Page 5

These ruins were sacred once. Places of power and knowledge. Now desecrated by human ignorance.

Then the cell door shrieked open, jerking me back to the present. The guards threwherinside. Human. Female. And Marked.

The silver patterns were visible on her skin as she landed hard on the stone floor. My lifelines contracted as if burned anew. A deep, instinctive rejection surged through my body.

Prejudice, deep and ingrained by generations of Shadow Canyon warnings, rose within me. An outsider. Bearing the dangerous resonance. Here, near ruins my clan had guarded for centuries against this very contamination.

The prophecies echoed in my mind, ancient words passed down through generations of my clan.The Marked Outsider... awaken slumbering power... unleash sleeping chaos. The silver key will turn the golden lock, and ancient doors will open once more.

She was an embodiment of the danger I was sworn to prevent. Her presence here felt like a violation of everything I had sworn to protect.

I turned my face to the wall, pulling my weakened body further into the shadows, conserving what little strength remained. The movement sent fresh waves of pain through my damaged lifelines.

Every junction point where the golden patterns intersected felt raw, as though acid had been poured directly into my essence.

The cold stone against my skin provided minimal relief. My tail lay limp beside me, too weak even for the instinctive movements that would normally express my agitation.

The Shadow Canyon warriors prided themselves on control, on discipline, but this stillness was not by choice—it was evidence of my weakened state.

The human female was examining the cell now, her movements purposeful despite her recent rough handling. She moved with the caution of a trained fighter, assessing her surroundings, looking for weaknesses, for opportunities.

Not just a marked human then, but a warrior of some kind. More dangerous.

The silver markings on her arms caught the dim light when she moved. Even from across the cell, I could sense thewrongness of them—not natural, not pure like true lifelines, but something artificial.

Dangerous. Created during the humans’ arrival, when their exploding ship interacted with Arenix’s energy field. A corruption of the natural order, a mockery of the true lifelines my people had carried since the beginning.

My mind returned to the experiments, to Hammond’s cold eyes studying my reactions as he connected the corrupted shard to my lifeline junctions. He would speak through the translator stone sometimes, his voice distorted by the device, asking questions I refused to answer.

Other times, the device remained silent, and he would communicate with his assistant in their own language—meaningless sounds whose intent I could still discern from their expressions, the way they gestured toward my lifelines, the eager tension in their postures.

What did they seek? Knowledge? Power? Access to systems best left dormant? The ancient Nexus chambers contained technologies that even my ancestors had feared.

Technologies that had torn apart Arenix’s delicate balance during the Great Division, leaving scars in the planetary energy field that persisted to this day. Technologies that could do worse, if awakened improperly.

Through half-closed eyes, I studied the human female more carefully. She moved to the door, examining its construction, then the ceiling junction, clearly looking for weaknesses.

Her markings reacted subtly as she neared certain parts of the cell, responding to the dormant energies in the stone itself. I had seen similar reactions in the Eastern Settlement, watching from hidden positions as marked women interacted with ancient structures, their silver patterns responding to Arenix’s energy field, to ancient technology, to our lifelines.

The air in the cell carried her scent—human sweat, wilderness, and something else, something that made my lifelines contract defensively. An energy signature similar to what had damaged them.

Was she part of Hammond’s experiments? Another tool to be used against me?

She turned suddenly, as if sensing my scrutiny. Our eyes met briefly before I looked away. Hers were an unusual color, grey, like clouds.

Too perceptive, those eyes. Too knowing.

She spoke, her voice a meaningless flow of human sounds. Without the translator stone, I could not understand her words, though her tone and gestures suggested a question, perhaps concern.

I kept my gaze fixed on the wall. Communication was impossible, unthinkable. She represented the failure of my mission, the potential catalyst for catastrophe.

Let her fend for herself. My duty remained: guard the secrets, contain the threat, even from within this cage. Even if the threat now shared my confinement.

My tail remained utterly still against the cold floor, betraying none of the turmoil within. The muscle memory of countless training sessions in the mountain temple urged me to move, to fight, to escape—but my body could not respond.

All I could do was endure. And wait. And keep the marked outsider at bay.

For if the old texts were true, her silver markings and my golden lifelines must never fully resonate. The consequences would reach far beyond this cell, beyond Hammond’s crude experiments.