She reaches toward the newly revealed seam. I seize her wrist. Her breath catches. The air thickens between us.
“Do not touch what we do not understand,” I say, softer now. “The last time, it marked you.”
It marked her. Reacted to her. Recognized her. I do not like that thought. Not at all. She swallows, gaze locking on mine.
“But we need to see what’s down there.”
“I need you alive more.”
Her lips part, but no argument comes out.
The dune has no patience for our hesitation. A sudden, deep thoom echoes from within the metal beneath us.
The ground tilts.
Tomas yelps.
Travnyk shouts a warning.
Sand collapses inward, and Lia slips.
She gasps as her feet slide out. She doesn’t fall far—but she falls toward the widening seam anyway. Without thought or hesitation, I lunge.
My claws close around her arm as her boots skid toward the open gap. A flash of violet glimmers beneath the sand—a light from within the structure—faint but unmistakable.
She freezes. It does not look like fear. Her eyes widen, pupils dilating as though something unseen is pulling at her. It is connecting to her.
“Lia!” I roar.
She jerks back to herself. I haul her up, lifting her off the shifting ground until her feet find stability. She clings to me—arms around my shoulders, trembling, breath hot against my throat.
“Did it call to you?” I rasp, the words thick, dangerous.
She swallows once. Twice.
“I… I don’t know,” she whispers. “Maybe.”
Rage—sharp and bewildering—flares through me without warning. Rage at the metal. At the crash. At anything that dares reach for her.
“It does not touch you,” I snarl. “Not while I breathe.”
Her fingers curl into my scales. Her voice cracks.
“Rakkh… look.”
I turn.
The seam has widened. The sand has sunk a hand’s width, and a hollow—deep and dark—opens beneath the surface. A passage. A tunnel. A mouth. This structure wants to be found.
Or it wants us to enter.
Travnyk steps beside us, voice grim.
“We have uncovered enough for now. The sun drops. Night hunters move soon.”
Tomas swallows painfully. “So we—uh—we leave? Please?”
“No,” Lia says, steadier. More herself. She steps from my arms, though not far. “We document everything first.”
