The shard in my pocket throbs with cold. I press a hand against it, heart hammering. Poison in the ground. Metal in the sand. Something new and something ancient, hunting us in the space between.
The dune swells. Sand pours down in a silent cascade as something enormous begins to rise.
“We are close,” I breathe. “Too close.”
Rakkh bares his teeth, lochaber sliding into his hand with a sound like a promise.
“Good,” he says, voice like stone breaking. “Then we kill what guards it.”
And as the first hint of something vast and slick breaks the dune’s surface, I have the strangest feeling that the poison source we are hunting does not want to be found. That somehow it brought its own monster to make sure we do not live long enough to tell anyone.
5
LIA
The sand moves wrong.
That is the first thing my body tells me—before my brain catches up, before Rakkh growls low in his throat, before Travnyk dips his head in sharp, instinctive warning. The ground does not shift like wind-stirred sand.
It undulates.
A slow waving from beneath the dunes. My pulse stutters. Rakkh steps closer without looking at me, stance widening, claws digging into the slope.
“Back,” he murmurs.
I do not argue. I take one step—two—and then the sand erupts. Not a collapse. An explosion.
A geyser of grit sprays the sky, forcing Tomas to throw an arm over his face. Travnyk shields his eyes, hissing. The dune buckles with a deep, guttural sound—like stone groaning under pressure—then splits open.
And something rises.
Not a worm. Not a carok. Nothing I have ever seen.
It is enormous, thicker than an ancient ship’s column, covered in plate-like ridges that glisten under moonlight like wet bone. Its mouth opens vertically, a blossoming nightmare of dark flesh and rows of serrated teeth. No eyes. Just pits that glimmer faintly—sensing heat, vibration, movement.
A predator built for sand and dark. Some kind of sand burrower. My breath catches. I freeze.
Tomas screams something unintelligible. Travnyk drops into a wide stance, pulling his sword as he growls. Rakkh moves first. Two steps and he is between me and the beast, wings flaring wide in a shield of scale and muscle.
“Stay back,” he snarls.
The burrower lunges.
The sand surges beneath its weight, pushing toward us like a wave. Rakkh rushes forward, claws raking across its leading ridge. Sparks fly—its armor is too thick.
“Left!” I shout before I can think. “The sensory fold—left side! The membrane!”
I do not know how I know. I just see it. A tiny quiver in the thin membrane near its midsection. A thin sliver of soft tissue that is not armored. Rakkh does not question.
He pivots, tail whipping for balance, and drives his claws straight into that weak point. The burrower shrieks—if a horrible, grinding roar counts as a shriek—its body convulsing in a ripple that rocks the dune.
Tomas falls. Travnyk grabs his shoulder, yanking him upright.
The beast flails, sand spraying in sheets. Its mouth snaps open and closed, teeth slicing the air inches from Rakkh’s face. He ducks and shoves his claws deeper, twisting. Black ichor spills down his arm, hissing where it hits the sand.
“Move!” I scream as the burrower buckles sideways.
Rakkh surges backward as the creature slams into the dune. The impact shakes the whole slope. Ridges along its back flare, vibrating in dissonant pulses—and then it burrows under the sand with a roar that rattles my bones.
