The Moon's Fangs | 1

For a split moment in time, we were immersed in a liquid galaxy where all senses ceased, only hugged by a sea of stars blanketed across total darkness. But that second of absolute silence vanished when Reks pulled us out of the gateway, gripping me tight, and diving sharply to the side as little gems chased us through before the gate could close.

“Duck!”

I squeezed his neck and ducked my head against his chest. He clung to my waist and head before my back collided against rock. Spurts of violent pink light lit up the area like blinding flares. Each detonated like giant versions of snappers on the Fourth of July.

My shoulders slid across grating rock, ripping through the fabric of my shirt. I felt the vibrations of debris pelting Reks’ back. One hit harder than the others, causing the air to rush from his lungs. His back arched, and his grip tightened around me. Whatever hit him caused his Guide to suddenly slacken around our waists. Jagged rock burned against my back.

He ducked his head into my hair and neck until it all came to a stop, leaving only our ears ringing from the aftermath.

We stayed there like that, holding each other, breath shaking. His Guide trembled as if threateningly cold.

Had he overused it? I didn’t know what limits something like that would have or what tolls it took on him and his Guide. With how badly Luk trembled now, it couldn’t be good.

Broken shards of rock crumbled down the sides of the craggy terrain. I coughed, waving away the cloud of dust from my face.

Obsidian hair brushed past my cheek as Reks lifted his head enough to see my face. I braced myself for whatever snarky comment he’d throw my way, or retaliation for interfering in his counter against Blaire in the first place. For being the cause for blame – the reason things went too far.

“Are you h…urt?” his breath hitched, almost as if in breathless pain.

The darkness of his eyes looked hazy, like orbs of smoke. Blood had smeared down his forehead and eye like uneven warpaint. The vitiate who had all the ammo to condemn me… only stared down at me with worry. Something twinged deep in my chest from the sight of him.

“Reks… no. You saved me.” My hand slipped from his neck to touch his bloodied cheek. Nicks and scrapes peppered my hand from where I protected his neck. A gnarly colored bruise from where Blaire death-gripped my arm was now exposed with the tunic ripped halfway off. My back tingled as Nox prioritized healing whatever damage burned there from sliding against rough sandstone.

It was nothing compared to his wounds. He held back because I begged him to, and he’d been hurt because of it.

A pained expression masked his relief as he pulled away to slump against the wall of sandstone. “It… isn’t safe here. Outside the barrier.”

Luk still hadn’t retracted back into his body. Tendrils from both his wrists quivered, as if trying and failing to move against a great pain. His hand trembled when he lifted it, looking hazily at his ringless finger. He slowly turned to squint through the rubble where it must have fallen – where we narrowly escaped the tiny, but deadly explosives.

His jaw clenched, holding in a pained groan when trying to move in that direction.

Dread snagged my heart. He was hurt in more places than one. There was a deep gouge clean through the middle of his hand, a head wound, and all kinds of miscellaneous cuts and gashes from those gems.

He did so much to protect me. A girl he hardly knew. He could have abandoned me to my fate if he wanted to, but he stayed, despite it all.

“Hey, don’t move. I’ll get it.” I gingerly touched his shoulder to stay.

He didn’t protest. He only nodded, still blinking sand away from his eyes.

The tunic I wore slumped down my shoulders, the wind caressing my healing back between the long tears. Thankfully, the bralette was still intact. I slipped the ripped shirt off the rest of the way, slinging it over a shoulder.

I stepped over a large clump of pulverized rocks, then crouched down to sweep away the smaller pieces from the ground, where tiny pieces of Blaire’s crystals laid dormant and scattered about. Nox helped quicken the search by pinpointing the source of astral energy emitting from the small band. In Nox’s shared sight, it radiated pearly ultraviolet vapor.

I shoved my weight against the boulder it was under, rolling the thing off. My bruised arm throbbed from the effort. Miraculously, the ring didn’t look damaged. Not even scratched.

A silly emotion pricked at my eyes. For him to have prioritized me over something so valuable to him – something he is never without – touched a place in my heart I hadn’t expected it to.

An image of red-slitted eyes under a bleeding halo skittered through my head as I picked up the gate ring. Sio's eyes. Not a welcomed sight. There was too much on my plate to decipher it.

