The others freeze. Zmaj do not ask humans to choose. Urr’ki do not ask humans to choose. Humans barely ask other humans to choose, either.
My breath shakes as I look between them. The dune trembles again, sending a ripple of sand sliding down to trickle through the opening. Something massive is burrowing closer—possiblyseveral somethings. And I am certain that we will not all survive another open-ground attack.
I turn toward the hall. A soft violet glow pulses deeper in the dark, and I don’t think it’s a trap. It’s only a feeling—I have no way of knowing—but I don’t think it’s a lure. I think it’s… recognition.
“We go deeper,” I say, my voice steadier than I expect of myself.
Rakkh nods once—sharp and decisive. He moves toward the beckoning hall, no hesitation, no display of a single doubt. I wish I felt the same, but my stomach is a knot. Travnyk waits for me to move, while Tomas hovers near, trembling so hard I can hear his teeth chattering.
Rakkh steps into the hall, and then—a roar shakes the dune behind us.
Not one roar?—
Three.
Rakkh’s head snaps toward the sound. His wings flare wide, forming a barrier between me and the desert.
“Come. Now.”
My doubts pale beneath the more immediate threat from outside. I hurry across the open space until I’m almost on Rakkh’s back. The violet glow ahead flickers once, almost as if it’s greeting. My skin prickles as if something in the ship recognizes something in me—my heartbeat, my breath, or my blood.
Rakkh growls low and deadly as he leads, blocking the tunnel with his massive form. Sand shifts outside as heavy bodies circlethe vessel. And as Rakkh leads us into the dim violet dark, one truth settles into my chest, cold and certain. We may have escaped the burrowers, but we have not escaped the ship.
The moment we pass the threshold into the passage, the sound changes.
Not silence—never silence on Tajss—but the sound is filtered. The roar of the burrowers dulls, distorted, as if it’s being pushed through layers of thick cloth. Sand scrapes faintly against metal behind us. Something massive shifts. Something tests the hull.
Rakkh does not stop moving.
He leads us deeper into the corridor, one step at a time, wings flared wide, tail sweeping the ground behind him in a slow, lethal arc. He is a wall between us and the ship. Between us and whatever lies ahead.
Travnyk brings up the rear, sandwiching Tomas and me between the two, wholly different aliens. Different, yes, but are they really so different? Their species were at war for so many generations that it was a way of life. Until we humans came along. Maybe we humans are serving a greater purpose here on Tajss. I hope so.
The passage slopes downward, shallow but steady. I touch the wall, pressing my palm against the metal, and it’s warm—warmer than it should be. Not heat like sunbaked stone. Heat like blood. Like circulation.
The violet glow pulses, stronger now that we’re inside. It crawls along the seams of the walls in thin, veinlike lines, dimming and brightening in time with something I feel more than hear.
A heartbeat that is not mine. I swallow hard and force my feet to keep moving. Tomas stumbles behind me, his boots scraping.
“I—I don’t like this,” he whispers, voice cracking. “I really don’t like this.”
“No one asked,” Rakkh growls without looking back.
I do glance back. Tomas is pale and sweating profusely. Behind him, Travnyk is calm as ever, his gaze tracking the walls, the ceiling, the floor. His eyes flick to the glow, then to me.
“It responds faster now,” he murmurs.
I nod, though my mouth has gone dry. “It knows we’re here.”
It knows I’m here.
The corridor narrows, curving slightly left. The walls are smooth, seamless, grown rather than built—organic metal, like Travnyk said. I brush my fingers against it by accident and flinch.
The glow ripples outward from the point of contact. It’s surprising, but it’s not fast, so I don’t think it’s an alarm or something aggressive. More like awareness.
“Sorry,” I whisper—to the ship or myself, I’m not sure.
Rakkh glances back sharply. “Do not apologize to it.”
