“Now.”
I obey without arguing, stepping into his space as another tremor rolls through the ground. Sand slides down the far dune in a slow cascade, then stops. Silence presses in like a weighted blanket.
“That’s not normal. That’s really not normal,” Tomas swears under his breath.
The ship’s hum deepens. It is not really louder, just denser. The vibration shifts frequency, tightening into something thatresonates through my ribs then through my teeth. It’s the engines ramping up for ignition.
“Lia,” Travnyk says, voice sharp. “The ship is escalating its departure cycle.”
As I turn, the sand behind us begins to move.
At first, it looks like the dune is collapsing. A heavy slough of sand sliding downward as if undermined. Then the surface bulges upward, the sand splitting apart as something forces its way through from below.
My breath catches.
A massive shape heaves free of the dune, armored plates scraping against one another as it rises up. The creature is enormous, its body ridged and jagged, built for endurance and dominance rather than speed. Each limb ends in claws designed not to tear flesh, but to anchor into earth and stone.
The guardian.
It lifts its head and roars. The sound slams into my chest like a physical force. Tomas staggers back a step, face pale.
“It’s coming for us?—”
Rakkh moves instantly, stepping in front of me, wings half-flared, a living wall of muscle and heat.
“Stay behind me,” he growls.
The guardian surges forward, sand exploding beneath its weight as it charges toward the ship.
Panic spikes, sharp and immediate—my thoughts scream run—but my feet lock in place as the creature barrels closer, each step shaking the ground.
“It’s too fast!” Tomas shouts.
“No,” Travnyk snaps, eyes narrowed. “Watch its trajectory.”
I force down my panic and look. The guardian veers, not toward us, toward the ship. Understanding hits like cold water.
“It’s not after us,” I breathe. “It’s after it.”
The creature slams one massive claw into the sand near the ship’s exposed hull as if trying to pin it in place. It roars, a sound of fury, not hunger. Possession. Claiming. The ship’s engines hum deeper in response, the sand around its base beginning to slide away as the hull lifts a fraction. The guardian scrabbles, claws digging in, trying to anchor the ship and drag it back down.
Rakkh snarls. “It has claimed it.”
“As territory,” Travnyk says grimly. “Or resource. Or nest.”
The ship does not attack. Instead, the ground beneath the guardian shifts.
Sand liquefies, collapsing inward just enough to rob the creature of stable footing. It roars, thrashing as the terrain betrays it, claws tearing trenches through collapsing dunes.
“The ship is disengaging,” I realize. “It’s not fighting — it’s breaking contact.”
“But it can’t lift while it’s anchored,” Tomas shouts.
The guardian rears, slamming both forelimbs down again, closer to the ship’s hull this time. The ground buckles violently. I stumble, Rakkh catching me and jerking me against his chest.
“We have to distract it,” I say, the words tearing out of me before I fully think them through.
Rakkh’s head snaps toward me. “No.”
