I couldn’t tell you when the farms disappeared. I just know I looked up and they were gone, and my boots were coming apart under me.

  Whatever road I was on got swallowed back in the fields. Now it’s just trees and dark and my breath—loud enough to sound like another set of lungs keeping pace with me.

  My right boot’s been flapping for miles, sole half-detached, slapping wet leather against my heel—steady, relentless, counting down.

  The red sun’s gone. Two moons take its place, fat and pale pink, climbing slow and patient, as if they’ve got all night to watch me unravel.

  Then the loose sole hooks a root and yanks my foot out from under me—ankle rolling, balance gone, momentum not even slowing.

  I eat shit hard enough the world flashes white, and I land face-first.

  There’s a wet, sharp crack that I feel more than hear, and my mouth fills with grit and blood and the sick little crunch of something giving.

  I lie there for half a breath, cheek pinned to cold stone, staring at dark.

  Good job, Sol.

  My disguise stutters.

  I can feel new teeth forming under my gums, already shoving the dulled human ones loose. Valicar’s nanites swarm after them, trying to sand the edges down—trying to make them pass.

  I push up on my palms. My body is starving itself hollow, begging to hunt, begging to eat. I spit blood and grit and shattered enamel, then pull a breath through the pain anyway.

  Somewhere behind my eyes, Valicar stirs, already figuring out how to glue my disguise back on.

  “Stop,” I rasp. My voice comes out rough and ugly. “Drop it.”

  I yank the head scarf off so hard it pops my neck. Cold night air knifes over my ears—sharp-tipped and exposed, straight out of the old stories.

  My heart does something stupid. A small, private lift.

  I always wanted them.

  I can admit it now, out here, with nobody watching. Even if I hated them at first. Even if I spent years hiding them like they were a crime.

  When I was a kid—between the needles and the tests—I read anything I could steal off Dad’s shelves. Sci-fi. Fantasy. Cheap paperbacks from the early 2000s that still believed a girl could run away and become someone else. I’d trace the cover art with my finger and pretend I lived on the other side of it. Somewhere I wasn’t a project. Somewhere the tower had an exit.

  Altis used to sneak me in stacks of them—medicine, disguised as paper.

  Dad called the books childish when I asked for more.

  Like he hadn’t kept them. Like he hadn’t read them first.

  Then he stole their monsters and made them worse, because his versions didn’t stay on the page.

  Dragon. Chimera. Phoenix.

  Kneeling in dirt with blood in my mouth, disguise sliding off my skin, I get it: he didn’t hate stories.

  He hated that the universe didn’t come with miracles.

  No magic. No god to fix it. Not even a soul to buy you another try.

  So he built his own—one ugly, perfect piece at a time—and stamped it with monster names, because he knew what humans have always done: invent meaning when none is given. Dream up a higher purpose. A better world.

  Something everyone wants but will never get outside of a book.

  But Dad wasn’t like everyone else.

  He understood the trick.

  When the universe refuses to sing—

  you write the song.

  And you force the world to listen.

  I look down at my boots. The right one gapes—sole hanging by threads. The left has a toe split wide, leather curled back in strips, raw as skin.

  I crouch, yank at the laces with shaking fingers, and rip them off.

  My feet are smeared with blood—heel, arch, toes—dark in the moonlight.

  It doesn’t hurt.

  Phoenix handled the pain somewhere back in the miles. Closed the splits, sealed the torn skin, stitched me back together while I kept running anyway.

  All it left me with is the bill.

  Hunger rides me, a second pulse. It’s in my thighs, in the tremor behind my knees, in the way my skin feels too tight over bone. My clothes sit looser than when I started running. Even my wraps slid off my chest a while ago—lost somewhere back on the road, whether I meant to shed them or not. Phoenix keeps whispering the same simple solution it always has: hunt. consume. evolve.

  I’ve probably dropped a few dozen pounds already.

