The mountains rose around us like the bones of some ancient titan. In the darkness, they were shapes and shadows, vast presences that dwarfed even her considerable height. The path—if it could be called that—wound between them, sometimes climbing, sometimes descending into narrow defiles where the walls pressed close enough to touch on both sides.
My legs burned. My shoulder had gone from sharp pain to a dull, throbbing ache that pulsed in time with my heartbeat. The thin air made every breath feel insufficient, like drowning in slow motion.
She didn't seem affected. Her breathing remained steady, controlled. Her footsteps never faltered.
Of course they didn't. This was her world. Her mountains. I was the invader here, the foreign body that didn't belong.
Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time had lost meaning somewhere between the second abandonment and the ateaer attack and this forced march through alien stone. The sky above remained dark, but the quality of the darkness was changing—thinning at the edges, preparing for dawn.
"Keth-mera," she said suddenly. Stop.
I stopped. Swayed slightly, caught myself.
She moved around me, blade still ready, putting herself between me and whatever lay ahead. For the first time since leaving the cave, I got a clear look at her in profile.
Nine feet of coiled strength. The deep violet of her skin seemed to absorb what little light existed, making her almost a shadow herself. Her tail moved constantly—not nervous, but alert, reading the environment in ways I couldn't begin to understand. The blade in her hand caught a glint of pre-dawn light, and I saw it clearly for the first time: not metal, but something organic, curved and wicked and beautiful.
She was looking at something ahead. Listening.
Then she turned back to me, and her eyes—dark as the space between stars—fixed on mine with an intensity that should have frightened me.
It didn't. I was too empty for fear.
"Vai thora-keth," she said. Her voice was quieter now, but no less dangerous. "Vai nira? Nai thora Sorath. Vai thora-keth. Vai keth-nira nai-thora."
You don't speak. You understand? I speak Sorath. You don't speak. You don't understand what I say.
I understood enough. She was taking me somewhere where others would be. Others who spoke Sorath. And she was making it clear that I was to keep my mouth shut.
I nodded once.
She studied me for a long moment, searching for something—deception, maybe, or resistance. Whatever she was looking for, she didn't find it. Or maybe she did, and it was just the emptiness she saw. The nothing that had kept me walking through the night without protest or plan.
"Mera," she said finally, and gestured with the blade.
We moved forward.
The path opened into a wider space—still enclosed by the mountains, but less claustrophobic. And there, tucked against the base of a cliff face, barely visible in the growing light, was a structure.
Not a building. Not exactly. More like the mountain itself had been carved away to create shelter. Stone walls that flowed seamlessly into natural rock. Openings that might have been windows or might have been natural formations. The whole thing was camouflaged so perfectly that I wouldn't have seen it if she hadn't led me directly to it.
Smoke rose from somewhere within. Thin, carefully managed, dispersing quickly in the mountain wind.
People lived here. Sorathi, hidden in the Thressa mountains, invisible to UOE scans and surveys.
She grabbed my arm again—that iron grip that left no room for resistance—and pulled me toward the entrance. Her blade pressed against my spine, a cold promise.
"Vai keth-mera," she said one more time. "Vai keth-thora. Vai vesh thrae-sorai. Nai kira vai."
Don't run. Don't speak. You are an invader. I'm watching you.
The sky was lightening now, dawn breaking over the peaks in shades of amber and rose. Beautiful, probably. The kind of vista that would have made the promotional materials back home.
I didn't care.
I let her push me forward, into the hidden camp, into whatever came next.
Just another morning. Just another place where I didn't belong.
At least this time, someone had bothered to bring me along.
The entrance was narrow—deliberately so, I realized. Defensible. One person at a time, and anyone coming through would be silhouetted against the outside light, an easy target.
She shoved me through first.
The interior opened up immediately, a cavern that had been worked and shaped over what must have been years. Decades, maybe. The walls weren't rough stone but smooth, carved with patterns that caught the firelight. Geometric designs that flowed into organic shapes—mountains becoming waves becoming flames. In one alcove, a small shrine: a carved figure with four eyes and blade-like protrusions from its head. The Vearonsa. Offerings laid before it—flowers, already wilting in the dry air. A bowl of water that reflected the firelight.