Chapter 32
MAUG
She’s not there.
The ridge is empty.
Wind cuts sideways, dragging dust over rock like skin peeling from bone. Her scent lingers—just barely—sweet and sharp and alive. But there’s no firelight, no echo of her footsteps where she was supposed to be.
I kneel.
The ground’s been disturbed.
Not by animal tracks. Not by a slip or stumble.
Drag marks.
Two sets. One hers—light, fast, urgent. The other—slower, wider. Heavy.
Booted.
I lean closer. My claws trace the indentation left behind where her foot twisted. She tried to fight. I see the arc of it, the way her heel dug in, left a crescent in the soil. She kicked. Hard.
But she didn’t win.
The trail ends abruptly where the rocks slope downward. There’s a scrape of metal on stone. A land hauler. Standard issue for mid-distance recoveries. The bastards didn’t just intercept her.
They hunted her.
A snarl rips from my chest. I try to swallow it down—but it claws out anyway.
A full-bodied roar, sharp enough to startle the birds from the cliffs. The echo rolls back in waves, louder, louder, until it feels like the canyon itself is screaming with me.
But rage doesn’t bring her back.
I breathe.
The bond still pulls—tight now. Fraying. It feels like a tether stretched to its limit, vibrating under pressure. She’s alive. But she’s not safe.
Not for long.
I sprint back to the cave.
No hesitation. No weight in my limbs now. No pain.
Just motion.
I clear the ridges in half the time. Inside, the fire’s still warm. Her jacket’s still draped over the bedding. I stop for a breath—not to rest. To remember. The way she kissed me. The way she looked when she said she was mine.
Jalshagar.
Fated.
I will not lose her.
I move to the back chamber.
The starfighter waits.
Old. Dust-covered. Glorious.
My hands don’t shake as I strip away the last of the protective tarp. Dust rolls into the air, thick and bitter. Beneath, the hull still gleams—a faded matte black with ghosted streaks of old kill codes etched along the side. I brush my claws across them. Names I don’t remember anymore.
Wars I don’t care about anymore.
This isn’t about duty. It isn’t about redemption.
This is about her.
The boarding ramp groans as it lowers. I slide inside, movements automatic. My body remembers this. Every switch. Every throttle.
The seat is just as I left it. Worn. Cracked along the edges. The scorch mark still there on the left panel from the last time I was shot down.
I sit.
The harness latches with a hiss. Cool metal wraps around my chest.
I flip the startup cycle.
The engines hum low, then growl like a beast waking from hibernation. Dust swirls around the intake fans. Lights flare to life across the dash—green, orange, flicker-red. Navigation’s offline, but engines, atmosphere shielding, and short-range weapons read 80% functional.
That’s enough.
I punch in the ping signal from Jillian’s old compad—encrypted, hidden in the data burst we pulled from the IHC comms tower. Last known coordinates of the main expedition ship.
I know where they’re going.
I know why.
To spread it.
To sing.
Not if I get there first.
The thrusters rumble.
I flip the launch sequence.
Outside, the cliffs tremble.
I don’t say goodbye.
The engines roar—and I launch.
Atmospheric drag grabs at the wings like claws. The old girl bucks hard—shudders under the strain of reentry through Purgonis’s dense cloud layers. Ash smears across the canopy, and for a second the sky vanishes.
But then the stars break open.
And I rise.
The weight shifts. The silence of orbit swallows me whole.
Jillian’s heartbeat echoes in the hollow of my chest—at least, it feels like it. The bond still holds, still tugs. She’s not gone yet. Not fully.
I can still find her.
I will.
The nav screen flickers. A new ping—faint, moving.
They’ve launched.
The IHC ship’s on the move.
I throttle up.
The old scars on my back twinge as the g-force punches into me. Not from the burns. From the memory.
This cockpit once meant war.
Now?
Now it means home.
I chase the ping through orbit, heart hammering in time with the rising signal. I’m closing in.
And if they’ve touched a single hair on her head—if they’ve so much as breathed wrong in her direction—I will peel the hull from their bones and watch the song burn.