Even after they had left the main chamber, the talisman continued to glow softly in Luke's hand, its pulse steady — like a heartbeat guiding them deeper into the earth. The rhythm was slow, calm, almost reassuring, yet every flicker of its light made the air around them hum faintly.
They'd been walking for nearly an hour through narrow tunnels. Dust stirred with each step, and the silence pressed heavy between them.
Silo finally broke it. "So… uh, anyone else feel like this thing's weird?"
Elias grunted. "It's a beacon. It's doing what it's meant to do — calling out."
"Calling what, though?" Silo asked nervously.
"Hopefully not those flying things again," Luke said dryly.
Reina, walking ahead, didn't respond. Her eyes stayed fixed forward, her expression unreadable in the shifting light.
Finally, Luke slowed, letting the others catch up. "It's been glowing the same direction the whole time," he said quietly. "It's pointing somewhere."
Reina stopped. "I know."
Elias frowned. "And you're just… following it? Without even knowing what's out there?"
She turned to him, her tone flat. "You have a better idea?"
Elias gestured vaguely back the way they'd come. "Yeah. We take it back. To Orion City. To the Nova. Let them deal with it."
Reina blinked at him, then laughed — a sharp, bitter sound that echoed off the tunnel walls. "Back? You really think we'd make it through the gates? After everything?"
Elias squared his shoulders. "We hand this over to the Nova, we're not exiles anymore. They'll see we survived. That we found something worth saving."
"They'll see we lived," Reina snapped. "And they'll finish what they started."
The words hung between them.
Silo frowned, glancing between them.
Reina exhaled slowly, her eyes dark. "Are you stupid?They didn't 'exile' us. They executed us. They just didn't have to swing the blade themselves."
Elias' voice rose, indignant. "That's not true—"
"Wake up!" she shouted, the echo crashing down the corridor. "Do you really think they wanted us to live? We were a liability. They thought we knew too much and that we had potential to cause an uprising. About how much was being hidden from the people."
Her hands trembled, but her voice didn't. "They used us until we broke. And when we started asking questions, we were discarded like ash."
The silence that followed was colder than the air.
Elias looked away, his jaw tight. "You don't know that."
Reina's expression softened, just slightly. "You don't want to believe it."
Luke stood between them, the beacon's glow flickering across his face. "Maybe both of you are right," he said quietly. "Maybe the Nova didn't plan it… or maybe they did. But either way, we're not going back there empty-handed."
Elias turned toward him, desperation creeping into his tone. "Luke, come on — you believe what the Nova's power can do. He's fighting for us. For the city. For everyone still alive in Orion. If we hand him this—"
Reina stepped closer, cutting him off. "If you hand it to him, you'll never see daylight again."
Her words hit like a blade.
Elias stared at her, chest heaving. "You've changed," he said softly. "You used to believe."
Reina's eyes glimmered with something unreadable — sorrow, perhaps. "I still do," she said. "Just not in them."
She reached out suddenly, her hand closing around Luke's wrist. The beacon's light shifted, reflecting off her gauntlet. "We keep moving," she said, voice firm. "Whatever this thing is guiding us toward — that's where our answers are."
Luke hesitated, torn between the fire in her voice and the uncertainty gnawing at him.
Elias stepped forward, his hand half-raised. "Reina, wait—"
But she pulled the talisman from Luke's grip before he could react.
The glow pulsed brighter in her hand, like it recognized her determination.
"Follow me," she said simply, and turned away.
Silo looked at Luke helplessly. "Are we… uh… following her?"
Luke sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair. "You got a better plan?"
Silo grimaced. "Not really."
"Then yeah," Luke said. "We follow."
They moved after Reina, the beacon's light bouncing softly off the walls as they climbed toward the faint shimmer of daylight.
When they finally emerged onto the surface, the cold air hit them like a wave. The wasteland stretched endless before them — dunes and broken stone, cracked earth shimmering under a pale sun.
Behind them, the hole they'd fallen through was now just a shadow in the sand. The ruins loomed in silence, half-buried by time.
Reina stopped on the ridge and turned back toward the horizon. The beacon pulsed faintly in her hand, and she lifted it, watching as its light angled slightly — pointing deeper into the barren expanse.
"There," she said, nodding. "That's where it wants us to go."
Elias stepped up beside her, squinting into the distance. "There's nothing out there."
"There's something," she said.
Luke adjusted his cloak against the dry wind. "And we're just… going to follow a glowing rock across the desert?"
Reina turned to him, her expression steady. "You said it yourself, Luke. Maybe it's guiding us. Maybe it's showing us what's left."
He stared at her for a moment — the resolve in her eyes, the faint tremor in her voice she tried to hide.
Then he nodded. "Alright. We follow."
Elias muttered a curse under his breath but didn't argue.
Silo, trying to lighten the mood, kicked a bit of sand. "Well, good news is — at least it's not underground anymore."
Reina cracked a faint smile at that, though it didn't reach her eyes.
They started walking.
The desert wind howled low and steady, carrying whispers through the ruins. Above, the sky stretched endlessly — neither blue nor gray, just the pale color of forgotten light.
Luke glanced back once, at the broken skyline of the undercity's edge, where the walls of Orion rose like jagged teeth in the far distance.
Even from here, the barrier shimmered faintly — the boundary between life and exile. Between lies and freedom.
He turned back toward Reina and the others, the beacon's faint glow leading them.
The thought crossed his mind — that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't exile after all.
Maybe it was the beginning of something they were never meant to see.