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“ R avik!”

His name tore from my throat as he crumpled to the ground. One moment he’d been moving, the next—collapsed, a mountain of muscle and bone suddenly inanimate.

I dropped beside him, hands shaking, heart hammering against my ribs.

My vision swam, still fractured and unreliable. Light sensitivity made the dim forest painfully bright in patches, while shadows turned to impenetrable black voids.

But I could see enough to recognize the severity of his injuries, to understand that without immediate attention, the powerful Nyxari warrior would die here, on foreign soil, far from his clan.

The plasma burn stretched across his back, raw and charred. The smell was horrific—burned flesh and fabric fused together, underlaid with the distinctive copper-sweet scent of Nyxari blood.

So much blood. It soaked through his garments, pooling beneath him on the forest floor.

He’d taken a direct hit. For me.

Panic threatened to overwhelm me, a tightness in my chest that made breathing difficult. I’d been Security Division before the crash, trained to handle emergencies with cool professionalism.

But this was different. This was Ravik.

Over our days of captivity and escape, he had become... important. The bond connected us, weakened but present.

I forced the panic down, compartmentalizing emotions as I’d been trained. Panic wouldn’t save him.

I needed to think, to use what I had.

First—check for breathing. I pressed my fingers to his neck, finding the slower, deeper pulse of a Nyxari.

Present, but weaker than it should be. His skin burned with unnatural heat—fever already setting in, his body’s response to catastrophic injury.

His tail lay motionless, a concerning sign for a species that used the appendage for both balance and emotional expression.

“Don’t you die on me,” I muttered, turning him onto his side to examine the wound more clearly. “After everything, you do not get to die on me.”

The bond between us flickered like a candle in a strong wind. I reached for it mentally, trying to strengthen the connection, to anchor him to consciousness.

His presence responded faintly, a dim awareness of my existence. Good.

He wasn’t too far gone.

I needed supplies. Bandages. Medicine. Antiseptics.

We had none.

My pack contained only the basics—the stolen datapad, a half-empty canteen, a few nutrient bars pilfered from the compound’s kitchen. Nothing even remotely approaching medical supplies.

We’d prioritized speed over preparation, gambling everything on a clean escape.

I sat back on my heels, momentarily overwhelmed by the enormity of our situation. Miles from any settlement, pursued by Hammond’s forces, with Ravik gravely injured and my own vision compromised.

The rational part of my mind—the engineer, the problem-solver—calculated our odds of survival with brutal precision. They weren’t good.

Then, unexpectedly, my markings tingled, responding to something nearby. A sensation I’d felt before when interfacing with technology, but different—organic, complex, alive.

I looked up, squinting against the distorted vision. Plants surrounded us, alien vegetation that had seemed meaningless before.

Now I sensed something from them—properties, energies, purposes.

I crawled to the nearest plant, a low shrub with fibrous, paddle-shaped leaves. When my fingers brushed it, information flooded through me: absorbent, antiseptic, cooling.

Properties registered not as words but as innate understanding, knowledge transmitted directly to my consciousness.

“Is this one safe?” I asked aloud, knowing Ravik couldn’t fully respond but hoping the bond would carry something. A faint affirmative feeling brushed my mind—not words, just certainty.

He knew this plant, recognized it despite his semi-conscious state.

I harvested several leaves, then moved to another plant that had caught my attention. This one grew close to the ground, with a thick, succulent stem.

When broken, it produced a sticky blue-green sap. The markings recognized it: antibacterial, seals wounds, numbs pain.

Working quickly, I gathered materials from several plants, each one registering with properties useful for our situation. Some I recognized from the compound garden where Talia had worked before her escape—she’d shown me which ones the Nyxari used for healing.

Others were new, but my markings reacted to them with unmistakable clarity.

I created crude poultices and bandages, crushing leaves between rocks, collecting sap in a broad leaf. My awareness guided my hands when my eyes failed, sensing the proper preparations rather than seeing them.

My vision swam in and out of focus, but my fingers moved with increasing confidence, following the silver energy that seemed to know exactly what Ravik needed.

I cleaned his wounds as best I could with water from our stolen canteen, then applied the improvised medicines. The sap formed a natural seal over the worst of the burn, while the fibrous leaves served as primitive bandages.

A soft groan escaped him as I worked, his tail twitching in pain.

“I know it hurts,” I said, keeping my voice steady, though whether for his benefit or my own, I couldn’t say. “But you’ll thank me when infection doesn’t kill you.”

