I sidestep, slam a clawed foot down on its rear actuator. Metal groans under my weight. It whips a laser arm toward me, but I grab it, twist, and jam the barrel down its own vent port. My fingers sink in past steel. I feel heat building.
The explosion lights up the corridor in a flash of white and red. Smoke coils in elegant spirals. I step through it, unbothered, shaking molten shards from my arm. The sentry’s torso clatters to the floor behind me like a broken toy.
I’m learning the rhythm of this place.
It’s a language made of violence and precision.
I’m fluent.
A wall shifts to my left. I pause. Not because I’m afraid, but because somethingpullsat me—an instinct older than war. Older than blood.
I follow it.
Through a curved corridor glowing faint green. Around a humming generator coil so hot it makes my skin itch. Past a fake doorway rigged to liquefy whatever walks through it.
Then I see them.
Behind a one-way screen. A hidden viewport.
The group. The so-called “players.”
I lean in, claws tapping the glass. Watch.
The civilians are huddled like cattle. One’s sobbing so hard he can’t breathe. Another paces in tiny circles like that’ll lead him out. They’re all wrong for this.
But she is none of those things.
The blonde one.
She moves like she owns the maze, like it’s pissed her off personally. Hair matted, face smudged with grime, lips twisted in a snarl. She yells something at the others and grabs a pipe from the floor—wielding it like she’s ready to smash through walls or faces.
I inhale sharply. Her scent hits me like a thunder strike.
Heat. Anger. Salt. Spark.
She reminds me of someone I forgot. Someone important.
No,morethan important. Someonemine.
My hand tightens on the frame of the viewport. Metal creaks under my grip. The pain in my chest—where the pulse round should’ve ended me—aches like old fire, flickering to life.
“Jalshagar,” I breathe.
It slips from my mouth without thought.
It’sher.
My claws sink into my palm. I should go to her. Now. Tear down the wall, rip apart the maze, claim what’s mine and burn the rest. But something stops me—logic, barely. Instinct. The time isn’t right.
She wouldn’t accept me yet.
Not like this.
So I watch.
One of the priest-women—I remember her scent, Allov—kneels beside a sobbing civilian. She murmurs something soft, kind, all warmth and light. She touches his shoulder.
And the wall behind her opens like a mouth.
