The Green Exile

The first thing I felt was the heat. Thick, suffocating, like a wet blanket pressed over my face. My lungs burned as I sucked in air, and my left arm—*Saints*, my arm. It felt like it had been dipped in molten iron and left to crust over. I pried my eyes open, squinting against the emerald shards of light slicing through the jungle canopy.

*Alive. Somehow.*

"You're awake."

Lira's voice was a rasp, stripped of its usual aristocratic edge. I turned my head, wincing as my neck crackled. She crouched beside me, her once-opulent gown reduced to rags, the gash on her cheek scabbed over and angry. Her mechanical eye flickered, its bronze iris contracting as she shoved a canteen at me. "Drink. Slowly. It's river water, but it won't kill you."

I obeyed, the liquid lukewarm and tasting of moss. "Where…?"

"Blackroot Wilds," she said, snatching the canteen back. "Three days north of Ironreach. The river spat us out here after the blast. The Church's hounds are sniffing the banks, but they won't dare burn this place. Not yet."

I tried to sit up, but the gauntlet dragged me down, its obsidian claws snagging on the roots beneath me. The Aetherium veins pulsed faintly, like a sleeping serpent coiled around my arm. "How long was I out?"

"Four days." Her gaze lingered on the gauntlet. "You talked. Rambled about 'the Catalyst' and 'the Veil.' Whatever that means."

I flexed my fingers, the gauntlet's joints grinding softly. "It doesn't… hurt anymore. Just feels… *heavy*. Like it's part of me."

"Don't get attached," she snapped, rising. "It's a parasite. And parasites *feed*."

---

**The Jungle's Breath**

The Blackroot Wilds didn't feel like part of our world. It was older, angrier. Vines as thick as my thigh strangled the trees, and the air hummed with the clicks and chitters of things I couldn't see. My boots sank into the spongy earth, each step sucking at my soles like the ground itself wanted to swallow us.

Lira led the way, her dagger hacking through curtains of moss. "Stay close. This place eats the slow."

I wanted to ask where "close" could possibly lead us, but the gauntlet hummed, its veins flaring as we passed a moss-choked pillar jutting from the soil. War-era relic, maybe. The jungle had teeth, but it also had bones—skeletal remains of machines, half-buried and rusting. The gauntlet mourned them, I think. Or maybe that was just me.

At dusk, we sheltered in the hollow of a tree wide enough to stable a horse. Lira didn't light a fire, but the gauntlet's dim glow kept the shadows at bay. Or maybe it invited them.

"Your arm," she said suddenly, tossing me a strip of leathery meat I didn't want to identify. "Does it… *listen*?"

I stared at the gauntlet. "Sometimes. Like it's whispering. Not words. Just… *wanting*."

She snorted. "It wants to be fed. Aetherium's hunger never dies."

A howl cut through the dark then—low, grinding, like metal scraping bone. Lira's dagger was in her hand before I could blink.

"Sleep," she ordered. "I'll watch."

I didn't argue.

---

**Chapter 9b: The Pool and the Shadow**

By the fifth day, the jungle's rhythm was in my blood. We drank from vines that wept sticky sap and ate fruits that tasted like regret. The gauntlet hummed when we passed the carcasses of war machines, their rusted hulls bleeding orange into the soil.

At midday, we stumbled into a clearing. Sunlight speared through the canopy, pooling around a circle of crystal water. At its center stood a stone woman, her face worn smooth by centuries of rain, one arm raised toward the sky.

"A shrine," Lira murmured. "From before the war."

I knelt at the water's edge, the gauntlet's claws skimming the surface. Ripples spread, and for a heartbeat, I saw a reflection that wasn't mine—a figure, hooded and still, watching from the trees.

I jerked back. "Did you see that?"

Lira whirled, dagger raised. "See *what*?"

The jungle held its breath. Then, a flock of birds burst from the branches, their glass-like wings chiming.

"Nothing," I lied.

---

**Chapter 9c: The Golden Storm**

The rains came at night, relentless and cold. We huddled beneath a ledge of rock, the gauntlet's glow our only warmth. Lira's silence was heavier than the downpour.

"They'll come for this," she said finally, nodding at the gauntlet. "Not just Inquisitors. Armies. They'll burn the world to ash for it."

I stared at the Aetherium veins. "What if we don't let them?"

Her laugh was bitter. "You sound like a child."

Before I could retort, light split the dark.

Not violet. *Gold*.

A figure stood at the edge of our shelter, cloaked in bark and shadow. Their hands glowed, molten gold bleeding through their fingertips. At their side hovered a creature—a mechanical insect, its wings shimmering with the same light.

"You've stirred a sleeping god," the stranger said, their voice like wind through ancient chimes. "And now it dreams of you."

Lira lunged, dagger flashing, but the stranger flicked a wrist. Golden light snapped the blade away, embedding it in the mud.

"Peace," the stranger said. "I am Kaelis. And you, Jace Veyren, are the Catalyst."

The insect darted toward me, scanning the gauntlet. Its wings hummed.

Lira stepped between us, her mechanical eye blazing. "What do you want?"

Kaelis smiled, the gold in their hands pulsing. "To teach you both how to survive what comes next."