"It's locked up tighter than a bank vault," Vaelric muttered, his massive obsidian arm twitching with a sharp, metallic jerk that sent a shower of grey sparks cascading across the splintered floorboards of the salt-miner’s shack. He stared down at his mutated limb, his jaw clenched so tightly a muscle jumped violently in his cheek. "If I try to force the joint, the entire forearm tries to tear itself out of the socket. The golden veins are burning hot enough to fry an egg."Seraphyne didn't wait for him to finish his morbid diagnosis. She pushed past him, her boots crunching on the alkaline dirt as she stepped out into the blinding glare of the morning sun, squinting through the stinging desert wind. "Save the commentary for when we're actually breathing clean air, Vaelric. Come on.""Easy to say when your right arm isn't weighing forty pounds and humming like a high-voltage transformer," he shot back, his deep voice vibrating with frustration as he hurried to match her uneven, limpin

"Wake up, Vaelric. We're rolling through the gate right now," Seraphyne hissed, driving the heel of her palm hard against his trembling shoulder as the rust-truck lurched violently to the left, its suspension groaning in protest against a deep mud rut.Vaelric groaned, his eyes snapping open behind a thin veil of feverish sweat, the golden veins pulsing sluggishly beneath his pale skin like dying embers. "Feels like someone poured molten lead straight down my spine," he rasped, his voice scraping against his throat like dry sandpaper as he tried to push himself up from the bed of coarse, damp salt."Well, save the medical complaints for a doctor who won't turn us in for a bounty," Seraphyne snapped back, her eyes darting nervously toward the front cab where Kora’s weathered silhouette was visible through the cracked rear window, her hands gripping the massive steering wheel of the lumbering vehicle. "Just keep your heavy arm buried under that blanket, or Kora’s deaf grandson Pip is go

"Don't you dare close that door on us, Finch! You take one step closer to that latch and I swear I'll put a crossbow bolt right through your shin!" Seraphyne shouted, throwing her entire weight against the rotting oak barrier as the military surgeon inside tried desperately to shove it shut in their faces."Are you insane?!" Dr. Finch's terrified, sweat-beaded face appeared through the agonizingly narrow crack of the doorway, his eyes darting frantically up and down the empty, shadowed hallway of the abandoned tavern. "I saw what's walking around outside! I saw the corporate patrols asking after a pair of fugitives matching your exact descriptions! I run a quiet, back-alley clinic, not a sanctuary for walking extinction-level events!""We don't need a sanctuary, we need a flat surface and twenty minutes of uninterrupted time!" Seraphyne snarled, planting the toe of her boot firmly against the threshold to block the door from clicking into its iron lock. "My brother is burning up from

"I'm serious, Seraph, you need to find something sharp," Vaelric choked out, his voice cracking violently as a fresh wave of agony seized his entire right side. "A cleaver, a rusted saw, a butcher's blade—anything. Just cut it off before it reaches the shoulder joint.""Stop talking like a madman," Seraphyne snapped, dropping to her knees beside him in the damp, freezing dirt of the root cellar. She grabbed his unmutated left wrist, trying to pull his hand away from his chest, but his muscles were locked as rigid as cast iron. "I am not cutting off your arm. We survived the seismic station collapse, we outran the salt-haulers, and I didn't drag your heavy, ungrateful carcass all the way across this miserable frontier just so you could DIY-amputate yourself in a tavern's basement.""You don't feel what I'm feeling!" Vaelric roared, his eyes flashing a dangerous, molten gold in the dim light before he squeezed them shut, his teeth grinding together with a sickening crunch. "It's not jus

"Hold your breath," Seraphyne ordered, her voice cutting through the damp, subterranean air like a sharpened blade."I can't—my chest is locked—" Vaelric gasped, his back arching off the cold dirt floor as another searing wave of electricity surged up from his forearm, twisting the obsidian plates into a terrifying, jagged fan. The golden veins beneath his skin pulsed with a violent, blinding brilliance that illuminated every crack and spiderweb in the root cellar's oppressive stone walls."I said hold it!" Seraphyne dropped beside him, her bruised ribs flaring with sharp, agonizing pain, but she ignored the warning signals of her own battered body. With swift, merciless efficiency, she lunged forward and straddled his writhing torso, pinning his unmutated left arm to the ground with her knee while her hands went to work on the thick, unspooled copper wire she had traded her crossbow scope for."Seraph, it's too hot—it's going to burn through your gloves—" Vaelric choked out, his teet