Chapter 29
JILLIAN
The sun arrives like a punishment.
One second I’m walking the ridge, gravel crunching beneath my boots, breath sharp but steady. The next, the world blisters.
No warning—just a flash. A pulse. Like the air itself turns to fire.
I freeze. My visor explodes with heat warnings. Internal cooling spikes into the red. My skin prickles under the suit, and then… burns. It’s instant. My lungs seize as the filters groan, trying to compensate. They can’t.
I curse and spin, nearly tripping on the rocks. The shadows I counted on? Gone. Sun’s too high now, climbing toward the brutal zenith of Purgonis’s hell-cycle. And I’ve miscalculated.
Not by much.
But enough to kill me.
Heat crashes down, heavy as a landslide. It wraps my body like wet wool set on fire—claustrophobic, scorching. My mouth dries up. Sweat evaporates before it even forms.
The air smells like melting plastic.
I stagger toward a cliff wall, dragging myself along the stone, searching for a crevice—any damn crevice—to duck into. But the rock radiates heat like an oven wall. I press my gloved hand to it and hiss. The glove’s outer mesh fuses to the surface instantly. I jerk away, and the fabric tears.
My mask chirps—error. Then another chirp—critical system overload.
Static fills my ears.
Then silence.
My vision tunnels.
I drop to my knees, wheezing, ribs rattling with each failing breath. The sunlight sharpens, turning white-hot, bleaching the ground around me.
My thoughts fracture. You didn’t plan this right. You should’ve waited. You should’ve known better. Maug would’ve known. Maug—
A shadow falls over me.
Sudden. Massive.
I blink through sweat, eyes barely registering shape—horns, shoulders like carved stone, fur curling at the ends, smoldering. A growl, low and thunderous, pierces the silence.
Him.
He crouches, one hand on the ground, the other reaching for me. And I realize too late that I screamed—or tried to. My throat won’t form the word, but it’s his name in my head. Over and over. My hands slap against his chest weakly.
“NO—no, Maug, don’t—don’t—”
He lifts me anyway.
It’s not graceful. It’s desperate.
My vision swims again as my cheek hits his shoulder—and I smell it. The thick, acrid sting of burning hair. Scorching flesh.
It’s him. The sun’s chewing through his back, skin blackening, peeling away, exposing raw meat and bone. His horns press against the cliff wall with a sharp sizzle.
He groans, low and deep, as he climbs.
Climbs.
I clutch at him, panic overriding pain.
“Put me down! Stop it! You’re—Maug, please—!”
But his arms only tighten.
And through clenched teeth, he snarls, “No.”
Every step, he grits against the stone, claws digging into rock turned soft from heat. Smoke curls off his shoulders. His tunic catches fire.
Still he climbs.
Up the final ledge—where the cave mouth yawns like a forgotten wound in the stone.
He half-falls through it, carrying me, collapsing hard onto the floor inside.
We tumble together.
My scream catches in my throat.
He lands first, breaking my fall. My visor cracks. My elbow splits against the stone. But it’s his body—shaking, burning, cooking—that keeps me alive.
He doesn’t scream.
Not once.
He shudders, the entire cave echoing with the weight of it.
And then, silence.
Smoke still drips from his back.
My hands fumble over him. I cry out—ugly, wrenching sobs as I try to peel the fabric away. It sticks. Blackened, fused. His skin is a horror show—deep grooves of char, patches of meat exposed, veins cauterized.
“Gods, no—no—why did you—why did you do this?!”
He doesn’t answer.
His eyes are closed.
I press my hand to his chest, screaming, “Breathe!”
And then he does.
A rasp.
A pull of air like stone dragged across sand.
And then another.
Slow.
Measured.
Steady.
I watch, shaking, as the wounds on his back begin to move.
The blisters twitch. The open slashes pulse.
New tissue begins to bloom—red, raw, but undeniably healing.
My mouth drops open. My breath goes shallow.
I touch one of the half-healed wounds and gasp. It's warm. But not fever-warm.
Alive.
His body is knitting itself together.
I sit there, blinking, mouth dry, heart hammering.
The firelight flickers across his face.
He opens his eyes.
And they’re not weak. Not dim.
They’re him—that sharp, ruby heat that first terrified me and now…
Now feels like safety.
I whisper, because my voice won’t work right:
“What… are you?”
His lips part, slow.
And in the softest voice I’ve ever heard from him, he says:
“I am… Maug.”
He says it like it’s enough.
Like it’s all I need to know.
And maybe it is.
I look at him—really look—and all I see is the man who nearly died to carry me out of the fire.
My tears burn down my cheeks. I lurch forward, arms sliding around his shoulders, wrapping tight.
I don’t care that he’s still smoldering. I don’t care about the blood. I don’t care about the soot smeared across my face.
I hold him like he’s the last truth I’ve got left.
And I whisper into his neck:
“Then why did you?”
His hands curl around me. Gentle. Unbelievably gentle.
There’s a pause. Long enough I think maybe he won’t answer.
Then, low—like it hurts him to say it:
“Because you came back.”