“Here.” I said, going over then back down to my knees to slide it back on his finger. “Back where it belongs.”

His breathing turned ragged. “Your—hh—back.” His eyes squeezed shut for a pained second, head pressing against the sandstone. My back did burn with a constant sting, but so much adrenaline from what we experienced kept my brain from focusing on it.

“It’s healing. I’m okay.”

Concern weighed down in the pit of my stomach. For Reks, it was a different story. Nothing healed. Not even the little cuts. His Guide. It had to be because Luk couldn’t get back inside him. Something was dangerously wrong.

“Reks… why aren’t you healing?”

A sudden cold sweat mingled with his blood and matted dirt. “I… can’t. L-Luk’s in pain.”

My hands shook with the dizzying feeling of uselessness. “Wh-what can I do?”

He groaned from the pain as he struggled to turn his back toward me. My lips parted in a silent gasp. His entire back was riddled in puncture wounds - shards of crystals embedded into his back. There… there were so many.

“One… of the fragments pierced Luk. I can’t tell… can’t reach…” his shoulder fell against the rockside as he lost his breath.

I steadied his other shoulder, fear clenching my chest at the sight of a fresh rivulet of blood trickling down the nape of his neck.

“Nox…” my voice shook, eyes bouncing between the shards.

~I’m on it. Place your hand on Reks Arlen’s Guide so I may run a scan. We need to pinpoint which shard is piercing Luk.~

A strange tingle danced through my palm as I wrapped my fingers around the trembling Guide sprawled out across the ground. I pulled one of its heads into my lap, caressing it down the length of its whip-like body with a finger, hoping it would soothe it in some way, shape, or form.

Reks stared at me over his shoulder. On the surface level, his lash-skewed gaze looked to belong to a dangerous predator, despite the wounds. Not long ago, I would have cowered from that look. I wasn’t sure when the change happened in me, but at this moment, I saw past his walls, saw the underlying fear hidden from the worlds.

Betrayal left the worst kind of scars. Bone deep and utterly invisible… until they’re not. The smallest gesture has the ability to reopen the scars and make them bleed again.

Was it a fear of feeling defenseless and needing to rely on the help of someone else? Or could it be the first true test of my loyalty?

In his current state, I could run away, and he wouldn’t be able to prevent it.

I gently squeezed his shoulder, lowering my voice. “I’m not going anywhere, Reks. Not unless you’re too stubborn to let me help you. Then you’ll leave me no choice but to find help.” I glanced over between a craggy alcove, where ruins stood shakily in the distance. The only sign of life was the faint dwindling of light within its decrepit walls. If anyone lived there, they might have heard the explosions or seen the violent pink bursts like impromptu fireworks.

“Stay. Don’t go.” His stare softened with an unspoken trust.

The moment he did, Nox activated a second layer of sight - exposing Luk interlaced within his body.

Threads of bright blue weaved through every part of him, like one endless string of fate. It was thicker, more snake-like along his spine, splitting off like a three-headed serpent at the base of his neck to course through the corded muscles of his shoulders and down his arms while the centermost reached his skull. Thinner tendrils laced through him like a second vein line.

Holy Hell. Is this what Nox looked like inside of me?

~Blazing Stars, the sheer attention to detail is astonishing! Luk has outdone itself. Second to none other than the superior Guide itself, I’d say! Hm… ah, yes, the problem is now clear. Do you see where a shard nearly punctured Reks Arlen’s spine? Luk must have stopped it by sacrificing itself. How inspiring!~

I did see it. The sharp crystal barely stopped short of rupturing his spine. Luk had managed to tightly knot itself and take the brunt of the attack, keeping it from fatally injuring its host. But it violently trembled, paralyzed from doing anything against it.

“Okay… I’m going to pull it out now.” I told him, trying to keep my fingers from shaking.

I bit down on my lip and held my breath as I pressed my fingers into the puncture wound. His muscles tensed under my hand, but he didn’t react until my fingers clenched the shard and struggled to pull it free from both Luk and him. He growled out through gritted teeth. His Guide tightly writhed from the pain it caused. Two types of blood dripped from its sharp edges. A cyan nectar-like texture mixed with his.