  I don’t remember the whole run. Just pieces: a river cold enough to bite, water up to my thighs; a wall of forest so thick I had to shoulder through it; wet stones underfoot and the brief, stupid tear of skin—then nothing, because Phoenix won’t let damage stay long enough to matter.

  I stand up barefoot.

  The ground is damp leaves and roots and the honest pressure of dirt under my soles. The two moons hang above the treeline, pale coins.

  It’s just woods now and the drum of my heart—until my nose catches a new scent of iron. Not my blood. Something fresher. And the DNA in it isn’t one Phoenix has learned yet.

  A howl lifts somewhere ahead and my gut answers. It recognizes the language.

  Something’s dying.

  And the sound it makes is a scream.

  The HUD blooms across my vision.

  [VALICAR: FAUNA SIGNATURE — ELK]

  [VALICAR: PREDATOR PACK — WOLVES]

  [VALICAR: TRACKED MOVEMENT · INTERCEPT PROBABILITY: HIGH]

  [VALICAR: EST. RANGE: 312 YARDS · BEARING: NORTHEAST]

  I don’t think.

  I just go.

  Leaves whip my shins. Branches slap my bare shoulders. The ground is roots and slick mud and old rot, but my feet find it anyway—quiet, fast, not human.

  My toes curl as I run, and something in them changes. Nails thicken, darken, hook forward until they’re more claw than nail—little talons that bite into dirt when I need traction.

  Better than they ever did on a ship’s metal deck when I was ravenous and shaking and still trying to pretend I was human.

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  My fingers do it too. They’d already been claws for miles.

  Now they sharpen into blades.

  The bones don’t snap—they insist. They lengthen under skin; the shape was always there and I’ve just been wasting time pretending otherwise. My nailbeds ache, then harden, and the tips refine into something made for tearing.

  My gums itch so hard it turns into pain.

  My canines throb. New teeth push up, shoving the old ones aside like dead weight—even if they were already too sharp to pass as normal. Fangs that don’t belong in a human mouth. I taste blood—mine—and it doesn’t slow me down.

  Food.

  The scent is a rope in my lungs, dragging me forward.

  The howl comes again, closer now, and my stomach answers. It knows the rules. A pack voice—a warning—thrown out into the dark for every predator with ears.

  Stay back. Ours.

  Poor bastards don’t know I’m coming.

  When I finally clear the brush, I see them.

  Wolves swarm the elk—seven of them—lean bodies, ribs sharp under fur, eyes bright with the kind of hunger that never rests. One wears blood like a mask. Real wolves—extinct on Earth for centuries, a living myth that earned a place in the Royal Guard. My wolf’s in low orbit right now, and I’m in the muck about to steal from starving ghosts.

  They’re fighting over it even as it dies—snapping, shouldering, tearing slick chunks free. The elk’s legs kick, then stutter. Steam rises in pale little plumes from the ruined throat.

  A low, constant growl beats under the scene, keeping time.

  I stop at the treeline and my whole body locks.

  Not because I’m scared.

  Because my mouth fills with saliva so fast I nearly choke.

  Stop.

  Some small part of me—some leftover scrap that still remembers tables and blankets and laughing—tries to shove the hunger down.

  It doesn’t listen.

  One wolf notices me first and lets out a low, sharp growl—ugly with warning.

  For half a second I almost… respect it.

  Then the hunger surges and respect gets drowned.

  I step forward.

  My ears twitch.

  Because I hear a voice I haven’t heard in a long time—not Valicar, not memory, not my own thoughts.

  Something warm and amused, threaded through the back of my skull as if it owns the place.

  Consume what is yours, little Phoenix.

  A soft laugh follows it—sweet and poisonous.

  You’re eating for two now.

  The first growl gets louder—then it catches.

  The pack breaks off the carcass into a ragged half-circle—ripping, snapping, barks cutting through the clearing.

  Every eye locks on me.

