He nods.
I plunge through to the core. Panels slide. Energy coils spin faintly. Crystal conduits pulse. A wormhole arch—massive. Silent. Naked. Waiting.
The threads of reality tremble around it. The harmonic wave is like music laced through every molecule.
I look at Kyldak. The wonder in his eyes is raw, naked. “We found it.”
He grips his weapon, half in protection, half in awe. “So we did.”
I swallow hard. I brush my gloved fingers across the arch. The hum ripples. Skins crawl. The air flickers.
He looks at me. “You did this.”
I take a breath. “For Kel.”
His eyes widen. And then—fear. Everything shifts.
I don’t know if he’s mad, proud, angry. He just stares.
I press a hand to his chest. “Don’t run.”
He doesn’t. He steadies himself. “We cross it together.”
I nod—as if I meant it.
But in the tremor of my fingers, in the catch of my breath, I know the lie’s still there.
And the truth, once unleashed, might shatter us both.
We cross the threshold of the Glass Teeth in a whisper, the obsidian spires looming overhead like black fangs drawn across the sky. The air tastes burnt—charred rock, stale energy, ozone pushed through ancient conduits. Every breath I take feels like I’m inhaling history and ruin together.
Kyldak’s warriors fan out behind me, light beacons from scanners slicing through the darkness. I lead with my own rigged scanner, boots echoing on cracked tech and rubble, my pulse in time with the hum underfoot. The walls hum too—faint static, as if the ruins themselves are breathing.
My scanner spikes as we go deeper—radiation ghosts flickering at the edges of the feed. Doors half collapsed, panels fused shut, cables snaking through the walls like veins. Every turn’s a gamble: one wrong step and we trigger a trap, fall through a sunk shaft, or choke on dust.
I catch the tremble in my own voice. “Here.”
Kyldak presses close behind me. The light from his red eye glows weak in this darkness. “What do you see?”
I wave the scanner across a seam in the rock. The display jumps—heat signature faint but distinct. Behind it, layered over, a harmonic resonance pulse—pure, rhythmic. A heartbeat beneath walls.
I swallow. “It’s real. The generator. It’s alive underneath.”
He exhales, low. “You were right.”
I hold the scanner tighter. “And you still don’t knowwhyI came.”
He runs a hand through his hair, his jaw tight. “We’ll get there.”
But the words don't settle. I don’t believe them—not yet.
We begin excavation. Picks, drills, replicator arms borrowed and jury-rigged. The obsidian walls crack back. Sparks fly. The air tastes like scorched plastic and ozone. I stay close to the reading, crawling over debris, peeling fragments back, exposing ancient metal ribs and crystal conduits. The harmonic pulse grows stronger, resonating through the bedrock.
I pause, touching a glass shard. It’s cold. Beneath my glove, it tightens in my hand, then fades. The scan pulses.
Kyldak moves beside me, offering tools, guiding beams. He doesn’t speak much; his eyes sag with all the storms he’s fought to survive. I sense he’s carrying a question on the edge of his will.
We clear aside a metal panel fused to the rock. Curved glass-crystal coils spin faintly behind it. A circular archway looms—sleek alloy, etched symbols, lines half-buried in glass fractures.
