Chapter 4
GYON
The maze knows I’m here.
It doesn't fear me. It doesn’t run from me. No, it responds—twisting corridors just beyond reach, whispering threats in languages I’ve butchered into silence. It shifts like a cunning predator, not prey. I respect that.
But I am the better hunter.
I track by scent—copper tang of old blood, acidic sweat, fear clinging to the walls like damp mold. The others have moved on. I taste them in the air—tense, panicked, clumped together in desperation. Civilians stink the worst. Adrenaline-sour and frantic. Like cornered rodents too dumb to hide.
But one is different.
She doesn’t smell like fear. She smells like fire.
The corridor pulses around me, a soft heartbeat hidden beneath cold steel. I pad forward, bare feet silent on the seamless floor. The lights dim and flicker, disoriented by my presence.
Another trap triggers behind me—pitiful attempt.
The floor vanishes in a hiss. I leap forward just as electrified needles jut up from the chasm’s bottom. Cute. The walls snap back into place with a sigh, as if disappointed.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” I murmur to no one.
No response. Just more whispers.
Sometimes they sound like the people I’ve killed. They sound like her.
The next junction reeks of ozone and fresh plasma. A sentry bot emerges, spider-limbed and gleaming. Its faceplate lights up with targeting glyphs, sensors snapping onto my core.
I give it exactly two seconds to make a choice.
It lunges.
Wrong move.
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 something pulls at 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, more than important. Someone mine.
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’s her.
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.
No sound. No warning.
Just a flash of blue light—and she’s gone. Vaporized. Her body becomes dust in the space of a blink.
Screaming erupts from the rest of them.
The civilian howls, hands covered in her ash. The others back away, eyes wide with horror. One of them starts shaking uncontrollably.
Liora—that’s her name—doesn’t scream.
She roars.
She swings the pipe at the nearest camera drone so hard the drone sparks and spirals to the floor, fizzling.
“Oh no, players!” Dirk Husker’s voice chirps, delighted. “Looks like the healer’s out of lives! That’s gonna cost your team synergy!”
Liora screams up at the ceiling, “COME DOWN HERE AND SAY THAT TO MY FACE, YOU SICK FREAK!”
I almost laugh.
Gods, she’s perfect.
But she’s cracking. I can see it in the way her shoulders slump afterward, just for a second. The way her eyes flick to the civilians and then away, like she can’t bear what they see in her. The blood isn’t just on her hands—it’s in her code.
This maze, twisted and defiled—is eating her alive.
And it’s not just the traps. It’s the responsibility.
This isn’t war. It’s grief turned into architecture.
I understand it more than I want to.
I lean my forehead against the cold metal of the wall. Close my eyes.
Focus.
I need to move. Watch. Learn. Let her see me when it matters. Not just as a monster in the dark, but as her equal. Her protector.
Her mate.
The maze rumbles beneath my feet like it agrees—or maybe resents me. Doesn’t matter. Let it try. Let it snarl and bait and twist. I’ll gut it room by room if I have to.
I turn away from the viewport, silently retracing my steps through the corridor. The blood trail from earlier has dried, but the scent remains. Civilians who won’t make it. Meat with expiration dates.
Their loss.
Only one of them matters now.
The jalshagar.
And I will not let her die.