Chapter 8 Rakkh
RAKKH
Lia’s scent fills my nose.
Her warmth lingers against my chest even as I force myself to let her go. My arms feel wrong without her in them. Empty and cold. I hate the sensation, yet I hunger for it. They are opposites, but both are true, and it leaves me unsteady.
She steps back, and I allow her to because, if I do not, I will not stop holding her. And right now there is too much danger and too much attention on us.
The creature’s corpse twitches as its bioluminescence dies. Violet fades to dull gray, and the dunes swallow the last of it. The silence that settles is thick and watchful. The kind that hides more predators underneath.
Lia wipes sand from her cheek. Her hand trembles, but her courage does not. She is so small beside the fallen beast. So devastatingly bright. I drag my eyes away before I forget why we came.
“We move,” I say, forcing my voice steady. “There may be more.”
Tomas lets out a shaky laugh, shaking his head. He wipes sweat from his face, looking around the desert.
“More? More of… that? I can barely breathe after that one—Rakkh, we can’t just keep walking toward—toward—”
“Toward the source,” Travnyk finishes quietly, tusks lifting in emphasis. “If we retreat now, we allow the sickness to come back to our own people.”
Tomas flinches as if struck.
Lia watches them, but her gaze keeps drifting to me and away—once, twice—as if checking whether I agree, whether she still has my support. The truth is… she has more than that, and I do not know how to feel about it.
I step closer to her, not touching, but near enough that the warmth from her body meets mine. Her pulse flutters, brushing my senses like a whisper. Tomas notices and his brows pull tight.
“We should go back. Tell the Council. They can send a contingent of warriors to deal with this,” Tomas says.
A low noise rises in my chest. Instinct, warning, or the beginning of a growl I do not permit to reach full sound. Lia lifts her chin, defiant.
“No,” she says. “We’re too close. Something out here is rotting the plants, poisoning the animals, and if we turn back now, it continues to spread unchecked. We have to find the source. It is the only way to figure out what we are dealing with. To form a plan.”
“You saw what just happened! That thing nearly killed us!” Tomas shouts, throwing up his hands.
“And we lived. Because of Lia,” I snap before I can control it. The words strike harder than claws. Tomas freezes. Travnyk tilts his head. Lia blinks, and I feel the shift ripple through her. I have revealed too much, but I will not retract the truth.
“Her eyes found its weakness,” I continue, voice sharper than I intend. “Her instincts saved us. You would be dead if not for her.”
“And you,” Travnyk adds, calm as desert stone.
Lia’s breath catches. She turns to me and something fragile and dangerous stirs in her expression. Pride. Relief. Something warmer. Too warm. I look away, jaw rigid. Tomas swallows hard.
“I just… I’m scared.”
“Good,” Travnyk says. “Fear guides the feet, but you must not let it rule them.”
Lia steps forward, sand whispering beneath her boots. She faces Tomas, calm but firm.
“We don’t have to be brave. We just have to go forward. One step at a time. Together.”
Together.
The word echoes in my head as if she shouted it into a cavern. My hearts trip over themselves.
Tomas hesitates long enough to look back at the dune where the guardian rose, where the sand sinks, settling over whatever tunnels it carved beneath. The ground is quiet. He nods.
“All right,” he whispers. “Forward.”
Relief—sharp and unexpected—uncoils inside me. I gesture them forward, but before Lia turns to go, her hand brushes my arm. Light. Barely there, yet it hits me like a strike to the ribs.
“We’re going to find the source,” she says softly. “We’re going to stop whatever did this.”
I do not know how to tell her the truth clawing through my thoughts. It is not the creature I fear. It is not the sickness. It is not even the metal pulsing with foreign memory. It is her. What she is waking inside me. I lower my head closer to her ear, voice gravel-soft.
“Stay near me.”
She exhales a soft, trembling sound that I feel in my bones.
“I am,” she says. “I will.”
The dunes tremble, a distant warning. Travnyk lifts his blade. Tomas curses softly under his breath. I position myself at Lia’s side, my shadow falling over her as we walk deeper into the poisoned desert.
Every instinct I possess—Zmaj, warrior, protector—fixes on one truth. I will face whatever lies ahead. I will kill whatever rises from the sand. I will carve a path through hell itself—as long as it means she walks behind me.
As we travel the moon rides lower, staining the dunes in silver and red.
Her scent—musk, salt, something green from the crushed leaves she carries—threads through the hot wind.
She walks with her shoulders tight, head lifted, every sense alert.
Fear flickers in her pulse but never takes root.
She keeps moving. Tajss tests her and she refuses to break.
