stiff with frost. Bent nails pried out with a crowbar and straightened with quiet, rhythmic hammer strokes.
He was building not just a canoe—but a vessel of endurance. Longer, reinforced with whalebone and iron, the frame sleeved with tar-sealed canvas and snow-cured hide. It would not be fast—but it would be strong. Capable of surviving the open sea.
A ship for two.
The Light Stone pulsed beneath his coat, faint but steady—his rhythm, his compass. His Core thrummed in his chest like a second heart. The cold no longer touched him.
He didn't need food.
He didn't need rest.
He needed her to live.
Janice stepped out from the station an hour after the pale sun had crested the eastern peaks.
And she was changed.
Gone was the too-loose British coat.
Gone was the color of a flag she no longer followed.
In its place, she wore a layer of roughspun furs and canvas, sewn with wide, uneven stitches that nonetheless held true. A seal-hide vest laced down the front. A gray wool underlayer taken from the old sled blanket. Thick trousers rolled at the knees, boots rewrapped in rope. Her hair was tied back in a short braid, half-tucked beneath the hood of a patched field parka stitched from salvaged tent flaps.
She didn't look like a nurse anymore.
She looked like someone who had survived something.
And Cain, glancing up from the skiff's frame, paused—for just a breath.
Not because she was strong now.
But because she had stopped trying to be small.
Janice walked toward him across the snow.
Her steps were unsure.
But they were hers.
The rifle hung awkwardly across her back, slung with a mismatched strap. She had padded the buttstock with a leather wrap. Her cheeks were pink from cold. Her eyes were open.
She stopped beside him.
Didn't smile.
Didn't joke.
She just looked at him.
And said:
"Show me."
Cain nodded.
He set the hammer down, wiped a fleck of frost from his hand, and turned toward the ridge.
They began with the rifle.
He didn't speak much.
Just moved.
Just showed.
Click. Pull. Rack. Load. Breathe. Sight. Fire.
She mirrored him, slow and focused.
He corrected her stance once.
Again.
Soft touches—his hand on her elbow. On her hip. On the small of her back.
"Don't lean back."
"Keep your elbow tight. Here."
"Anchor your cheek. Good."
His fingers were cold through her coat.
But steady.
Reassuring.
Janice swallowed her nerves and pulled the trigger.
The rifle kicked hard into her shoulder.
The shot rang out across the cliff's edge, echoed out over the open ice.
She blinked.
Cain watched her reaction.
She winced.
But she didn't flinch.
He nodded once.
"Again."
She braced.
Fired.
Then again.
And again.
Each time her breath steadied, her posture firmed. Her shoulder ached, but her grip tightened.
She wasn't precise. Not yet.
But she was trying.
And Cain—
Cain watched her in silence.
And, just for a second—
was proud.
Later, Cain returned from the tool rack with a bayonet in hand.
It wasn't polished.
It was blackened, scuffed, the kind used in trenches—meant for brutality, not elegance.
He handed it to her silently.
Janice took it with both hands, her breath catching slightly as the weight settled into her palms.
It felt heavier than it should have.
Cain knelt beside her.
Showed her how to lock it to the rifle, how to hold it low—blade angled forward, not up.
He stood and held out his arm, gesturing to a training dummy he had built earlier—just an old field coat stuffed with sea grass and nailed to a post.
"You're small," he said. "Use that."
She frowned slightly.
"Is that a compliment?"
Cain didn't answer.
But his eyes flicked with something—almost a smile.
Almost.
He demonstrated again.
Short steps.
Tight stabs.
Not wild swings—precision.
"Drive with your legs. Step in. Let your weight do the work."
He stabbed once, clean, then twisted the blade in the dummy's side.
"Once it's in, twist. Tear. Pull out fast. If you get stuck, you die."
Janice swallowed.
Hard.
He stepped back.
"Your turn."
She hesitated.
Then stepped forward.
Her boots slid slightly in the snow.
She adjusted.
Raised the rifle.
Thrust.
The tip hit the dummy's jacket—and bounced off.
Too soft. Too hesitant.
Cain didn't scold her.
Just nodded once.
"Again."
She gritted her teeth. Stepped in harder.
Stabbed.
The blade sank in this time—just barely.
She twisted, too slowly.
Tried to pull.
The fabric held.
Cain stepped in and helped guide her hand with his own, pulling the blade free.
