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Sky scrambled out of the cage, his large hand instantly locking onto mine. His skin was ice-cold. I pulled him close, turning back toward the main path to lead him away⁠—

But the exit was already blocked.

Three massive Vakra raiders stepped out from the shadows of the burning armoury, their heavy iron pikes raised, their faces concealed behind crude metal visors. I spun around, trying to find a secondary route, but two more scavengers stepped out from the opposite treeline, effectively cutting off our escape. We were completely surrounded.

My breath caught in my throat. I stepped directly in front of Sky, spreading my arms to shield his body behind mine and raised the blood-slicked skymetal dagger in a defensive guard. My hands were shaking, but I forced my jaw to lock.

All around us, the distant sounds of chaos, screaming, and clashing steel continued to echo through the Nest, but within this small clearing, a strange, heavy tension descended. The Vakra raiders didn't lunge. They didn't strike. They simply stood their ground, weapons lowered slightly, waiting.

Suddenly, the line of scavengers parted.

From the smoke-choked path, a figure walked slowly into the clearing. My jaw slackened, a profound, sickening confusion freezing the blood in my veins.

It was Mara.

She walked with a slow, deliberate pace, her posture entirely relaxed as she moved right through the ranks of the Vakra raiders. None of them raised a weapon against her. They watched her with a twisted sort of deference.

Mara didn't look at me at first. She stopped a few paces away, her cold, unyielding gaze shifting directly to the space behind my back. She gave a single, firm nod.

It was a look of validation. A look that said good work.

Before I could even process the absolute horror of what I was seeing, the hand behind my back loosened. Sky slowly stepped out from behind me. The terror that had consumed his face moments ago was gone, replaced by a heavy, devastating guilt. He wouldn't look me in the eye. He kept his gaze glued to the dirt, his shoulders hunched.

He opened his mouth and let out a low, trembling whisper in his own native tongue.

"Zha-lo..." he murmured. Sorry.

Then, he walked across the clearing and took his place directly beside Mara, joining the ranks of the Vakras.

My mind fractured. The world seemed to tilt on its axis as I looked between the Oru-ka widow and the youngling I had just bled to save. "Mara... what is this? What have you done?"

Mara finally looked at me, and the sheer volume of festering, psychotic rage burning in her eyes made me take a step back. "What have I done?" she hissed, her voice a low, venomous vibration that cut sharper than any blade. "I am saving our bloodline from the greatest dishonour, human."

"You brought them here," I whispered. "The southern gate... the diversion. You opened the perimeter for the Vakras."

"I am not with them, star-woman," Mara spat, her face twisting as she pointed at the scavengers. "I despise them. But they care only for the old machines, and the price the outer factions placed on your skull. I am using them. I am using them to rid our tribe of you."

She stepped closer, her eyes flashing a dangerous, unstable amber as she stared at the weapon in my hand.

"My mate... my Varek... died in the lower canyons because of your sky-metal!" she roared, her voice cracking with an agonising grief. "It was your people’s corrupted metal that slaughtered him! He was torn apart by it. And Kaelen did nothing to save him. He let my male bleed out in the dirt. So tell me, star-woman... what right does he have to take a mate of his own? A fragile, useless human at that? Why should he have a nest full of warmth while mine is cold and empty?!"

"So you sold out your own people?" I demanded, my grip tightening on the dagger as my own rage rose to match hers. "You let the Vakras torch the nurseries? You let them kill your brothers and sisters just to settle a grudge?!"

"I made a deal," Mara corrected coldly, her expression hardening back into ice. "I aided them. I gave them the old machines from the wreck-fields—the deep ones, the ones even our own scholars stopped studying generations ago. I don't know what they built from it. I don't care. All I know is they swore it would silence you from him completely, not just dull you the way sky-metal always can. They seemed very sure of that part." A flicker of something crossed her face—not quite doubt, but close. "I didn't ask how they knew that. I didn't want to know."

She stepped forward and extended a cold hand toward me. "Go with them, Lyra. Save the Nest you claim to care about so much. Step forward, and your 'people' live."

I looked around the clearing at the five massive raiders, then back toward the high cliffs where the Nest families were fleeing for their lives. A cold, separate fear settled under my ribs at what Mara had just admitted—silence you from him completely—but there was no time to untangle what that actually meant. I could still hear the distant screams. I knew Kaelen was out there, fighting a war on two fronts, losing his mind because he couldn't feel me through the void.

If I stayed and fought, they would kill me, they would kill Sky, and they would march up the terraces until the entire tribe was extinguished. Even if some of them hated me, even if they looked at me like an alien parasite... they were Kaelen's people. They were my home now.

I let out a slow, shuddering breath. I lowered the skymetal dagger, but I didn't drop it. I kept it flat against my thigh as I walked slowly toward Mara.

"Fine," I said, my voice dead and hollow. "I'll go."

Mara watched me approach, a smug, vindictive satisfaction settling onto her sharp features. She thought she had won. She thought she had broken me.

As I drew level with her, just inches apart, I stopped. I looked her dead in her treacherous, bleeding eyes, and used the sharp, guttural accent of the ancient language—the words I had memorised from my time here while trying to understand this brutal world.