“I… I’m sorry.”
I didn’t expect those words. Tomas doesn’t look at me; he looks at the sand, ashamed. But it’s something.
Rakkh turns to me, and the heat in his eyes softens, shifting like a heated blade dipped into warm water.
“We follow her lead,” he says. “I stand with her. We move forward.”
He’s not just supporting my decision; he’s claiming it as his. The lump that forms in my throat threatens to choke off all air.
“Thank you,” I whisper, unable to stop the crack in my voice.
His eyes flicker downward—toward my mouth—before he looks away sharply. Travnyk steps between us with a grunt.
“Then we follow the plants.”
We resume moving, but everything feels different.
Tomas stays behind Travnyk, quiet and focused for once. The dunes around us shimmer with rising heat. The air tastes sharper, like chemicals and scorched metal. Each dying plant creates a trail that winds like a scar through the desert.
Rakkh stands closer than before. Every time the sand trembles underfoot—even the slightest shift—his attention snaps to it and his fists rise. Instinctive. Protective. Of me. A part of me thrills at that. Another part fears what it might mean for both of us.
We crest a new ridge and the view opens wide. Miles of dunes, jagged rock formations jutting up like broken teeth. At first glance, nothing stands out—until my breath catches.
Half-buried at the base of a dune, something gleams.
This isn’t jagged crash debris or something small like before. This is massive. Curved. Seamless. And carried along on the wind is a faint hum.
“Oh stars,” I whisper. “I think that’s it.”
Rakkh exhales slowly, the sound low and dangerous.
“Stay behind me,” he murmurs.
But for the first time today, at least… I step ahead of him.
Because I have to.
Because whatever waits under that sand—whatever crashed into our world—I feel it calling me. A strange pulling sensation low in my gut that I don’t understand, but I know I have to get closer.
I rush down the slope.
As I approach, sand cascades from the vibration of my boots, streaming off the object in thin rivers and revealing more of its curved surface. The metal panel is even larger than I realized. I pause, staring at the portion I can see. Up close, the surface is dull and pitted, textured by time.
I’ve seen this before. The exterior panels of the generation ship we humans rode through space before crashing onto Tajss were like this. Space is anything but empty. Micrometeoroids leave countless tiny scars, and any spacefaring vessel must be built to withstand them.
The breeze shifts, and the faint hum thrums through the dunes. It’s too steady to be natural—clearly coming from the object itself. My heart kicks, and my breath hitches.
“Rakkh… do you feel that?”
“I feel everything in these sands,” he says, voice low, close behind me. “But this… yes. It is wrong.”
I reach the exposed metal and kneel. My hands shake as I brush sand aside. The surface looks like liquid metal frozen mid-flow, but stranger than its construction are the branching lines that run through it. They’re faintly iridescent under the suns—not carved, but integral, as if grown into the metal itself.
Like leaf veins.
I shift, studying it from another angle, and my stomach twists.
“This wasn’t made by human technology.”
