Tsuki sank her feet into the deep snow, feeling the cold seeping up her legs despite her heavy coat. Beside her, Moko was a low, restless shadow. The chimera kept its head close to the ground, letting out a hoarse growl that made the frozen air vibrate. Every time a gust of wind whipped the snow off the wreckage, Tsuki flinched.

  The silence of the mountain was worse than the roar of the crash. The drag marks leading away from the ship's hull looked like black fingers clawing across the white expanse. Some ended abruptly; others vanished among the jagged boulders surrounding the valley.

  “Don’t stop, Tsuki. Keep moving toward the gorge,” Etan’s voice in the prism was a metallic whisper pressing against her chest. “I feel something shifting in the void. Don't look at the shadows.”

  But she couldn’t help it. Every time she looked away, the space seemed to tighten around her. She felt the weight of invisible eyes staring from the haze of the engine exhaust. They weren’t men. Men made noise; they swore and made the metal groan. What surrounded her now was a silent hunger.

  Suddenly, Moko froze. The creature’s eight eyes snapped open all at once, fixed on a pile of overturned crates a few meters away. From behind the splintered wood, a long, grey hand emerged, its slender fingers ending in horny tips. There was no arm, no body; just that hand, tasting the cold air for a moment before vanishing back into the dark.

  Tsuki’s heart skipped a beat. Panic gripped her throat like a vice of ice.

  “There’s something… Etan, they’re everywhere,” she whispered, backing away.

  The sharp sound of light footsteps came from the right. Then from the left. It was a muffled clinking, as if those creatures were draped in scraps of metal salvaged from the wreck, rattling against one another. Silhouettes began to detach themselves from the darkness: spindly beings wrapped in rags of leather and poorly tanned hide, their faces hidden behind featureless masks. They moved in jerky, synchronized bursts, closing the circle around her and the chimera.

  Moko growled louder, baring rows of razor-sharp teeth, but the creatures seemed unfazed. There were dozens of them.

  “Use the prism, Tsuki! Now!” Etan yelled, his voice vibrating with a force that made her teeth ache.

  Tsuki gripped the crystal in her gloved hands. She felt the heat of the Bug responding to her fear—a pressure yearning to explode outward, to erase everything she couldn’t understand. But this time, there was no matter to transform; there was only the terrifying void of those beings, advancing without drawing a single breath.

  One of the creatures lunged forward, landing on the snow with an unnatural lightness. It raised an arm that ended in a rusted iron hook, lashed to the bone with strips of tendon.

  Just as the hook was about to swing down on Tsuki, a metallic roar tore through the air. It didn’t come from the predators, but from above, where one of the wreck’s broken wings jutted out like a blade over the path.

  Zeryth plummeted down. It wasn't a clumsy fall, but a heavy landing that made the snow shudder. The moment his boots hit the ice, he slammed his bare hands against the ground. His arms, stained with that silver oil, began to glow with a dull, haunting light.

  The ground around Tsuki exploded. Metal plates buried beneath the snow buckled and snapped, surging upward like fangs. A long bar of rusted steel shot skyward, impaling the hooked predator just below its sternum and hoisting it off the ground. The creature let out a muffled wheeze as the others recoiled, terrified by the violent upheaval of iron.

  Simultaneously, the silence was shattered by a visual distortion. Llyr-Vahn appeared beside a second predator. He didn’t walk; he was simply there, a grey silhouette that refused to reflect the headlights. His hand passed through the creature’s leather mask as if it were made of thin air. The predator stiffened instantly, its skin turning ice-white before it collapsed without a sound.

  Moko crouched low, eyes locked on Zeryth. Tsuki stood frozen, the prism clutched between her fingers, watching the scene unfold.

  The rest of the pack halted. The spindly beings began a frantic clinking, waving their thin arms. Seeing the ship itself obey Zeryth’s command and feeling the chilling presence of Llyr-Vahn was too much. One by one, the silhouettes fled, vanishing among the ice blocks and the remains of the dead turbines.

  Zeryth rose slowly. The smoke from his hands drifted into the frozen air, and his eyes immediately sought Tsuki’s. Around them, the snow had been swept away by the shockwave, revealing the raw, dark metal of the ship’s carcass. The wreck now looked like a graveyard of twisted iron, as the fog began to close back over the bodies of the two fallen predators.

