"Is he breathing?" Asher didn't wait for an answer. He dropped beside Thorne and pressed two fingers to the man's throat. His pluse was present but still it felt weak and thready. The heat coming off him was wrong. Not fever. Not fire. Something deeper. It felt like the Hive had buried it's way into Thorne and never left. Beth yanked a glove off and slapped his cheek. "Thorne. Stay with us." He didn't move. Ryvak crouched down, wincing from his own injury. "Forget the medkit. Nothing in there's gonna fix this." Beth didn't answer. Just looked at the corpse of the Queen across the chamber. Asher followed her eyes. The carapace was split down the middle. Ribs gored open like rotten fruit. Purple blood bubbled out from the open wound. The shard had to be in there—lodged in what was left of her spine. "Don't," Asher muttered. Beth didn't even hesitate. She was already on her feet. "Beth." "We don't have time." Asher opened his mouth. Then shut it. She was right. And that scared the hell out of him. Beth moved fast across the ruined chamber, crouching beside the Queen's shattered remains. Asher followed. Not close, but not far either. The Queen's ribcage had cracked open from the blast. Her insides twitched in slow, dying spasms. A smear of Void-blood pulsed faintly near the spine. Beth drew her blade. Asher watched her cut through the layers of carapace and sinew. There. Nestled between the plates. The shard. It looked dead. But it pulsed, like a piece of obsidian no bigger than a mans hand. Beth reached in. The moment her fingers touched it, Asher's back tightened. The Stone inside him throbbed once. Not power—something colder. Distant. Like hunger. She pulled the shard free and stood. Her eyes didn't meet his. When they got back to Thorne, Beth knelt and held the shard above his chest. "Ready?" Ryvak didn't answer. Just nodded. Asher took a step back. Beth placed it on Thorne's skin. The reaction was instant. Thorne's back arched. Black shard power flowed from the shard into Thorne's mangled body, the power flooded through his body, his veins pulsed with black fluid tinted with red it looked like like the fire of creation mutating and changing Thorne from the inside out. Thorne's mouth opened in a silent scream. Then he found his voice the scream, echoed off the walls. A scream that didn't stop.
It took hours to reach the surface. When they finally emerged, the sun was low on the horizon. THe desert was vast it stretched out for miles in every direction. Beth checked the comms. "Signal's weak but alive. Evac point is due north, four days out." They walked. Thorne said little. Every few minutes, a flicker of heat danced along his fingertips. Beth watched him closely. Asher kept to himself. They stopped at dusk. No tents. Only a makeshift tarp held down by some rocks. Ryvak built a tiny fire. Thorne didn't help. Beth passed out rations. "We've got to ration water. Thorne—" "I know," he said. "I'll need more." "My body's burning it faster now." She didn't argue. Later, Asher sat alone. The Stone in his spine was quiet. Too quiet. Like it had shut down. Or gone cold. He closed his eyes. Tried to rest. Couldn't. Beth sat by the fire, arms crossed. Watching. Asher sat up. "He's different." She didn't answer. "You knew what would happen." "No one knows what a shard does until it's taken." "You hesitated." Beth met his eyes. "And?" "That's not like you, Beth." "Maybe I didn't want to be the one to choose." Silence. Ryvak came over, holding the comm unit. "This thing's acting weird." Beth took it. Light flickered, then went dead. Battery was full. She turned it over. "It's damaged. Must have been sometime during the fight." Asher narrowed his eyes. "That is odd these things were meant to last." "Not necessarily," Beth said. "We have a backup right?" "Yes, Beth has a spare." Thorne said standing up. His eyes glowed faintly again. "I didn't break it." said Ryvak looking around. "Well we have a spare." Beth activated the backup unit. Static. Then a voice broke through: "Hive neutralized. Target survived breach. Target will be eliminated. Evac in four days. Prepare retrieval." Silence. Beth turned to the others. "That wasn't from command." Asher's skin went cold. Target. Not survivors. Not squad. Just... target. He stared at the group. Someone out there was playing another game. And if they didn't figure it out before evac? Things just weren't adding up something about their situation seemed wrong and what did that message mean? Who was the recipient? Who was the target?
Asher sat with his back against the rock wall, hands restless in his lap, fingers twitching against the fabric of his pants. His stone continuously pulsed in hunger, The Queen's shard was gone, fused into Thorne's bloodstream now. He still didn't know how he felt about that. Should've been me, right? No. That was the old voice. The desperate one. The one that believed power fixed anything. But it didn't explain what his Stone was doing. Or not doing. It hadn't reacted. Hadn't warned him. Not when Thorne screamed, not when Beth sliced open the Queen's corpse. It just seemed hungry. They camped under open sky. The number of stars were vast and bright. The Stone in his spine finally moved. Aware and hungry. No wait was it really hunger? Asher was still getting use to having the damn curse in his spine. There was no telling what the Stone really wanted. At least not yet. He rolled onto his side. And there, next to his hand, was the shattered comm antenna for their backup transmitter. Not cracked from impact. Bent. Crushed. Deliberately. Asher didn't sleep after that. He watched the others. All of them. Until dawn broke red. Thorne was the first to notice the broken antenna. He looked at Asher with suspicion. "What did you do?" "I woke up and found it like this." said Asher. "I didn't break it." The rest of the morning passed in an awkward silence. Beth, Ryvak and Thorne kept throwing suspicious glances at Asher.
They marched through the morning heat, the silence between them stretching longer with each step. Beth walked up front, map strapped to her wrist. She hadn't looked back once since sunrise. Ryvak stayed just behind her, quiet, still favoring his bad leg. He kept adjusting his pack, muttering under his breath like it was the only thing keeping him sane. Thorne kept falling behind. Asher drifted closer to him. He needed to see it. Needed to know if it was all in his head. "You holding up?" Thorne didn't answer. Just blinked slow, sweatless, eyes still glowing faintly beneath the grime. His skin shimmered slightly. Not sweat. Heat distortion. "I asked you something," Asher said, louder. Thorne finally looked at him. "You don't have to check on me." "Maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm checking for the rest of us." A beat. Then Thorne's voice dropped, cold and even. "I didn't ask for the shard." "No," Asher said. "But you needed it to survive." They didn't talk after that. Thorne stayed quiet. He didn't look at anyone. Asher stared at the sky. No clouds. No birds. Just that feeling again. Like someone watching them through the sun. Asher hated the way the others looked at him. Even worse he didn't trust any of them. Not anymore. But the real question wasn't who sent the message. Who was the target? And why the hell weren't they dead yet?