Page 93 of The Huntmaster

"Bold words for a creature whose life depends entirely on my mood," she purred, her voice dropping to a dangerous, fluid whisper. "You think you are safe because Geth called you a 'key'? Keys can be broken, star-meat. They can be melted down and reforged if the lock is stubborn enough."

Down the hall, a heavy clanking sound echoed through the weeping tunnels—the unmistakable thud of heavy boots and the rattling of rusted iron chains. Sila shifted her weight, her long, feline tail flicking with a hint of irritation as she glanced back over her shoulder.

"Geth wants her brought to the lower sanctum," a rough, guttural voice barked from the darkness. A massive Vakra guard materialised out of the green torchlight, his pale, scarred skin mapping a lifetime of underground wars. He didn't even look at me; he simply slammed the butt of a heavy skymetal pike against the stone floor. "Now, Sila. The High Scavenger is growing impatient with your delays."

Sila let out a soft, hissed breath and turned her focus back to me. She unlocked the heavy, archaic latch of the cage door with a brutal twist of her wrist. The hinges groaned, screaming in protest as the heavy iron swung open.

"Out," she commanded.

I didn't move fast enough for her liking. Before I could find my footing on the slick stone floor, her hand shot forward, wrapping around my upper arm with a bruising, crushing grip. She wrenched me out of the cell, my bare feet skidding across the cold, wet ground.

As she dragged me past the adjacent cells, my eyes desperately scanned the darkness, searching for the messy black hair of the engineer.

Tyler.

He was standing in the shadows of a recessed alcove a few yards down, his frame completely rigid. He kept his head lowered, the heavy iron collar around his neck reflecting the sickly green chemical light. He didn't dare make eye contact, but behind his guarded expression, I could see the sharp, frantic fear hiding in his eyes. He wasn't weak; he simply calculated the exact cost of defiance down here, and the subtle, rapid rise and fall of his chest told me our conversation had thrown his entire survival script into chaos.

"Keep moving," Sila hissed, yanking my arm. She didn't even glance at Tyler, treating him like a piece of well-maintained machinery as we passed.

I wanted to call out to him. I wanted to tell him that Kaelen was coming, that the Oru-ka vanguard was a storm they couldn't stop, but the massive guard slammed his pike down right beside my heel, forcing me forward into the gloom.

We descended deeper into the subterranean root-crust, leaving the relative quiet of the iron ward behind. The air grew progressively worse, thick with sulfur, heavy machine grease, and a suffocating heat that made sweat instantly break out across my collarbones. The low hum of the alien wiring grew into a deafening, vibrating roar that rattled my teeth and thrummed through the soles of my feet.

As we rounded a massive structural arch made of oxidised skymetal, the tunnels opened up into a breathtaking, horrific cavern. Massive, glowing red pipes ran like exposed arteries along the weeping stone walls, pumping some kind of pressurised, glowing fluid into the depths. Dozens of Vakra dregs slaved over rusted machinery, their pale skin covered in soot, while chains rattled and heavy iron cranes lifted massive pieces of salvaged hull-plating from the central vertical shafts.

And there, at the centre of the massive platform, overlooking the industrial chaos, stood Geth.

The High Scavenger was older than the others, his grey skin deeply etched with ancient tribal markings, his massive build draped in heavy, reinforced leathers and pieces of polished skymetal armour. His scarlet eyes locked onto me the moment Sila shoved me onto the central platform, a predatory, terrifyingly intelligent grin spreading across his jawline.

"Ah," Geth boomed, his voice echoing over the roar of the machines as he stepped toward me, his heavy tail dragging against the metal grating. "The star-woman has finally graced us with her awakening."

He stopped barely a foot away, the sheer pressure of his presence forcing me to steel my spine just to keep from trembling. He reached out, a long, blackened claw catching beneath my chin, forcing my head up. His scarlet eyes bored into mine, searching, analysing, before a low, gravelly chuckle vibrated in his chest.

"For moons, I have dug through the bleeding bedrock," Geth murmured, his voice dropping into a dark, fanatical cadence. "Piecing together the fractured segments of the Ancients' text. Scrap by scrap, tablet by tablet. They spoke of a prophecy. They spoke of a woman from the stars who would hold the key to the dormant world. I have waited a very long time for you."

My heart stopped. A cold, violent jolt shot through my entire nervous system.

The prophecy. The key.

Suddenly, the fragments of his words crashed into my mind, colliding violently with the memories of my strange, suffocating dreams. The towering, faceless beings made of polished silver and starlight. The sweeping, impossibly grand architectures of geometric metal towers that I had never seen in reality, yet knew by name in my sleep. The cold, mechanical hum that always filled my ears before I woke up gasping for air. It wasn't just a random manifestation of the planet's atmosphere or trauma. It was a map. A legacy. He was talking about the same entities that had been haunting my subconscious since the moment I crashed.

His eyes narrowed, flashing with sudden, deep-seated disgust. "But the texts did not mention that the key would be so easily defiled. I did not expect you, let alone any pathetic human, to be mated to one of us."

I hissed, wrenching my chin from his grip, my chest heaving as the fierce, protective need to defend Kaelen overrode my shock. "The Oru-ka are nothing like you! They have honour! Kaelen is twice the leader you will ever be, you parasitic digger!"

"You call me a parasite," Geth chuckled. "The tree-dwellers call us scavengers. Monsters. Filth beneath their roots. Yet when the First Ones abandoned this world, who survived? Who learned to live in the bones of the dead while the canopy feasted beneath the sun?"

His eyes narrowed.

"We did."

He stepped closer, the massive weight of his armour clanking. "And we survived because we know the truth of the bloodlines. You think any human female could have survived the descent into the vertical wells? Tyler's people? Weak. Broken monkeys. Their lungs turned to ash because they are nothing but descendants of common labourers. Thieves who sneaked onto the first transport vessels centuries ago."

Geth leaned down until his heavy jaw was nearly brushing my temple. "But the fragments suggest that the true key would arrive entirely alone, falling from the heavens into the wild lands. Just as you did. The old texts imply your lineage traces back to the primary architects—the First Humans who engineered this world alongside the Ancients. If the translations are correct, a daughter of that specific line carries a genetic cypher, an old coding sequence embedded into the very marrow of her bones. They say only a direct descendant of that bloodline can bypass the bio-locks. Only she can activate the signal."

The first bloodline? Primary architects? A wave of dizzying disbelief washed over me, my thoughts scrambling frantically to find purchase. It was insane. I was an orphan, an adopted girl who grew up without ever knowing a single face from my own genetic history, completely devoid of familial ties. I had never had anyone of my own bloodline to look to. Yet, my head had always been buried in the stars, staring up at the empty sky with a restless, agonising pull I could never explain. I had spent my entire life wanting more, driven by a hollow ache that insisted something larger was waiting for me out in the dark. I had always assumed it was just a coping mechanism, a desperate fantasy to escape my life. But what if it wasn't? For the first time in my life, I wished I knew who my parents were. Not because I wanted a family. But because I needed proof that this monster was wrong.

He swept a massive, clawed hand toward the towering, ancient consoles rising from the centre of the cavern—machinery that looked entirely different from the crude Vakra scrap, sleek and humming with a faint, dormant silver light. "The first star people left their equipment behind. It requires that specific touch. And you are going to start it up, open the vertical arrays, and send a signal piercing straight through the atmosphere. You are going to call your people's ships down to this rock."