I have seen Zmaj falter in the face of such challenges, but she is indomitable. Tomas trudges behind us, panting, muttering curses at the sand. Travnyk scans the horizon with quiet, thoughtful focus, tusks catching moonlight each time he turns his head.
But Lia… Lia slips through the dunes like she was carved from them.
The way she moves draws my focus more than it should.
A gust of wind sweeps over the ridge and she lifts her hand to shield her eyes.
Something small—metal—glints between her fingers.
It takes me only a moment to recognize the shard she found earlier.
“Put that away,” I growl, harsher than intended.
She startles, then frowns. She doesn’t show fear, but annoyance.
“It’s just a piece,” she says. “I’m not touching the new one.”
“It is poison,” I say, dropping my voice lower. “You should not keep it near your skin.”
Her lips part, pulling my attention.
“Rakkh… I’m a botanist. I’ve dealt with many types of things. I am not fragile.”
“You are human,” I say, stepping closer without thought. “Your bodies are not built for unknown metals.”
“And yours is?” she shoots back.
I open my mouth to retort, then stop because she is right.
We know nothing about this alloy. Nothing about why it glowed beneath her touch. Nothing about why the creature seemed to focus on her.
Before I speak, Travnyk says quietly from behind us, “It is listening to you.”
Lia freezes. “What?”
“The metal,” Travnyk continues, gesturing with his blade. “It resonates. To your voice. Your heat. Something in its memory stirs when you are near.”
My tail twitches in irritation.
“You should have told me this earlier,” I say softly, trying not to growl.
Travnyk tilts his head, unbothered. “I wished to be certain.”
“Certain of what?” Lia asks.
“That it recognizes you,” Travnyk says simply. “And only you.”
Her breath catches. My claws flex. A cold, unwelcome thought snakes through my mind:
Why her? Why only her?
She slips the shard into her pouch anyway, jaw set.
“I have to keep it,” she says. “It might be the only clue we have.”
I want to argue. I want to snatch it from her hand. I want to crush it before it can respond to her again.
“Stay close,” I say stiffly.
“You keep saying that,” she exhales, frustrated.
“And you keep needing to be reminded,” I snap.
The words come out rougher than I mean. She stares, eyes bright in the moonlight—the same moonlight that sketches every edge of her face, her jaw, the line of her throat.
I should not notice these things. I should not feel heat curl through me as she looks at me like she wants to argue and lean in at the same time.
“Can you stop staring at each other and maybe… keep an eye on the sand? Just a suggestion,” Tomas groans.
Lia jerks away from me, clearing her throat. Heat floods her scent. She’s embarrassed and I’m furious at Tomas for noticing.
“We need to keep going,” she says.
We walk in uncomfortable silence until we crest another dune. The world widens into pale waves of sand stretching out beneath the moon. No wind, no beast calls, no shifting sand. Dead quiet. It makes my senses tingle with warning.
“Rakkh,” Travnyk whispers.
“I know.”
My claws dig deeper into the sand. Something out here is waiting. Something that knows we are approaching. Lia steps forward, as determined and brave as ever. Too brave for what hunts us. I move to block her path.
“Slow.”
She looks up sharply. “Why?”
“Because something is watching,” I say softly.
She stills and Tomas stumbles to a halt.
“Oh gods. How many creatures live out here?” Tomas moans.
“Enough,” Travnyk murmurs.
Lia’s throat bobs. She tightens her grip on her knife.
“Then we move carefully,” she says.
Her pulse flutters—fear, yes, but also focus. She is assessing, not panicking. Thinking. Always thinking. I lower my voice so only she can hear.
“You fought well.”
“I… didn’t fight. I just saw—” she says, blinking, startled.
“What no one else did,” I finish. “You saved us. Again.”
Her breath catches. She looks away, cheeks flushed. This girl. This small, fierce, impossible girl. Every instinct in me—every old wound, every guarded piece—tightens around this truth. I cannot lose her.
Not because she is the key to the sickness. Not because she entrusted her life to me. Not even because the metal responds to her. But because something inside me recognized her long before I could admit it, even to myself.
“We need to make camp soon,” I say, forcing my tone steady. “You need rest.”
She opens her mouth to argue. I step closer.
“Lia,” I warn softly. “Even the strongest burn out.”
Her breath trembles. “And you?”
“I do not rest,” I say simply. “Not while you are out here.”
I watch her pulse thumping in her neck. It seems even the desert is leaning closer, listening. Her mouth tightens, pursing her lips. I want, so much, to kiss her, but I hold, waiting for her to agree.