Page 65 of Third

Time ticked by, far too quickly. The valley stretched out before them, narrow and winding, hemmed in by jagged cliffs on either side. It should have been a clear shot to the access panel. Adirectpath.

But the ground was wrong.

The earth below shimmered with heat. Cracks laced through stone like veins. Steam curled from fissures at random intervals, rising in ghostly fingers toward the blazing sky with a high, hissing shriek that echoed through the valley like a warning. The sound was sharp, alive—abreath held too long before rupture.

Tor’Vek stopped at theedge.

“That smell,” she murmured, “what isit?”

“Sulfur. And pressure.”

As if summoned by his words, ageyser erupted fifty meters ahead. Not with water—but with stone. Achunk the size of a skimmer hull launched into the air with a sound like a cannon, crashing down half a second later and obliterating the slope besidethem.

Anya flinched. Tor’Vek adjusted his grip. “Put me down,” she said, already pushing lightly against his chest. “My leg is fine. Icanrun.”

He hesitated.

She met his gaze, firm—but her eyes flickered, just for a moment, to his mouth. The bond pulsed between them like a second heartbeat, heated and insistent. “You said it yourself—this is going to be fast. You need both hands.”

Her voice was steady, but her breath wasn’t. The craving was there, just beneath the surface, echoing his own. It churned with the same pressure building under their feet—dangerous, volatile, asingle breath from detonation. And like the geysers all around them, it wouldn’t take much to explode. One touch. One kiss. One moment of surrender.

He set her down carefully. She tested her weight with a wince, then nodded. “Let’s dothis.”

“We run,” hesaid.

She blinked. “Throughthat?”

“There is no other path. The panel is on the farside.”

Another geyser erupted to their left. Then a third, farther down. Shards of rock rained in all directions.

She swallowed hard. “Then werun.”

Theydid.

The first sprint was clean. Ten meters. Fifteen.

Then the earth hissed.

Tor’Vek grabbed her arm and yanked her left as a geyser exploded where they’d just been, the shockwave throwing them sideways. They hit the ground hard, rolled, and scrambledup.

They ran again.

A lull. Then more eruptions. Rock sprayed across the valley in unpredictable arcs. Some geysers launched debris high into the air. Others hurled it sideways in jagged arcs, slicing through the air like shrapnel.

Anya stumbled. Tor’Vek caught her wrist—his grip instinctive, too tight, lingering. Her skin burned beneath his fingers. For a split second, neither of them moved, the world narrowed to touch and breath and the low throb of the bond straining to break free. Then she blinked hard, and he released her. They weaved around another fissure, ducked beneath a jut of stone just as a plume exploded behindthem.

He shielded her as boulders rained down, then shoved them forward again.

They were halfway across when the largest geyser yet blew skyward with a shriek. Aboulder the size of a transport drone came down ten meters ahead, embedding itself in thepath.

They veered around it, breath ragged, boots slipping on scorched gravel.

The access panel shimmered into view through the steam—adark oval set into the rock face, gleaming faintly.

Ten more meters.

Five.

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