Page 24

F ire consumed my back, each step sending fresh waves of agony through nerves already raw with damage. The taste of copper filled my mouth—I’d bitten through my lip rather than cry out.

Warriors did not show weakness, even in extremis. This had been drilled into me since childhood, the Shadow Canyon way.

Stoicism in all things, especially suffering.

Yet here I was, leaning on a human woman half my size, her smaller frame somehow supporting my weight as we staggered through Arenix’s unforgiving wilderness. Zara’s determination flowed through our bond, a steady current of strength when my own faltered.

The silver markings beneath her skin transferred energy to my golden lifelines where our bodies pressed together.

My senses, usually sharp enough to detect a Vexlin at fifty paces, had dulled to barely functional.

The forest around us registered as blurry impressions: the vibration of unstable ground ahead, the distant whisper of a geothermal vent releasing sulfurous gases, the faint trace of predator musk from a Trelleth that had passed through hours earlier.

Enough to guide us away from immediate dangers, but little more.

Fever distorted reality, making the twin moons overhead appear to swim in and out of focus. The red moon seemed to pulse in rhythm with my pain, while the silver one matched Zara’s movements.

Likely hallucination, but strangely beautiful nonetheless.

“The ground ahead,” I managed, the words scraping my dry throat. “Unstable. Five paces left.”

Through diminished senses, I could feel the subtle vibrations of a sinkhole-prone area, likely connected to the underground water systems that riddled this region.

Zara adjusted our course without question, guiding us around the danger my damaged senses had detected. Her own sight remained impaired from the neural interface, yet between us, we formed one functional navigator.

The irony wasn’t lost on me—human and Nyxari, each broken, somehow whole together.

“There’s a depression ahead,” she said, her awareness clearly sensing what her compromised vision couldn’t. “Might offer shelter.”

The bond carried her exhaustion to me, though she tried to hide it. Supporting my weight for over an hour had taken its toll.

Guilt mingled with gratitude, a complex emotion I lacked the strength to untangle.

More stumbling steps. My tail hung limp, dragging through fallen leaves and tangling in undergrowth.

The appendage that usually provided balance, communication, and defensive capabilities now served only as a useless weight. I’d lost too much blood.

The plasma burn had damaged major vessels. The fever burned through my system, fighting the foreign energies of the weapon.

Without proper treatment, infection would claim me within days.

We reached the depression—an ancient tree had fallen, its massive root system torn from the ground, creating a sheltered hollow beneath a tangle of dirt and roots. Not ideal, but better than open forest.

The scent of decay and fungal growth filled my nostrils, overlaid with the mineral tang of exposed soil.

“Rest,” Zara insisted, helping me down with surprising gentleness. “Just for a little while.”

I wanted to protest, to insist we continue, but my body betrayed me. The moment I was horizontal, darkness threatened at the edges of my consciousness.

The fever wrapped around me like a burning blanket, simultaneously hot and cold, making my skin hypersensitive even as my mind grew increasingly fuzzy.

Zara propped my head up, offering water from our stolen canteen. The cool liquid was sweeter than the finest ceremonial wine.

I drank greedily until she pulled it away.

“Slowly,” she cautioned. “Too much at once will make you sick.”

The gesture was so unexpected, so contrary to everything I’d been taught about humans, that I found myself staring at her. Her damaged eyes struggled to focus on my face, the pupils dilating unevenly in the dim light.

Her silver patterns continued steady beneath her skin, more pronounced now than when I’d first seen them in Hammond’s cells.

“Your fever’s getting worse,” she said, her hand cool against my forehead. Through our bond, I felt her concern, her frustration at our limited resources.

“Why?” The question escaped before I could reconsider it.

“Why what?” She tilted her head, fragments of moonlight catching in her hair.

“Why help me? You could move faster alone.” The fever loosened my tongue, asking what pride would normally forbid.

“Your kind would not... waste resources... on the damaged.”

She was silent a moment, considering. I could feel her weighing responses, discarding those that weren’t true.

“Because they turned you into a weapon,” she finally said. “Like they tried to do to me. To Claire.”

Her fingers brushed my bandaged shoulder with unexpected tenderness. “And because you took that shot for me.”

The simple truth of her words struck deeper than any elaborate explanation could have. No strategic advantage claimed.

No debt acknowledged. Just recognition of a shared experience, a connection formed in the crucible of captivity.

I closed my eyes, unable to maintain my warrior’s composure under such unfamiliar kindness. My clan would hardly recognize me now—a broken warrior accepting help from a marked human female, the very embodiment of what we had been taught to fear.

The prophecies that had guided the Shadow Canyon clan for generations suddenly seemed less certain, less absolute.

“My clan...” I started, then stopped, uncertain how to continue. The fever made coherent thought difficult, memories blurring into present reality.

“The Shadow Canyon clan,” she finished, surprising me. “You mentioned them during your fever.”

“They guard the ancient technology, don’t they? That’s why Hammond targeted you.”

I nodded weakly, impressed by her perception despite her damaged vision. “For generations. We protect the sacred sites, the sleeping power.”

My voice grew stronger as I recited the teachings that had shaped my life. “The prophecies warned of marked outsiders who would awaken slumbering chaos.”

A painful laugh escaped me, pulling at the burned tissue across my back. “I was taught to fear you. To kill you on sight.”

Zara’s mouth quirked up at one corner, something between amusement and irony. “Seems we had more in common than either of us knew. I was Security Division, remember? Trained to neutralize threats.”

She adjusted the makeshift bandage, her touch professional but gentle. “I spent the first week in that cell plotting different ways to kill you if you tried anything.”

The shared understanding hung between us, oddly comforting in its symmetry. Two enemies by training and birth, now dependent on each other for survival.

The bond strengthened with this revelation, deepening as another layer of mistrust dissolved.

“Rest,” she said again, adjusting my position to take pressure off the worst of my burns. “We’ll move when you’re stronger.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue. Sleep pulled at me, the fever making my thoughts sluggish and disconnected.

This close to her, I could smell the distinctive scent of her markings—something like ozone after a lightning strike, metallic but not unpleasant. Different from the natural human scent, altered by whatever energy had changed her.

Something about her expression caught my failing attention—determination, yes, but also fear. Not of me, but for me.

Concern that I recognized belatedly as genuine care, not just strategic necessity. No one outside my clan had looked at me that way before.

The realization disturbed and comforted in equal measure.

“Thank you, Zara.” The words emerged as barely more than a whisper.

Her hand found mine, fingers intertwining. The contact sent warmth through our bond, strength flowing between us.

Not enough to heal, but enough to sustain. Something beyond physical—a connection that my clan’s teachings had never mentioned, a depth to the bond that transcended our differences.

“Just stay alive,” she murmured, her voice following me as consciousness faded. “I didn’t break us out just to lose you now.”

Her presence remained even as my awareness slipped away—a silver thread connecting us, anchoring me to life when the darkness would have claimed me entirely. My tail moved weakly, curling around her wrist in the instinctive gesture of Nyxari trust.

My last conscious act, connecting us physically even as the bond connected us energetically.

Darkness claimed me then, but the bond remained—a silver-gold thread connecting us even as awareness left me. My final thought, unspoken but carried through the bond nonetheless: I will not leave you alone in this wilderness.