The air in the cavern tasted of sulfur and baked stone. The Red God’s passage had vitrified the tunnel, fusing granite into seamless obsidian glass that retained a heavy, stagnant warmth—the residual thermal energy pressed against his skin, a humid, tropical weight in the deep earth.

  Trenn sat cross-legged near the small fire he’d built from splintered mine cart wood. The flames were unnecessary for warmth—sweat already slicked his skin—but the light kept the oppressive darkness of the mine at bay.

  His massive golden tail coiled behind him, acting as a third point of balance on the glass floor. The initial struggle to walk had been a constant, frustrating negotiation. Now, the alien limb was becoming a tool.

  He shifted the heavy Rabbitling tunic, clamping a fresh section of hem in his maimed left hand. His golden tail coiled forward, pressing the fabric against the obsidian floor with the force of an anvil. He pulled against the anchor, snapping the canvas taut. The bone knife hissed through the fabric, slicing another clean bandage to add to the pile beside his knee.

  A cough broke the silence. Mara convulsed on the bed of tarps. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, arms trembling from the systemic crash. She stretched, popping her spine with a sickly click. She twisted her torso.

  She winced, emptying her lungs with a loud exhalation. Her hand flew to her chest. She took a series of shallow, controlled breaths.

  A low gurgle erupted from her abdomen.

  "Do… Do we have food?" she asked. But she knew the answer.

  She straightened herself.

  "You’re feeling better?" Trenn asked.

  "Enough to move normally. The Giant Pill always makes me sore, but it’s nothing serious."

  Her focus shifted to Trenn’s wounds. Amber eyes narrowed, a hunter’s analytical gaze sweeping over the scab on his side and the bandages at his feet.

  "Turn around."

  A knot of shame tightened in Trenn's gut. His gaze dropped to the fire. He fed a splinter of wood into the embers, the small, deliberate action a flimsy shield against her request. His back still burned with the pain Mara and Almitad had inflicted. A reminder of his loss of control.

  "Trenn. We weren’t fighting you. We were fighting the One-Eye. Now turn."

  He exhaled slowly. The golden tail moved with the sound of heavy chains dragging on stone. He shifted his weight, rotating his torso until he presented his back.

  He heard the rustle of a pouch, then the quiet scrape of her boots.

  Her cool fingers touched his feverish skin. He jumped.

  He felt the delicate probe of her fingertips tracing the four deep furrows her own claws had carved into his skin, down to the unnatural seam where his body met golden scale.

  "The ichor..." she whispered, breath warm against his skin.

  "It's holding?"

  Her fingers moved to the burnt gash in his side. They traced the edges where charred flesh met thick, translucent ridges of hardened amber.

  "It's... beautiful. In a terrible way."

  She reached for the pile of canvas strips. She pressed the first length against his lower back. She pulled the fabric tight across his abdomen, passing it hand-to-hand around his trunk before tying it off with a sharp tug.

  She grabbed another, feeding it around his ribs.

  "The infection is contained," she murmured, knotting the cloth. "The necrosis is losing ground."

  She worked methodically, layering strip after strip until his entire torso was sheathed in the rough grey fabric.

  She patted his shoulder once. "Okay, it's done."

  He turned back.

  She stared at the pile of black chitin plates stacked nearby. Zeen’s armor. It seemed fine, unharmed by her Giant Pill transformation.

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  "Help me up."

  Trenn stood. He offered his right wrist.

  She gripped it. She rose, her motion stiff but controlled. She didn't buckle. She stood, planting her boots firmly on the glass floor.

  Then she froze.

  Her hand flew to her side, clamping over her ribcage. The act of straightening her spine had ground the fractures together. She hissed, locking her torso in a rigid hunch to immobilize the bone. She took a shallow, testing breath.

  "Okay." She managed her breathing. "I'm steady."

  He hefted the heavy chitin breastplate. It was a cold, alien weight in his hands. "Let me help."

  She didn't answer, just braced herself against a rock, her knuckles white. He brought the armor to her, the movement clumsy with his mangled hand. He aligned the chest piece over her tunic, the curved black plates a stark contrast to her white fur.

  As he reached for the first strap, her body went rigid.

  "Wait," she breathed, the word a pained hiss.

  Through their tether, he felt it—a jarring, grinding pre-echo of pain from her ribcage. She was anticipating the pressure, and her body was already screaming. He saw not the warrior, but the terrified patient on a surgeon's table.

