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“Then we’ll give him exactly what he expects,” Zara replied, her markings pulsing with determination. “Just not where or when he expects it.”

As we outlined our revised escape plan, I found myself appreciating the human’s tactical mind and adaptability. Whatever had begun between us in that storage room remained unresolved, deliberately set aside in favor of survival. Yet it lingered in the resonance of our bond, in the way my tail unconsciously shifted closer to her when we sat in planning, in the brief moments our eyes held contact longer than necessary.

Such complications would need to be addressed eventually. For now, stopping Hammond took precedence. The shard, the Nexus, the planetary stability—all hung in precarious balance. My duty to my clan demanded action, not to prevent a marked outsider from awakening chaos, but to stop Hammond from becoming the architect of destruction my ancestors had warned against.

The irony was not lost on me. The very bond my clan had feared might be our best weapon against the true threat. As we finalized our plan, my resolve hardened into certainty. Hammond would fail. The cycle of destruction would not repeat.

And Zara—marked, determined, increasingly essential—would be my ally in ensuring it.

ZARA

The glyphs on the cell wall vibrated with meaning as Ravik traced them with a long blue finger. Not actual movement—the crude charcoal markings weren’t capable of that—but something deeper my markings detected, a subtle frequency like standing near a malfunctioning power relay. The sensation traveled from my forearms up to my shoulders, creating a network of warmth beneath my skin.

I leaned closer, shifting on the cold metal floor plates. My knees protested from sitting cross-legged for so long on the unyielding surface, but the discomfort faded against the importance of what Ravik was sharing.

“These symbols represent the Nexus,” Ravik said, his deep voice pitched just below the threshold the drone patrolling outside our cell could detect. The acoustics of the small space made his words settle in my chest, almost physical. “The central node of the planetary network Hammond seeks to control.”

I studied the interlocking patterns, geometric shapes that shouldn’t have made sense to me but somehow did. Each line, each curve seemed to trigger tiny responses within the silver networks beneath my skin, like circuitry recognizing compatible code. My markings reacted beneath my skin, a network ofsilver lines that had grown more intricate during our captivity, branching in patterns that mirrored aspects of the symbols before me.

They recognized something my conscious mind couldn’t yet grasp, responding with a steady warmth that traveled up my arms. The dim emergency lighting in our cell cast everything in a bluish glow, highlighting the contours of Ravik’s blue face as he concentrated on the symbols.

His copper-colored braids hung forward, partially obscuring his expression, but I could see the intensity in his golden eyes. “That’s what Hammond keeps mentioning in his logs—the Nexus. I thought it was just another power source he wanted to drill into.”

The recycled air in our cell carried a metallic flavor, mixed with the earthy scent of Ravik’s skin—not unpleasant, just different from human odors. I’d become attuned to it over our weeks of captivity, could distinguish the subtle changes that indicated his mood or physical state.

Ravik’s golden eyes narrowed, pupils contracting to slits in the dim light. The membrane of his inner eyelid briefly flashed across his vision, a Nyxari physiological response I’d noticed occurred when he was processing complex information. “It is far more. The Nexus contains the original programming that governs Arenix’s environmental systems—weather patterns, seismic stability, even atmospheric composition.”

His tail shifted against the floor, the blue-scaled appendage revealing his agitation in a way his carefully controlled expression did not. “During the Great Division, both factions sought to control it to dominate the other.”

“And that’s what destroyed your civilization,” I said, pieces connecting with the precision of a well-designed circuit completing its connection. I’d been an engineer on TheSeraphyne before the crash—before everything changed—and my mind still worked in diagrams and systems.

He nodded grimly. “The Shadow Canyon clan emerged from survivors who recognized the danger. For generations, we have guarded these specific ruins, keeping knowledge of the Nexus contained.”

The muscles in his jaw tightened, creating subtle shifts in his blue skin that caught the low light. A faint golden hint emanated from the lifelines along his neck—not bright enough to be seen from outside our cell, but visible up close where I sat.

I ran my fingers along my forearm where my silver markings had grown more intricate during our imprisonment. The skin there felt warmer than the surrounding areas, slightly raised like circuitry embedded just beneath the surface. The patterns had spread, becoming more complex in response to proximity to Ravik and the ancient technology that permeated Hammond’s base.

“And these markings—they’re some kind of interface for the system.”

“They are...” he paused, searching for a word less harsh than his usual description, “biological anomalies.”

The words lacked the disgust that had colored his voice during our first encounters. His eyes followed the path of my fingers along my arm, his expression unreadable. “But yes. The ancient ones created biological keys—interfaces that allowed control of planetary systems. Your markings echo those keys.”

A distant rumble vibrated through the floor plates—Hammond’s drilling operation working through the night cycle. The constant tremors had become background noise over the weeks, but each one twisted something in my gut, knowing what damage they were doing to ancient systems never meant to be exploited this way.

“That’s why Hammond keeps experimenting, testing the crystal shard on you,” I said, a chill running through me despite the stifling warmth of our small cell.

My stomach knotted as I remembered Claire’s screams echoing through the old base during Hammond’s last “session” with her before Rivera and her Nyxari partner rescued her. The memory made my skin tingle with sympathetic pain.

“He’s trying to recreate the key.”

“And he progresses dangerously close to success.”

Ravik scrubbed out the glyphs with his palm, the charcoal dust clinging to his blue skin. The muscles in his arms flexed as he moved, still showing signs of the damage Hammond’s experiments had caused, but healing faster than I’d expected. “The shard he possesses is a fragment of an original key crystal. With your friend’s amplified markings and the knowledge he extracts from my lifelines?—”

“He could access the Nexus.” The magnitude of the threat crashed over me, my engineering mind calculating cascading failure scenarios. Planet-wide systems failing, weather patterns disrupted, seismic activity unleashed.

“Not just access it—control it.”