But I doubt it.
The descent is steep, jagged. I don’t bother with the old trail—just sink claws into rock and let gravity do half the work. The obsidian is sharp, but my callouses are thicker. Heat still clings to the stone from the day’s burn, and it seeps through my skin like a warning. Purgonis doesn’t rest. It only simmers between punishments.
The canyons below are black as pitch, full of twisting corridors carved by ancient lava rivers and tectonic fury. Home. If you can call a graveyard that.
I drop the last few meters into a narrow pass and land in a crouch, the impact echoing off the walls like a war drum. My shoulders ache from hours of stillness, but I stretch it out with a roll, cracking my neck. The faint green glow of vent moss marks the entrance deeper into the labyrinth. I follow it without looking.
The caverns breathe with me. That’s how long I’ve lived here—I know their rhythm. The steam jets won’t erupt for another hour, and the tremors won’t start until after night’s midpoint. I’ve timed the cycle down to the minute. Predictable. Merciless.
Like the gods I stopped believing in.
As I walk, my mind replays the camp. The way the girl—Jillian—tilted her head at the landscape like it was trying to tell her secrets. That sort of curiosity gets humans killed. But there was no fear in her eyes. Just hunger. Wonder. Like the universe owed her an answer and she was determined to drag it out of the dust.
Fool.
I shove the thought away and focus on calculating probabilities. The soldiers are under-armed and half-asleep. The scientists are worse—soft, unaware of the planet’s hunting schedule. Something will go wrong. It always does.
If the sting tails don’t find them, the ash wolves might. Or the spores, once the wind shifts. The fungus doesn’t care about academic titles.
My claws scrape the rock as I flex my hands. I don’t want this. Any of it. I didn’t ask to feel their presence like a thorn between my ribs. I didn’t ask for the weight pressing behind my eyes like obligation.
But the vision returns anyway—seared into the back of my lids when I blink too slow. Fire licking at the edges of the outpost. Smoke curling from the ground like fingers reaching for the sky. Screams.
I growl low in my throat, the sound reverberating through the stone walls.
No.
I chose exile to bury that past. To make it irrelevant. I left honor behind with my blood-soaked banner and shattered command codes. The Coalition stripped me of everything but breath. And I stayed alive only because I deserved worse.
And yet…
And yet I didn’t go far.
The canyon twists again, deeper now, narrowing until my horns scrape the sides. I lower my head and press through. Beyond, the walls open into a chamber—a hollowed dome shot through with veins of cooling lava and bio-luminescent crystals. My den. Sparse. Bare. One thermal blanket. A cook plate. Three scavenged water canisters tucked in a corner.
The sting tail bones I dragged back last week hang from the ceiling like a grisly wind chime. Cleaned. Useful. A warning, ifany predators wander too close. Not that they do. Most creatures have enough sense to stay away.
I stalk to the edge of the den and sit heavily against the far wall, letting the stone take my weight. My breathing slows.
This is the part I hate.
The silence.
Not because it’s lonely. I don’t fear loneliness. I earned it. No—what I hate is that in the quiet, I remember too much. Every detail, every second I stood staring at the horizon instead of at my post. Every face that didn’t get a chance to scream.
The girl’s face flashes across my mind again—Jillian. Too small. Too brave. Eyes wide, mouth slightly parted as she looked at the sky like it owed her something.
I curse in my native tongue, the sound guttural and ugly against the rock.
This isn’t my fight.
This isn’t my war.
I am not a protector. I am the monster parents warn their offspring about. The beast in the jungle. The weapon gone rogue.
But then why haven’t I left?
Why haven’t I put more distance between them and me?