"It gets easier."
She nodded.
But her fingers were shaking.
On the third try, she stabbed too fast—her grip slipped, and the blade slashed her palm as she twisted the handle wrong.
She gasped and dropped the rifle, blood blooming like a flower across her lifeline.
Cain was beside her instantly.
He didn't speak.
Didn't scold.
He pulled a strip of cloth from his belt, knelt, and gently wrapped it around her hand—tight, clean, efficient.
She watched him work.
His fingers were fast, but careful.
"You've done this before," she murmured.
He tied the knot.
Looked up.
And nodded.
As the sun dipped behind the cliffs, Janice finally sat back, breathless and sore, leaning against the outpost wall.
Her muscles burned.
Her thighs ached from the stances.
Her shoulders were tight.
But her eyes?
Clear.
She looked over as Cain passed her—carrying two crates stacked high, iron and rope clattering inside.
"You don't rest," she said, voice soft with both admiration and disbelief.
He paused at the canoe frame, looked back over his shoulder.
Shrugged.
"Don't need to."
She smiled—tired, crooked.
"That's not fair."
He bent to set the crates down.
"You're human," he said simply.
She tilted her head, eyes still on him.
"So are you."
Cain didn't answer.
He just kept working.
Later, when the moon rose above the frozen sea like a watchful eye, Janice curled into the cot by the fire, wrapped in layers of fur and canvas. Her hands still ached. Her knuckles were swollen. Her wrapped palm throbbed—but not from pain.
From pride.
Her rifle lay beside her.
Not out of fear.
But readiness.
The smell of pine smoke lingered. The last of the boiled fish sat in a tin by her boots.
She looked once toward the door.
Through the frost-streaked window, she could see him.
Cain.
His sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his arms moving with quiet force as he hammered iron braces into the canoe's hull.
One by one.
Rhythmic.
Unstoppable.
The sparks rose into the night like fireflies caught in a storm.
He didn't need sleep.
He just needed her to wake up safe.
---
Kangeq Outpost, Night of Day 19
The fire had burned low in the stove, casting faint copper glimmers against the rough plank walls. Outside, the wind had quieted to a whisper. Frost curled like veins across the inside of the windows—thin, delicate, and beautiful in its silence.
The repaired canoe sat on the shore beyond the wall, covered in frost and ready. Its hull had been reshaped with scavenged bone and sled runners, lined with canvas and tar. Inside it: food, coats, firewood, spare boots, salt, a lantern, rifles, and one item Cain had placed with particular care—
A long, canvas-wrapped map case, sealed with oilskin ties and marked with a dark, iron-stamped eagle.
Cain hadn't recognized it.
But Janice had.
And her breath had caught in her throat when she unrolled the contents.
The map was a mariner's chart, stitched together from multiple thin vellum panels. It was German-printed, crisp but yellowed by time and damp. Unlike the maps Janice had known—broad, ceremonial, political—this was cold, practical, and covered in gridded coordinate lines, depth markings, and coastal notations scribbled in tight black Gothic script.
The only familiar features were the shapes of the continents.
Greenland was there—dark and jagged.
And along the edge, a string of numbered symbols.
One had been circled in faded red ink, next to a word she could just barely read.
Danmarkshavn.
And beneath it, scrawled faintly in the corner:
"Deutsche Meteorologische Station. 1896."
That was enough for her.
It was real. It existed.
And it might be waiting for them.
Janice had stared at the map long into the night.
Tracing the routes with her finger. Mumbling distances. Trying to imagine their place on the world's great, cold skin.
She knew only the basics of navigation—what little Penfold had taught her.
She could find north by the stars.She knew what fjords were.She could read symbols, even in German.And she understood that everything depended on keeping the coast to her left, and moving south and east.
Cain hadn't said anything as she worked.
But he had watched her.
And when she finished folding it, hands trembling slightly, he had nodded once.
"You'll lead."
As for the telegraph—it had been a different story.
The outpost had one. A crank model. Marconi line.
It was still functional. The line was alive.
But Janice didn't know how to use it.
She had tried.
Clumsily.
The keys weren't labeled like a typewriter.
Just dots and dashes.
The switch clicked when pressed—sharp, tactile, final.
There were printed guides in a drawer beside it, but they were in military shorthand and technical jargon, half in German, half in codes.
Janice had copied a Morse table onto a scrap of parchment and tried, night after night, to memorize the patterns.
