Slowly, he straightened.
They faced each other in the narrow tunnel, both breathing hard, the drip of water somewhere overhead the only sound. Ore dust drifted through the yellow light between them.
"Enough," Stron said.
Burk looked at the knife for a long moment. The yellow light made his face look hollowed out, all shadow and hard angles. Sweat tracked through the ore dust on his forehead.
"You think this ends here," he said. Not a question.
"It ends here for you," Stron replied.
Burk's gaze slid to Adryel. Something in it that Stron didn't like. Not fear. Not defeat. Something that looked almost like satisfaction.
"I don't have the chip," Adryel said. Her voice was steady but Stron could hear the controlled anger underneath it. "I've told you that. Whatever you came here for, you're not leaving with it."
"No," Burk agreed. "I'm not."
The dripping water echoed in the silence between them. Somewhere deeper in the maintenance tunnel, something mechanical groaned and shuddered — the refineries running their endless operations above and around them, indifferent to everything happening in this narrow yellow-lit corridor.
Burk straightened slowly, like a man who had already made his peace with how this ended.
"It doesn't matter anyway," he said. "The chip. You. Any of it." His eyes moved between them both, unhurried. "I'm not the only one the Rhysgarrds sent."
The words landed in the ore-thick air and stayed there.
Adryel went very still beside him. Stron didn't look at her. He kept his eyes on Burk and the knife level and his breathing even, even as the weight of what had just been said settled over everything like the dust that coated every surface down here.
Footsteps echoed in the tunnel behind him. Multiple sets, moving fast.
Burk heard them too. Something shifted in his expression — not surprise, just resignation. The last card played.
Dhomhes appeared first around the corner, four guards fanning out behind him, filling the narrow space. He took in the scene in one sweep — Stron, the knife, Burk, Adryel against the wall — and nodded once like he'd expected exactly this.
"Take him," Dhomhes said. "Alive."
Two guards moved on Burk before he could do anything with the impulse to resist. He went with them without a fight, which somehow made him more unsettling than if he'd struggled.
Stron didn't watch them go.
He crossed to Adryel in three strides, the knife disappearing back into his grip, and put his hand on her face. Checking. Just checking.
"Are you hurt?"
She looked up at him. Something moving behind her eyes that she wasn't ready to say yet.
"No," she said. "But Stron?—"
"I know," he said. Because he did. Not the details. Not yet. But he knew what that last line meant.
This wasn't over.
Dhomhes waited until the guards had Burk out of the tunnel before he spoke. His voice was low, conversational, like they were discussing something over drinks.
"Well," he said. "That was interesting."
"Not the word I would use," Stron replied.
Dhomhes glanced at Adryel. Then back at Stron. "She needs to be checked by a medic."
