Page 71 of Third

The shattered spider still lay there, legs bent at grotesque angles, as if something had enjoyed breakingit.

Tor’Vek stopped.

He crouched beside it, examining the fractured casing. The broken pieces flaked beneath his touch, delicate as dried bone. Its inner components were warped—compressed inward, not shattered. No scorch marks. No electrical interference. Just pure, brutal force. Tor’Vek turned the fragment slightly, analyzing the entry vector, eyes narrowing. Whoever—or whatever—had done this hadn’t just destroyed it. It had known exactly where to strike.

“What do you see?” Anya whispered.

“Force,” he said. “No burn. No heat. Just pressure. Blunt. Precise. Intelligent.”

Herose.

She followed his gaze down the corridor ahead. The air there looked different. Not just thicker—but distorted, like heat shimmer rising from pavement, bending everything beyond it. Aweight pressed at her skin, subtle but wrong. As if the space itself remembered violence. As if it hadn’t wanted to let that thing pass—but hadn’t dared stopit.

Her pulse ticked faster.

They kept walking.

Every step forward felt like descending into something deeper than shadow, into something deliberate. Like walking into the narrowed throat of a predator just before the jaws clamped shut. The corridor widened just enough to let them think they had space, but the ceiling dropped low and tight, stealing what little air remained. Anya could feel the pressure build behind her eyes, like the walls were pressing closer with everystep.

They turned a corner.

Then another.

And then they heardit.

Low. Wet. Rhythmic.

Breathing.

It wasn’t behindthem.

It was ahead.

The corridor had drawn them here—step by step, turn by turn—into the deepest point, the narrowest passage, the one place they’d be at their most vulnerable. And now it waited.

Tor’Vek slowed. His arm shifted back instinctively, contacting with Anya’s abdomen—not forceful, but firm. Asilent command. She felt the pressure of his palm, steady and unyielding, and it pulled her into the shelter of his body without thought. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. Every part of him said one thing:Iwill stand between you and what comes.

Tor’Vek reached for the holster attached to his belt and pressed a sidearm into her hand—sleek, compact, already primed. “Use this if I fall,” he said quietly, his voice steady as stone.

Something inside her cracked.

She curled her fingers around the weapon, its weight pressing down like it belonged to another version of her—one braver, steadier, more willing to kill. Her throat closed. The thought of him falling—of his body hitting the floor, still and broken—shattered through her like a jolt of lightning.

“You won’t fall,” she said fiercely, lifting her chin. Her voice shook, but the words didn’t. “You’re not allowed.”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t needto.

The air was so still it hurt to breathe. She could see the curve of the corridor now. Another turn. Another blindspot.

Tor’Vek moved.

Three steps.

He stopped.

Anya waited. Blood roaring in herears.

---