They know.
I clench my fists and bite down on the inside of my cheek to stay grounded. Taste copper. Feel the grit of blood.
I lie down. Force myself still. Eyes closed.
Night falls.
I fake sleep.
And that’s when I hear it.
Voices.
Not loud. Not in conversation. Just soft murmuring—like prayer.
Except nottoanything.
Withsomething.
They’re singing.
To the fungus.
I hear Em’s voice. Eli. Even Darwin.
Whispers. Melodies with no structure. Just droning tone, strange rhythms, repeated syllables like a forgotten language re-learned in dreams.
It soundswrong. Too smooth. Too synced. The way a hive might sing if it had tongues.
I lie there, still as death, and feel every hair on my arms stand up.
I have to leave.
But I don’t know how to do it without Maug.
He’s out there somewhere. I don’t know how close. Or if he’s already seen what I saw.
But I can’t do this alone.
And I think... I think they’re getting ready for something.
Big.
I just hope I’m not here when it starts.
CHAPTER 28
MAUG
I’ve never come this close to the camp before.
Not since the first weeks. Not since the domes went up and the humans brought their blinking towers and silver crates and voices too loud for a planet that whispers. I kept my distance. Watched from the cliffs. Listened. Learned.
But now, I slip past the outer ridge, feet quiet, breath buried in my chest, and the ground damp beneath me from last night’s moisture. I stay low, cloaked in shadows and downwind. Even the drones, old and twitchy as they are, can still catch a scent if it rides the wrong gust.
And I can’t risk that. Not now. Not when she’s still in there.
The sensors blink in their steady, lazy rhythm—still powered, still scanning. I duck beneath the arc of one, time my steps between sweeps. I’ve studied the patterns. I know where they blind-spot.
