Fast. Clean. Silent.
I launch from my perch, circling wide, keeping her in my sights but never letting the wind shift toward her. She knows the path. Knows where the drones sweep. I taught her.
She’s almost out of range when I catch the scent.
Foul. Copper. Chemical.
Not her.
Ciampa.
He knows.
And he’s sent something after her.
I smell the oil first. Then the ozone. Then the sulfuric tang of synthesized tissue.
Not human.
Not fungal.
Something in-between.
A drone?
No.
Worse.
A hybrid.
The fungus has been building. And it’sreachedsomething.
I pick up speed.
She can’t face this alone.
She’s smart. She’s fierce. But this?
This is war.
And I’m going to meet it head-on.
CHAPTER 29
JILLIAN
The sun arrives like a punishment.
One second I’m walking the ridge, gravel crunching beneath my boots, breath sharp but steady. The next, the worldblisters.
No warning—just a flash. A pulse. Like the air itself turns to fire.
I freeze. My visor explodes with heat warnings. Internal cooling spikes into the red. My skin prickles under the suit, and then…burns. It’s instant. My lungs seize as the filters groan, trying to compensate. They can’t.
I curse and spin, nearly tripping on the rocks. The shadows I counted on? Gone. Sun’s too high now, climbing toward the brutal zenith of Purgonis’s hell-cycle. And I’ve miscalculated.
Not by much.