  "I know," he said softly. "Just... breathe with me." He didn't pull the strap. He just held it, letting her find a rhythm. Her ragged gasps slowly evened out. She gave a single, sharp nod.

  He pulled.

  The leather cinched tight with a groan. A strangled sound tore from her throat as the rigid plates compressed her torso. Her entire frame convulsed, a violent, full-body shudder that made the armor clatter against her bones. She pitched forward, her forehead crashing against his shoulder, her weight a dead thing against him.

  For a long moment, she just hung there, her breathing a frantic, shallow panting against his neck.

  "It's... on," she finally managed, the words muffled.

  "Are you okay?" The question felt stupid, hollow.

  "No," she rasped. But she pushed herself upright, her face a mask of sweat and grim determination. "Do the rest."

  The process was a slow, brutal ritual. Each piece of armor was a new torment. The greaves felt like vices clamping onto her shins. The pauldron was a grinding weight on her shoulder. With every strap he tightened, he felt a fresh spike of her agony through the tether, a sharp, sympathetic pang that made his own wounds throb.

  He was not just armoring a warrior; he was building a cage for her pain, locking it away behind chitin and leather so she could function.

  She moved slowly, carefully. The articulated plates shifted and interlocked. She rolled her shoulders. The chitin moved with her, silent and snug. "It still fits."

  Trenn turned toward the tunnel entrance where the mine tracks disappeared into a wall of rubble.

  "The way out is blocked?"

  "Collapsed," Trenn confirmed. "The Rabbitling shaft is gone."

  "That’s the only way," he said, nodding his chin down the Red God’s giant trench.

  Mara focused on the solitary specks of grey hovering in the upper darkness.

  "Ventilation," she said, tasting the air. "Where the tip of the dorsal fin breached the surface... Can we climb?"

  "It's steep. And slick. Maybe if you had your claws."

  Mara sighed. "I wonder what happened to Almitad and the others."

  Trenn felt a pang of guilt. There were others. He had not even considered their fate.

  They gathered their meager supplies. Trenn placed Skate back on his head. The Meteor Slime had reverted to a cool, heavy puddle that gripped his skull.

  Trenn took the lead. The rhythmic click of his boots echoed down the tunnel. He was forced to rely on his Sonar spell, while Mara’s superior sight managed with the little light that pierced from up above.

  The air grew heavier as they moved away from the Rabbitling mine. Dry, stagnant warmth radiated from the walls.

  They walked for hours, while Mara’s stomach grumbled, until Trenn abruptly stopped.

  The terrain ahead changed. The smooth, glass-like obsidian ahead of them was draped with wide, leathery patches. Like a strange, lumpy carpet. He held Mara’s hand.

  "Wait."

  Skate felt Trenn’s hesitation and stiffened against his scalp. It formed a porous carbonado shell around its pliable purple mass.

  Trenn focused on the strange geography, while Mara drew her bow. "The ground ahead... It’s alive. Breathing. About a half dozen heartbeats."

  He focused the hum in his chest. The echo returned changed, dampened by clusters of dense, fleshy mass that pressed their bellies against the hot obsidian. They were motionless, soaking up the thermal energy from the rock.

  "It looks like... stingrays? But with a wingspan of about three meters."

  "Heat-Rays?" Mara stiffened. "Careful, songs say their barbs are venomous. Paralyzes a Kin in seconds."

  Trenn froze as a large mantaray-like creature peeled from the floor and pushed itself into the air.

  It drifted on the rising heat. Wide, fleshy wings spanned like long triangular membranes, catching the updraft.

  "Contact," Trenn whispered.

  Mara released an arrow, but the creature undulated its wide mantle, pushing against the thick air as if it were water. A long, whip-like tail trailed behind, tipped with a glistening barb.

  "Shit. They’re sensitive to movements in the air," she hissed, drawing her kris knife and dropping her bow. "We need to get close enough... without getting stung."

  The Heat-Ray was floating on the air, several meters in front of them. Completely unbothered by their attack.

  "It’s a trap," Trenn said. "We get close, and—"

  Mara’s stomach groaned audibly. She swayed on her feet, a hand pressing against the plate covering her painful ribs.

  She peered in the dark, her sharp eyes tracing the floating creature.

  "I don't care,” she bared her lupine teeth. “It’s floating food."

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