  Ears flatten. Bodies slide between me and the elk.

  I stop just short, cold wet ground under my feet.

  For a few seconds, nobody moves. The ring holds—then loosens, inch by inch, that careful animal math of whether I’m worth bleeding for.

  My hands are already halfway to the meat.

  One of the braver ones drifts forward, hackles high, mouth peeled back. It doesn’t commit. It tests—one sharp warning snap aimed at my fingers.

  My arm swings on reflex, claws already out. I clip its muzzle and send it rolling in the mud, yelping.

  That yelp isn’t just pain.

  It’s a signal.

  The pack answers as one.

  They crash into me—fur and teeth and hunger—testing over, mercy over. Just mouths finding purchase.

  One clamps my forearm and yanks until skin peels hot off the bone. Another slams into my calf and tears a strip free on the way past. Blood ropes down my shin, warm as breath.

  I jerk my arm free—teeth tearing loose with it—and the one on my calf gets a hard kick to the ribs that sends it scrambling back through the wet leaves.

  A third darts in low and I turn to kill it—claws spread wide—

  —until I see where it’s lunging, and my left hand snaps down first, palm pressed over my stomach.

  What the fuck.

  The realization makes me see red.

  “No,” I snarl, and I heel-check it out of its lunge hard enough it hits mud and skids.

  I don’t back up. I drop into them.

  One scrambles up my shoulder, teeth punching in, shaking hard enough to tear something loose. I bite down behind its jaw and crush. Cartilage gives. It goes limp in my mouth.

  And before it can even hit the ground, Phoenix takes its cut.

  I tear a hot strip free—meat and fur—and swallow. I hate how good it feels.

  The one that had my forearm comes again, bold with blood-scent and panic.

  I hook my claws under its ribs and drag it close.

  It snaps at my face.

  I open its throat.

  Hot blood floods my hand; the sound it makes cuts off mid-breath.

  Another lunges—midair—and I catch it by the jaw. Teeth saw at my palm, slicing deep, but my grip doesn’t fail.

  I twist.

  Its neck pops with a wet crack. It drops, legs still pedaling for a second before they remember they’re done.

  Three down.

  Four left.

  They circle wider now—wary, angry, starving enough to stay stupid. One limps from my first blow, muzzle leaking red into the leaves.

  They come in pairs—one to draw my eyes, one to bite.

  I let the first one get close.

  Then I rake my claws across its belly and it opens like cloth.

  It hits the ground trying to hold itself together.

  Another is on me immediately, jaws clamping my side. Pain flashes white—

  —and Phoenix floods it with heat, clamping it shut enough to keep me moving.

  Mine, something inside me insists.

  I drive my claws into the base of its skull and jerk.

  The spine gives.

  It drops.

  Two left.

  The limping one feints, trying for my legs—trying to pull me down.

  I grab it by the scruff and slam it into the muck until it stops fighting.

  The last one commits anyway—starvation makes it brave—teeth flashing for my face.

  I catch it with both hands and drive my claws into its chest. Bone gives. Heat floods my fingers.

  I rip upward.

  Something vital comes free in my fist—slick and beating for half a second too long.

  I bite down on it before it can hit the mud.

  Then there’s only my breathing.

  The elk is still there, steam still rising. So is the blood—spattered on leaves, streaked across my arms, dripping off my chin.

  My body shakes, from adrenaline and aftermath.

  From how hard my hunger is still pulling—offended the wolves thought they had a claim on what Phoenix already decided was mine.

  I drop to my knees in the gore and tear into the haunch with my hands, because my hands are already ruined and my mouth is already a weapon, and the only thing that matters is filling the empty.

  Raw muscle stretches and snaps. Blood runs down my wrists. I swallow too fast, choke, keep going.

  Phoenix quiets a notch.

  Not satisfied.

  Just… less loud.

  My shoulders rise and fall. My skin prickles. My ears turn, catching the forest.