S = ...O = ---R = .- .
She had managed to spell HELP once.
But that was all.
Everything else had come out scrambled.
Wrong.
And she had torn the page in frustration before Cain gently took it from her and smoothed it flat.
He never asked her to try again.
He never needed her to.
Her trying was enough.
And now—
She slept.
Curled beside him on the cot, her head resting softly in his lap, her fingers still clutching the scrap of paper with her careful, messy notes.
Her lips moved in her dreams, whispering broken syllables.
Cain didn't move.
He sat still.
One hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
The Light Stone pulsed beneath his coat—a soft, living warmth.
Outside, the horizon darkened.
And danger stirred.
But now—
His eyes opened.
Sharp.
Still.
Cold.
Something was wrong.
There was no sound.
No shift in the Core.
No surge in the Light Stone's warmth.
But Cain felt it.
In the air. In the pressure behind the silence.
A tension.
Like the world had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale.
His gaze drifted toward the door. The frost on the inside of the window had begun to melt—not from heat, but from the shudder of approaching mass, far off, pressing through the air like a storm gathering its will.
He couldn't hear ships. Not yet.
But he could hear what always came before ships.
The unnatural pause in the wind.
The rhythm of distant steel keels cutting water.
The memory of men preparing for war.
The sound of discipline about to erupt into chaos.
It was a sound only survivors heard.
A sound Cain had learned in dying cities and broken battlefields.
He didn't need to check the radio.
He didn't need a signal.
He just knew.
His fingers drifted slowly through Janice's hair, soft and gold, curled loosely around her ear.
"Janice."
She stirred against him, her cheek pressed to his thigh, breath warm through her nose.
"Mmh?"
He brushed a bit of hair from her forehead.
"Wake up."
Her head shifted. Her eyes opened slowly—fuzzed with sleep, pale lashes sticking. She blinked up at him, smile half-formed.
"Cain…?"
He was already moving.
Up on his feet, coat halfway on, blade slung across his back with practiced precision.
He was silent.
Focused.
His steps didn't make a sound.
Janice sat up quickly, her heart thudding as cold air hit her flushed cheeks.
"What is it?"
Cain turned to her.
His eyes were clear. Calm.
But something in them had gone rigid.
"We have to go."
"Now?"
"They're coming."
They packed in silence.
There wasn't much.
The supplies had been ready for days. The food, the firewood, the maps. The canoe stood like a faithful hound at the water's edge, its bow pointed toward the horizon.
Cain lifted the map case from its shelf and passed it to Janice without a word.
She nodded, still pulling on her furs, her fingers trembling slightly as she unrolled the map by the lantern.
The ink was old, but the lines were true.
And there—Danmarkshavn. Labeled in blocky Gothic script, ringed in red. The only hope that hadn't tried to kill them.
She whispered to herself more than to him:
"I know this coastline… I can guide us."
Cain only nodded.
Then opened the door.
The cold met them like a silent guard.
The moon was high—silver and thin, casting a sharp gleam on the sea.
The wind had stilled completely.
As if the world had frozen to listen.
Cain helped Janice into the canoe first, one hand at her elbow, the other steadying the bow.
She clutched the map close to her chest, rifle slung across her back like a promise.
Then he stepped in after her.
Settled at the stern.
And began to row.
Behind them, the outpost faded.
No smoke rose from the chimney.
No lights flickered from the windows.
Just the dark silhouette of a place no longer alive.
But south of them—over the curve of the world—the ships were moving.
A small squadron.
Not massive, but fast.
Three ships, maybe four.
Ironclad hulls.
Wireless commands.
Spotlights and steel.
They had not heard from the outpost in too long.
And the high command had grown impatient.
"Skull-masked boy.""Woman deserter.""No more chances."
The orders were clear:
Find them. Burn the place. Secure the myth.
But Cain and Janice were already gone.
Following the jagged black coast like a prayer whispered through broken lips.
Their skiff slid through the water like a knife in cloth, silent, swift, invisible in the moonlight.
Janice sat at the front, her face lit by starlight, map open in her lap, her hands gripping the edge of the canoe.
She looked over her shoulder once.
Cain didn't look up.
He just rowed.
Harder than before.
Because now it wasn't just about running.
Now it was about arriving.
"East," Janice said, her voice sure. "Then south."
Cain nodded once.
And did not stop.