The comm snapped like a wire.
"Raizen - get out of there. Now."
Alteea never sounded like that.
Dust sloughed from the tunnel ribs. The floor gave a small, mean shiver. Raizen didn't ask why.
He pointed, already moving. "Back. Move."
Lynea slid past him, lamp tight to her chest. Arashi kept pace, one hand on the wall, breathing through his teeth. The slab they'd squeezed by lay folded wrong on the ground like a book someone had closed with both hands. They hurdled it. The tunnel bent, then opened its throat.
Light hit like a slap.
They burst out into white - the dull winter glow off the ridge, the camp a gray stamp down-slope. Wind got in a single clean breath and pushed. For a blink, all Raizen heard was his own heart and the thin hiss of snow sliding over old ice.
"Report" Kori demanded over comms. "Say you're clear."
"We're-"
Something blurred out of the treeline on the right.