  Because the forest isn’t making the same sounds anymore.

  No insects.

  No distant night-call.

  Even the wind feels like it stopped to listen.

  Valicar pings at the edge of my vision—hesitant, then sharp.

  [VALICAR: ENVIRONMENTAL SHIFT — AUDIO DROP]

  [VALICAR: NEW MOTION PATTERN DETECTED]

  [VALICAR: SIGNATURE: UNKNOWN · NOT TERRAN-MATCH]

  My throat tightens around a mouthful of meat.

  I freeze mid-chew, tasting blood and fat and something colder underneath.

  The HUD updates.

  [VALICAR: TRAJECTORY — CLOSING]

  [VALICAR: EST. SIZE CLASS — LARGE]

  [VALICAR: WARNING: LIMB COUNT INCONSISTENT WITH CATALOG]

  My stomach doesn’t drop.

  It cants sideways—the world offering me something I haven’t tasted yet.

  Jorren’s voice flashes through my head.

  Draxsio are gone.

  The woods answer it with a sound.

  Not a howl or a scream—nothing that belongs to any throat I know.

  Just wet pressure. The forest giving way like it’s being forced open.

  A shadow slides between the trunks—too tall to be wolf, too broad to be elk, too unnatural to be anything I’ve hunted.

  Moonlight catches a slice of it.

  Leathery wing folded tight.

  A spine line like a serrated ridge.

  And a second limb—then a third—where there shouldn’t be any.

  My tongue floods, already tasting the idea.

  Something new just stepped into my world.

  Valicar slides across my vision, cold and clinical over the blood-warm haze.

  [VALICAR: PATTERN MATCH — PROBABLE CLASSIFICATION]

  [VALICAR: BASED ON RECENT DATA · LIKELY: DRAXSIO]

  [VALICAR: CONFIDENCE: 61.4% · ERROR MARGIN: HIGH]

  [VALICAR: RECOMMENDATION — DO NOT ENGAGE WITHOUT ARMOR AND WEAPONS]

  I stare at it for half a beat.

  Then I laugh.

  It comes out wrong—too loud, too sharp—my throat forgetting how to make a normal sound. The kind of laugh you hear right before someone does something they can’t undo.

  “Armor,” I wheeze, blood still wet on my chin. “Weapons.”

  It takes more than this fucking lizard to kill me.

  Please.

  Maybe I’ll get so lucky.

  The thought lands and my body rejects it before my brain can—my hand snaps to my stomach, guarding something I refuse to name.

  I regret it.

  Not for me.

  For—

  No. Don’t think about her.

  We can’t die anyway. Not really.

  The sound breaks out of me again—higher, hysterical—because if I stop laughing I’ll start shaking, and if I start shaking I’ll remember what I’m running from.

  The draxsio shifts in the brush, huge shoulders rolling under leathery skin. Moonlight slides across a ribbed wing folded tight to its side and six limbs flexing for grip. Its head turns toward me, and the air changes—the forest itself deciding who matters.

  It opens its mouth.

  The roar that comes out is heavy enough to feel in my teeth.

  I bare mine back.

  “Come on,” I whisper—more prayer than challenge. “Just give me a fucking bite.”

  I launch myself out of cover.

  Bare feet slam into mud. Claws bite earth. My body hits full sprint in two strides. It’s been waiting for permission the whole time.

  The draxsio charges too—trees snapping as it comes, mass moving fast, too fast for something that big.

  We close the distance in a heartbeat.

  Its shadow swallows me.

  I don’t slow.

  I don’t dodge.

  I throw myself straight into its path—

  —and the world explodes.

  Something in my chest caves in with a wet crunch, cutting off my laughter.

  For half a second I can’t breathe.

  But the laughing keeps going in my head—me, Phoenix, I can’t tell—and my body starts stitching itself back together like it doesn’t care what just broke.

  Because I’m fucking starving.