Chapter 18
MAUG
The sky groans.
Not a sound, exactly—more like a pressure. A thrum in the bones. A promise of violence yet to come.
I feel it long before it breaks. The air thickens, dry and sharp, tasting like blood and ozone. A storm. A big one. Purgonis does nothing in halves. And this one… this one will carve flesh from bone if it finds you in the open.
I crouch low on the ridge above the humans’ camp, my breath quiet. I watch the shield ripple and stammer, light flickering like it’s being gnawed on by invisible teeth. They built that barrier for stingtails, not the wrath of the southern flats. It won’t hold. Not tonight.
I should retreat. Take shelter, ride it out like I always do. But my eyes catch on a single figure, a smudge of movement at the edge of camp. Red hair. Too bright. Too vulnerable.
Jillian.
What is she doing?
She’s too far out already, near the outer rocks, scribbling something on her pad like the damn sky isn’t collapsing above her.
A gust slams into the ridge. Sand and grit howl across the canyon like banshees.
I see her flinch, arm thrown up over her face, but she doesn’t move fast enough.
She’s caught in the spiral now. Lost in it.
I move.
I don’t think—I don’t hesitate. I leap from the ridge, boots hitting the gravel hard enough to crack it. Wind tears at my cloak, claws at my skin, but I push forward. The sand stings. It bites like insects, digs beneath the plates of my armor. My vision narrows. Everything else falls away.
I find her.
She’s down, crouched low, arms over her head, coughing. Her hood’s torn loose. Hair whips across her face, eyes squeezed shut.
“Jillian!” I shout, but it’s swallowed whole.
She doesn’t see me. Doesn’t hear me.
I pull the heat-shielding tarp from my belt—fabric woven with carbon thread and old hunter tricks—and I wrap her in it without ceremony. She screams at first, a sharp, animal sound of terror, but then I lift her, hold her close, and I feel the moment she recognizes it’s me.
Not a monster.
Not tonight.
I tuck her against my chest, shield her with my body, and turn toward the cliffs.
There’s a shelter nearby—one I carved into the stone cycles ago, when I still thought surviving here mattered. A lava dome half-buried in ash and forgotten by time. Reinforced, hidden, mine. It’s not far.
The wind screams louder. The storm eats the stars.
I run.
Each step feels like I’m dragging the weight of every bad decision I’ve ever made.
My joints burn. My lungs fill with dust. But I don’t stop.
I can’t. The storm is a predator now, snapping at my heels.
And she… she is soft in my arms. Fragile in a way that terrifies me more than any stingtail ever could.
Finally, I reach it.
A sliver of rock, a crack in the world. I slip inside, shoulder first, kicking the stone panel closed behind us with a grunt. The moment the storm’s roar is cut off, the silence roars louder.
She shakes in my arms.
I kneel and ease her down onto the stone floor, unwrap her slowly. Her cheeks are raw. Her lips cracked. But her eyes… they’re open. And she’s looking at me like she knew I’d come.
I don’t speak.
I can’t.
My mouth works, but the words won’t come.
So instead, I reach for the small pile of supplies stashed in the corner—old but serviceable. A heater unit. A thermal blanket. A flask of water sealed tight.
I hand it to her.
She takes it without question.
And still, she stares at me. Like she’s trying to memorize every piece of my face.
“Thank you,” she whispers. Barely audible.
I look away.
It shouldn’t matter. She’s just a human. Just a girl with too many questions and not enough fear.
But somehow… somehow, it matters more than anything ever has.
And I don’t know what to do with that.
The storm howls outside like a wounded beast, its voice all hunger and hate.
Sand slashes against the stone dome, a thousand claws trying to tear their way in.
I feel every tremor in the rock beneath my feet.
This planet doesn’t rage—it punishes. It doesn’t forgive.
But in here, inside this ancient hollow I once called a fallback shelter, it’s quiet.
Quiet enough to hear her breathing.
Shallow. Shaky. But alive.
That shouldn’t matter as much as it does. And yet… it does.
She lies curled on the ground where I placed her, the heat-shielding tarp half-slipped from her shoulders, as if even unconscious, she resists protection.
Grit clings to her skin like second flesh, streaking the curve of her jaw and the hollow of her throat.
Her hair’s a mess—tangled and heavy with dust, the red of it dulled by storm grit but still catching the low light like embers smoldering under ash.
