Chapter 9

  A Farewell Before the Storm

  The m air was crisp, the st of damp earth and pine filling the small shelter Aloy and Rost called home. The soft glow of dawn spilled through the gaps in the wooden walls as Aloy strapped on her gear, adjusting her bow across her back.

  Rost stood by the entrance, arms crossed, watg her silently. He always did that before she left—measuring, assessing, as if he were memorizing every detail of her before she walked out into the wilds.

  "You’re heading out early," he said, his voice calm but firm.

  Aloy ightening her bracers. "I o train. The Proving is tomorrow."

  Rost exhaled slowly. "I know."

  For a moment, her spoke. The weight of what was iled between them like an unspoken truth. Aloy had always trained alone, but this time felt different. This time, she wasn’t just proving herself to the tribe. She roving herself to him.

  Rost stepped closer, his expression unreadable. "Be careful, Aloy. The maes have been… different tely. More dangerous."

  She frowned. "I’ve noticed. What do you think is causing it?"

  Rost hesitated, then shook his head. "I don’t know. But stay alert. And if anything feels wrong, you run. Uand?"

  Aloy rolled her eyes. "I’ll be fine, Rost."

  His jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Instead, he pced a hand on her shoulder—a rare gesture of affe. "Just e ba one piece."

  Aloy smirked. "I always do."

  And with that, she turned and disappeared into the wilds.

  Hours passed as she trained relentlessly, pushing herself to the brink. She climbed rocky cliffs until her hands bled, leapt across broken bridges, and struck at makeshift dummies until her arms ached. Every movement, every skill, drilled into her through years of solitude.

  But no lesson had been more valuable than the ones Rost had taught her.

  She could still hear his voi her head. "Survival isn't just about strength, Aloy. It’s about knowing when to fight… and when to listen."

  She frowned. Listen? To what? The tribe that cast me out?

  Shaking off the thought, she tinued her path through the forest, her senses sharpening.

  That was wheiced something strange.

  The maes had been ag differently tely—restless, uable. Mgressive. But that wasn’t all. As she climbed a tree to survey the area, her fingers brushed against a small, unfamiliar metal fragment embedded in the bark.

  She narrowed her eyes. It wasn’t mae scrap. It was something else. Something small, delicate.

  Her brow furrowed as she pulled her Focus over her ear and activated it with a familiar pulse of blue light. She sed the fragment, expeg it to e up as standard debris—some lost part from a damaged Watcher.

  Instead, the dispy flickered. UNKNOWN DEVIO DATA AVAILABLE.

  Aloy’s heart skipped a beat. That wasn’t normal. Even the most obscure pieae scrap had some form istry. But this? This was somethiirely new.

  She tur over in her hands. It was too small to be a mae po. Too advao be something made by the tribes. It was almost like… a signal node.

  Her grip tightened. Someone had pced this here.

  And whoever they were, they were watg.

  As she walked, the weight of tomorrow pressed on her shoulders, but another weight sat even heavier—ohat had followed her since childhood.

  Her mother.

  Who was she? Where had she gone?

  Had she died in childbirth, or had she been taken from Aloy for some unknown reason? The High Matriarchs knew something—they always had—but they had old her the truth. They only gave her cryptic half-answers, warnings, and silence.

  It wasn't just the Proving that mattered. It was what came after. The right to ask. The right to know.

  Would they finally tell her? Would the truth be enough? Or would she find herself as lost as ever?

  She didn’t know which possibility scared her more.

  Mother’s Heart

  By nightfall, Aloy reached the ridge overlooking Mother’s Heart, the vilge glowing with torchlight. She had never been allowed past those gates, never felt the warmth of belonging withiomorrow, that would ge.

  At least… that’s what she was supposed to believe.

  She thought of Ana’s words from the night before.

  "You have the skills to win, Aloy. But is that what you really want? Do you really want to be part of the people who cast us out?"

  She didn’t have an answer.

  She wao know where she came from. She wanted answers about her mother. But did she want to be one of them?

  Aloy’s grip tightened around her bow as she gazed at the vilge below.

  Tomorrow, she would fight. She would win.

  But she wasn’t sure if she was doing it for herself… or for them.