It slips out, uncoiled from someplace deep. Not “Jillian,” not “Field Technician C.3.” Just Jill. The name no one here uses. The name my mom used when I was five and scared of thunder.
I sit with it. Let it echo.
The wind shifts. Just a whisper, a sideways current brushing the hair at my temple. I imagine somethinglistening. Not judging. Not afraid. Just… there.
I wait. Longer than usual. Long enough that my legs go numb and the stars begin to arc low over the canyon.
Still no reply.
But when I finally rise, stretching sore limbs and brushing off my pants, I feel the world change.
Not in some dramatic, lightning-struck way.
Just a breath. A hush.
And from the cliff above, a shape shifts.
Massive. Silent.
Watching.
And suddenly I’m not cold anymore.
Not even a little.
CHAPTER 14
MAUG
Purgonis doesn’t care about my caution.
One breath, and the stillness fractures.
A crack of stone. The sizzle of scorched sand.
Then the sting tail lunges from the ravine like a hellborn demon, its carapace gleaming under the moonlight, armored legs hammering against the canyon edge as it barrels forward, mandibles snapping. The sound it makes isn’t a roar—it’s a shuddering hiss, a death rattle pulled from the gut of the world.
I see the gap in the fence a blink before it barrels through it—bent wiring, unsecured clamps, lazy human oversight. The marines failed to reinforce it after the last windstorm, and now it’s too late.
She doesn’t see it.
But I do.
Her scream builds in her throat—she hasn’t even made the sound yet, but I hear it before it’s born. Some part of mefeelsit, the rising panic in her chest, the way her body tenses like prey caught in a spotlight.
I don’t think.
I move.
I explode from the ledge above her with a speed I forgot I still possess, muscles snapping taut as my feet leave the rock and gravity lurches against me. Wind screams past my ears as I drop.
The sting tail rears back, sensing me—too slow.
I hit it full-force in the side, shoulder to thorax, blades already unsheathed.
The impact jars my bones, echoes through my spine. My claws bite into its armor, but I don’t stop—I drive forward, twisting as I roll across the earth, slicing once, twice, low and fast. Acid hisses from the wounds. Its legs thrash. It shrieks, a screeching keening sound that would shatter glass if it lasted a heartbeat longer.
I don’t give it that heartbeat.
