Page 36 of The Warlord's Secret Heir

I should say leave it. Strip it. Burn it.

But something clicks in my chest. Like a gear unsticking. A door creaking open that should’ve stayed sealed.

Earth.

Crashed shuttle.

Black Scar.

Gods damn me.

Imount up.

The cruiser’s a beast.

Three meters tall, four tons of growling metal, scavenged from a dozen wrecks and held together with hate. I built hermyself—salvaged a twin-core from a failed Reaper crawler, twin turbines from an Alliance driller, and a chassis from hell.

She purrs under me like a dragon that only listens tomyvoice.

“Take point,” I growl to Raxl, strapping my rifle across my back.

He grins like a feral dog and revs his own ride.

We ride hard.

Engines scream across dunes and scorched rock, the night turning to ash behind us. The wind is sharp with silica. The air stinks of ozone and rot.

But I don’t stop.

Because something’s pulling me.

Something old.

Somethingreal.

We hit the crash site at dawn.

It’s a crater now—metal bones half-buried in sand, twisted and smoking. Black Scar Canyons loom in the background, jagged teeth chewing at the light.

I dismount slow. My boots crunch on scorched glass.

The shuttle’s a wreck. Civilian hull. Alliance patching. Hacked drive signature.

Raxl kicks a door open with a grunt.

“Anyone alive?”

“No body in the main cabin,” he says.

I crouch by the cockpit.

And then I smell it.

Not blood. Not fuel.

Something sweeter.

Spice. Soap. Sweat.