My chest tightens. “You were.”
“I am not.”
I turn my head enough to meet his eyes. They’re tired. Bloodshot at the edges with pain and exhaustion, but clear in a way they weren’t before.
“No,” I say softly. “You’re not.”
His gaze holds mine for a long moment, searching, measuring whether I mean it. I don’t look away.
Something shifts, still not fully easing or relaxing, but settling. The sharp edge in his shoulders drops a fraction.
“That… matters,” he says, low, rough.
It does. To both of us.
Behind us, the wind pulls sand across the ground in a slow whisper. Somewhere farther out, something shifts under the dunes. I don’t let myself think about that yet. Right now, all that matters is keeping him upright. Keeping him here. Keeping him with me.
We don’t get time to breathe before the ground shudders again. A low grinding sound rips through the desert, metal dragging against stone, wrong and familiar all at once. My heart slams hard.
“No,” I breathe.
Kael goes rigid, and the others react.
Spinning, weapons coming up, bodies shifting into formation without thought. It comes not from behind us like I expect, but from below.
The sand erupts in a violent plume as the hunter tears out of the ground. Metal limbs ripping free, segmented body unfolding in one terrifying, fluid motion. Drazan is moving before the dust cloud rises.
The hunter’s eye burns, locking on Kael and me. It’s not searching. It has us marked.
“Move!” someone shouts, but it’s too late.
The filament fires directly at us. Kael shoves me before I even see it. The line slices past where I stood, slamming into stone behind me with a metallic crack that rattles through my bones.
The team reacts by splitting. Some draw fire, others flank. The machine doesn’t care. It’s not here for them. It’s here for us.
The second filament whips out, flying straight for Kael. He’s already hurt, unsteady, and he knows it. He twists, but it’s not fast enough. The line wraps his arm and yanks him off his feet.
“Kael!”
I lunge, but Drazan is faster. He slams into the hunter’s flank like a battering ram, forcing its trajectory off just enough that the second pull goes wrong. Sand explodes under their combined momentum.
Kael hits the ground, but the line goes slack.
“Now!” Drazan roars.
Kael moves without hesitation. No words. No discussion. No doubt. The two of them move as one. They move with a synchronicity that is brutal, beautiful, and terrifying.
Drazan goes high—driving into the hunter’s upper frame, forcing its central axis to turn. Kael goes low, grabbing the exposed joint where the metal plating is damaged, tearing at the mechanism with raw, vicious force.
The machine screams, a sound of metal grinding under impossible stress. A third filament launches—faster, desperate. Kael catches it midair, wraps it around his forearm, and pulls.
Drazan seizes the opening. His blade flashes. Metal splits. Sparks fly. The hunter convulses, tries to reset. Too late.
Kael yanks again, dragging the internal core into exposure for a heartbeat, and Drazan drives his blade straight into the center. The sound is deafening.
The hunter locks. Twitches. Shudders. Then goes still. Smoke curls from the wound. The eye flickers, then dies.
Silence slams down, not with peace, but with aftermath.