My fingers traced the golden lifelines on his undamaged arm, following their intricate patterns. Our connection strengthened, allowing me to sense his condition more clearly.

Fever. Pain. Disorientation.

But also...relief. Trust.

His consciousness recognized my presence, took comfort in it.

I finished bandaging the worst of the burns, using strips torn from my own clothing. His fever worried me—Nyxari ran hotter than humans naturally, but this was excessive.

He needed proper medical attention, Nyxari healing techniques beyond my rudimentary first aid.

I glanced up at the night sky, visible in patches through the forest canopy. Twin moons hung there—one silver, one blood-red.

Navigational references that could guide us toward the Eastern Settlement where Mirelle and Lazrin led the combined human-Nyxari community. Where Selene and Kavan could provide the healing Ravik desperately needed.

But it was so far. Too far for him in this condition.

And Hammond would be searching for us, his vehicles and trackers already deployed. We couldn’t stay here.

I assessed our situation through a haze of pain and fractured vision. My sight was improving marginally—I could distinguish shapes more clearly now, though everything remained fragmented like a shattered mirror poorly reassembled.

The static at the edges had receded somewhat, though light sources still produced painful halos.

“Ravik,” I said, squeezing his hand where the golden lifelines flowed weakly. “We need to move. Hammond will have search parties out by now.”

“Can you stand?”

His eyes opened, glazed with pain and fever. Recognition flickered there, followed by determination.

The Shadow Canyon warrior’s discipline reasserted itself through layers of pain and disorientation. He nodded once, attempting to rise.

I positioned myself under his uninjured arm, bracing for his weight. Even wounded, a full-grown Nyxari warrior was much to support, but I locked my knees and steadied myself.

His skin burned against mine, fever radiating from him in palpable waves.

“Careful,” I said. “One step at a time.”

He leaned on me, his breaths coming in controlled, measured intervals—a warrior’s discipline managing pain. I bore as much of his weight as I could, drawing on reserves I hadn’t known I possessed.

Energy flowed between us where our skin touched, not healing but strengthening, supporting.

“Which way?” I asked, scanning the dark forest with unreliable eyes.

Through the bond, I could feel him assess our surroundings, using senses I didn’t possess. A direction formed in my mind—east, away from Hammond’s compound, toward the distant Nyxari settlement.

We would never make it that far in his condition, but any distance was better than none.

We took our first stumbling step together. Then another.

Each one a victory against pain and disability. His tail dragged limply behind us, too weak to aid his balance as it normally would.

I felt his frustration at this, his warrior’s pride wounded by the dependency forced upon him.

“You can hate me for seeing you like this later,” I said, forcing lightness into my tone. “After we’re not being hunted by Hammond’s psychopaths.”

Something like a chuckle rumbled through his chest, quickly cut off as the movement aggravated his wounds. But I felt his appreciation through the bond—for the normalcy, for treating him as a person rather than an invalid.

In the distance, I heard the whine of Hammond’s search vehicles starting up. The high-pitched mechanical sound carried clearly through the night air, setting my teeth on edge.

“That tracker in your shoulder,” I said, the sound of pursuit bringing urgency. “We need to remove it now, before they get close enough for a precise fix on our location.”

Ravik nodded grimly. His fingers moved to his shoulder where Hammond’s doctor had implanted the device. “I can feel it shifting when I move. Just beneath the surface.”

I eased him against a tree trunk for support and examined the area. Even in the dim light, my markings reacted to the foreign technology, a slight tingling where my fingertips passed over it.

“I can almost see it through my markings,” I said. “Like it has an energy signature.”

I retrieved the metal bracket I’d worked loose from our cell, its edge now sharp enough for what we needed. Ravik didn’t flinch as I made a quick incision, though I felt his pain flash briefly through our bond.

The tracker was small but distinctly non-Arenix in its design—all angles and metallic sheen against the organic matter of his body. I removed it carefully, applying healing sap from a nearby plant my markings had identified as antiseptic.

“Hammond already knows where the Eastern Settlement is located,” Ravik said, his clever mind working despite the fever. “Leave it intact. We can create a false trail.”

I nodded, understanding his strategy. “I’ll attach it to one of those smaller six-legged creatures we passed earlier. Send them following shadows while we find shelter.”

We had perhaps an hour before Hammond’s search parties reached our position—just enough time to find shelter, to prepare what defenses we could.

To keep Ravik alive.