I crouch against the far wall, the last few meters between us carved by hesitation, not fear. I don’t make a sound. I barely breathe. Watching her is like standing too close to a cliff’s edge—beautiful and perilous, all at once.
Then she stirs.
A soft cough escapes her throat, and she winces, pressing an arm to her side. Her lashes flutter, eyes struggling against the dark. And then she sees me.
Really sees me.
Her gaze locks with mine, and everything stops.
Time. Thought. Even breath.
Not fear. Not even confusion.
She just... looks.
“You brought me here?” she croaks, voice rough as broken glass.
I don’t move. Don’t speak. Just give the smallest nod. Anything more might fracture the delicate thing forming between us.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t back away.
Instead, she draws the tarp closer, shoulders curling inward like she’s bracing against something colder than wind. “You’re not going to hurt me,” she says.
And it’s not a question. It’s not even a hope. It’s a quiet fact spoken into the dark.
I nod again.
Something loosens in her posture, like she’s been holding herself rigid since the moment she arrived on this planet and just now remembered how to breathe. Then—damn me—she smiles.
It’s faint. Fragile. But real. A sunrise breaking through the storm.
I look away.
Because I don’t know what to do with something that gentle. I’ve only ever known what to kill. What to endure.
She shifts, cradling the tarp in her lap like a comfort object, and sits cross-legged, her back straight but her limbs loose. No tension. No fear.
Just stillness.
The kind that wraps around your ribs and makes you ache without knowing why.
I sink lower into the shadows, the stone cool against my back. I keep her in my peripheral. I don’t need to stare. Her presence fills the space even without my gaze. Her breathing settles into a rhythm, slow and deliberate.
She doesn’t speak again. And neither do I.
But we sit. Side by side, divided by space but connected by something neither of us names.
The silence isn’t empty. It hums.
Like it has a pulse of its own.
Outside, the storm claws at the world, furious at our defiance. Inside, her heartbeat sings to me through the quiet. I feel it more than hear it, like drums in the distance calling me to something I don’t understand.
Her scent drifts on the still air—dust, sweat, and something sweeter beneath. Not perfume. Not anything artificial. Just her. Honest and wild.
My claws twitch.
I shouldn’t have revealed myself. Not even this much. But that look on her face when she found the pelt—that mix of awe and relief, like someone had left her a piece of meaning in a meaningless world—it broke something in me.
And now she’s here.
Because I brought her.
Because I couldn’t let the storm take her.
Because I couldn’t watch her die.
My instincts scream the word I’ve buried for years. Jalshagar.
But this isn’t about that. Not yet.
This isn’t about need.
It’s about responsibility.
And guilt.
And something colder: memory.
I’ve failed before.
Failed worse than she’ll ever know.
And I swore, if I ever had the chance again, I’d do it differently. Better.
Even if it means hiding. Even if it means watching from a distance, protecting in silence, bleeding where she’ll never see.
I risk another glance.
She’s rubbing grit from her eyes, her fingers trembling slightly. Not from fear. From exhaustion. Her movements are careful, almost reverent, like she doesn’t want to break the moment either.
Her lips part. She doesn’t speak, but her mouth shapes something soft. I don’t need sound to recognize my name in it—not the one the others gave me. The old one. The one from before.
It stings.
And warms.
And hurts.
I swallow back a growl and press my claws into my palms, grounding myself in the pain. It’s real. It’s sharp. It keeps me here.
“Why me?” I hear her whisper, so soft the storm almost swallows it whole.
She isn’t asking me.
She’s asking the air.
But I feel it burrow under my skin, embedding like thornroot.
I want to answer. I want to tell her I don’t know either. That something in her pulled at something in me and now I can’t let go.
That her fire lit the last match in my soul.
That her voice sounds like home.
But I say nothing.
Because my voice would ruin it.
My voice is a weapon.
Instead, I shift slightly, letting the heat of the portable shelter radiate into my limbs. My muscles are still taut, battle-ready, but not for her. Never for her.
She pulls her knees to her chest and rests her chin on them. Her eyes are still open. Watching the dark. Watching me, maybe. Or what she thinks I am.
Not a monster. Not a man.
Something between.
Something she hasn’t run from.
And that—that terrifies me more than anything out there.
Because if she stays...
If she keeps looking at me like that...
I might start believing it.
That I can be something more than a shadow in the caves.
That I can protect her without destroying everything else.
That I can be enough.
The storm rages on, unforgiving and blind, but for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel the need to run.
I stay.
Because she’s here.
And gods help me—I want to be, too.