  Llyr-Vahn turned toward the mountain gorge, his outlines flickering against the white of the snow.

  “We have to move,” Zeryth said, his voice flat. He wasted no time. He stepped toward Moko’s sled and laid his hands upon it. Beneath his oil-stained fingers, the metal runners emitted a sharp hiss. The plates began to vibrate and warp slightly, adjusting to the weight of the cargo. With a surge of power, Zeryth forced the remaining old gears to turn, transforming the wreck of wood and iron into a vehicle now throbbing with jagged electrical energy.

  “Get on. Now,” he ordered Tsuki, pointing to the center of the sled among the ration crates.

  Tsuki collapsed onto the frozen wood. Her legs felt heavy, and her mind was clouded. Everything that had happened—the crash, her body’s transformation, the attack—weighed on her like a boulder. She curled into herself, clutching the prism to her chest with both hands. She could feel the crystal’s warmth through her glove; it was the only thing keeping her from drifting away.

  Moko leaped onto the back of the sled as it began to glide across the snow, propelled by Zeryth’s will. He ran alongside, keeping a hand pressed against its flank. The chimera grabbed a large, broken branch jutting from the ice and began dragging it behind, swinging it forcefully to kick up snow and erase the tracks left by the runners.

  Llyr-Vahn took the opposite side. As he ran, his form flickered, turning almost transparent. In his wake, the frozen air vibrated, and the snow stirred by Moko didn't fall back down; instead, it hung suspended in a dense mist, making it impossible to tell where they had passed.

  Tsuki closed her eyes, resting her cheek against the coarse fabric of her coat. The world around her dissolved into a blur of sounds: the crunching of ice, Zeryth’s heavy breathing, and the rhythmic thrum of the skyships closing in behind them. The white glare of their searchlights began to sweep the valley, but the group was already gone—a dark speck racing toward the deep shadows of the forest.

  “Hold on, Tsuki. We’re almost in the clear,” Etan’s voice reached her like a warm breath, but she didn’t answer. She was too exhausted even to think.

  The first trees of the forest appeared like black giants against the grey sky. Their trunks were twisted and leafless, with branches that looked like claws ready to snatch the starlight. As soon as the sled slid under the first canopy of metallic boughs, the air changed: the wind’s howl died away, and the ozone scent of the ship was replaced by the smell of bitter resin and old iron. They were inside.

  Two Kaelos ships tore through the low clouds with a low rumble that made the wreckage shudder. The first, massive and blocky, touched down heavily, kicking up a ten-foot wall of snow. A hydraulic ramp hissed open from its belly, and soldiers in dark armor began to descend, rifles already raised.

  With them, moving with a fluid, sickening grace, the octopus-machines slid out. Their metallic limbs gripped the twisted plating, moving with unnatural speed. The creatures remaining among the ruins, drawn by the noise, attempted one last desperate attack, but they were mowed down in seconds by the machines' electrical discharges, crushed under mechanical weight without a moment's pause.

  An officer was the last to descend the ramp. His armor was polished, scratchless, his helmet reflecting the valley’s frozen light. He stopped before the iron bar that still impaled the predator’s corpse. He knelt, extending a gloved finger to touch a smear of silver oil left on the metal.

  He remained motionless for a moment, observing the fluid that seemed to shimmer with a life of its own. He said nothing, but the way he clenched his fist revealed he knew exactly who had passed through.

  He raised a hand to the side of his helmet, activating the comms. His voice came through cold and distorted.

  “Local threat neutralized. Begin recovery; I want every fragment of value cataloged within the hour.” He then looked up at the second ship, which hovered in mid-air like a predator lying in wait. “Drones one through four, establish an absolute security perimeter around the wreck. Nothing enters or leaves without my command.”

  From the flank of the airborne vessel, six small drones detached, their engines emitting a high-frequency whine.

  “Drones five and six,” the officer continued, pointing toward the dark smudge of the forest in the distance. “Scout ahead. Follow the thermal interference. Find them.”

  The two drones veered sharply, accelerating toward the metallic trees where Tsuki and the others had just sought refuge. Zeryth staggered. The silver light running along his arms snuffed out instantly, leaving behind only a violent tremor. Moko noticed a split second before the man collapsed into the snow. With a lightning-fast move, the chimera leapt from the sled and caught him with its back, snarling toward a dark opening among the metallic roots just ahead.

  “There!” Moko’s head gesture seemed to say.

  They reached the cave by a hair’s breadth. As Moko dragged Zeryth’s heavy body inside, Llyr-Vahn stopped at the entrance. His form began to vibrate at such a high frequency that he became nearly invisible; the snow and debris around the mouth of the cave were sucked into his distortion, creating a wall of interference that sealed the cavern just as a mechanical shadow swept over them.

  The hum of drones five and six echoed grimly against the rock, an electric vibration that rattled their very bones. They all stayed frozen in total darkness until the noise drifted slightly away, though it remained hovering just above the trees.

  Moko pulled Zeryth deeper in, where the cave narrowed, and began spreading the salvaged blankets on the ground. Zeryth was struggling for air, his skin turned a shallow grey and veined with thin metallic lines that seemed to scorch beneath the surface.

  Tsuki huddled beside him, still trembling. The prism in her hands began to glow with a soft, warm light.

  “Tsuki, listen to me,” Etan’s voice was a whisper in her mind, clearer than usual. “Zeryth is dying. The metal he manipulated for the sled is trying to consume his nervous system. You have to intervene.”

  “Me? I can't... I break things, Etan. You know that,” she murmured, tears stinging her eyes.

  “Not this time. Don't think about changing the metal. Think about calming it. Use the Bug to absorb the excess charge that’s killing him. If you don’t, he won’t wake up again.”

  Moko looked at Tsuki, then shifted its gaze to the prism. The chimera stepped back, giving her space, as if it understood that the pilot's life now rested in those trembling hands.

  Tsuki reached out toward Zeryth’s forehead, but before she could touch him, the prism embedded in her chest vibrated violently. A bluish light, cold as the forest ice, flooded the rocky walls of the cave.

  “TSUKI, LISTEN TO ME.”

  Etan’s voice was no longer a mental whisper. It rang through the air, metallic and commanding, amplified by the narrow walls. It was a sound so sudden and alien that Llyr-Vahn, standing at the entrance, flinched violently. Her transparent form flickered sharply; for an instant, the distortion barrier hiding the cave tore open, offering a glimpse of the interior to the drones buzzing outside.

  Moko lunged toward her, letting out a deep, guttural snarl—a fierce reprimand.

  Llyr-Vahn clenched her fists, immediately regaining her focus. The vibrating mist sealed the entrance once more, just as a drone’s searchlight swept over the rift. The hum grew louder, nearly an electric scream above their heads, before drifting a few meters away.

  “ZERYTH IS DYING,” Etan’s voice continued, now slightly lower but audible to everyone. “THE METAL IS CONSUMING HIM. TSUKI, YOU MUST ABSORB THE CHARGE. NOW.”

  Tsuki was shaking.

  She pressed her hand against the man’s forehead. Zeryth’s skin was burning, the silver veins pulsing beneath her fingers like overloaded circuits. Tsuki closed her eyes and tried not to think about the pain, focusing only on that surge of energy that needed to find a new way to bleed off.

  There was no more room for hesitation. She envisioned Zeryth’s body as a blazing engine and imagined herself becoming the conductor needed to slow that destructive flow.

  As soon as her fingers touched the pilot’s burning skin, the overload surged.

  The silver veins racking Zeryth’s face began to migrate, crawling up Tsuki’s arms. In that instant, her hair—already stark white—reacted violently to the passage of energy. It didn’t change color, but began to glow, igniting with a cold, pulsing light that illuminated every corner of the refuge. Every single strand now seemed woven with threads of quicksilver, giving off a metallic radiance that made her figure appear almost spectral in the dark.

  Under that blinding light, her sapphire-blue eyes stood out with unearthly depth, gleaming like precious gems embedded in ice.

  Tsuki felt the electrical charge sear her senses, but she held on, filtering that technological poison through the Bug she carried in her heart. Zeryth let out a long sigh, his body finally relaxing as the veins vanished, swallowed by that living filter.

  Tsuki pulled her hands back, gasping for air. The glow in her hair didn't fade entirely, lingering as a luminous echo—a permanent scar of the power she had just tamed. Outside, the hum of the Kaelos drones gradually weakened, drifting away into the depths of the forest.

  Silence reigned once more in the cave. Tsuki curled up against the wall, staring at her hands as they still gave off faint silver sparks.