“I… I’m sorry.” I dropped the bloodied shard. “Is th-there another one hurting Luk?”

His rigid back untensed as the other shards gradually pushed free from his many other wounds. Luk slid out of my hand, but before it retracted back into Reks, it lifted its head up to mine. In this form, the Guide’s features were much smaller. It looked at me with its slitted gaze, holding mine in wordless gratitude.

Reks watched too, lethargic shock painting his expression, like he’d never seen his Guide do anything like it before as Luk pressed its tiny nose against mine. After a long, silent second, it retracted back into Reks.

He offered a tired smirk. “Guess there’s a first for everything. Luk must think you to be pretty special, Stargazer.”

Stargazer.

My stomach flipped from the compliment.

He flinched as he turned to lean his back against the rock, fumbling for the medical wrap in his utility belt.

“Here, let me.” I gently took the wrap from his bloody hand. “For your head, right?”

He nodded. “Since Luk sustained a core injury, it’ll need to repair itself before getting to my wounds. I —tch— need to stop the bleeding in the meantime.”

I unwound the bandage, then pushed his hair out of the way. My stomach churned at the sight of the dark crimson gash. But a little queasiness wasn’t going to stop me. I pressed my lips together and focused on wrapping it correctly.

Even though it was obviously painful to the touch, Reks made no show of it. He watched me through heavy lashes. The crimson coating his right eye resembled warpaint a warrior would have, being at complete contrast with his almost serene gaze, making my stomach dip. I wished I knew what he was thinking. I wanted to know why he would go to such great lengths to protect me the way he did.

He was only hurt because I begged him to not hurt Blaire. Because he held back. I did this.

“Is this too tight?” I asked around the hard lump in my throat, reaching around his head to knot it in the back.

He pulled his attention away from me, like someone would when trying to expel a lingering thought. “Uh, no. It’s fine. Thank you.” He took the last of the wrap and worked it around his wounded hand.

I leaned back to sit on my legs to observe my mediocre work. “You may not think so when you see how messy your hair looks.” Half his hair partially slicked back from blood while the other half had contained so much sand, he looked almost blonde. “We should really find somewhere you can get these cleaned… Do you think there’s a water source nearby? Or we could try that town with the lights?”

I moved to stand, but the warmth of his fingers gently wrapped around my wrist, imploring me to stay. He looked down at the various little scratches across the top of my hand, observing each slowly heal before Nox worked on the gnarly bruise Blaire had inflicted.

My Guide trilled nervously, like a kid might feel if their teacher watched them take a test over one shoulder.

“Amelia... I need to apologize for what I said earlier. I let my anger get the best of me and took it out on you. I won’t let it happen again.”

With a face like that.

The words he said still stung. But wouldn’t I feel the same way if I were in his shoes? Since waking him, he hasn’t had time to cope with anything. Not his past, the betrayal, everything he unwillingly lost… nothing. I could recognize he had no one to fall back on, no one to vent to besides me at present.

Right now, he needed someone to offer him grace. To be there to walk through that darkness. I wanted to be that person for him. Because together, we weren’t alone. In this short time since our paths crossed, we had already been through so much. Experienced so much. Been each other’s lifelines on multiple accounts.

The more time we spent together, the more important he became to me.

I reached over with my other hand and squeezed his on top of mine. “I forgive you.” I looked down, then at the settling dust. “But I lost the bag of seeds we needed. That place is probably buried by this point… there’s no way we can get it back.”

“I may have a fallback plan up my sleeve,” he grunted, resituating. “Which I can look into once Luk’s all healed up. But it’ll take some time. Guides take much longer to heal when injured. We can’t linger for long though. It's possible Blaire can sense her crystals the closer she gets to them. We’ll need to be gone before that happens.”

“What, um…” I stared down at my dirt and blood-covered fingers, feeling the lump swell painfully in my throat. “What happened to Blaire?”

Reks gazed tiredly at me through heavy lashes. “I… wish I could give you that answer. But I’ve never seen anything like her. The Full Spectrum has never made a construct similar to her to my knowledge.”

The Full Spectrum. That must've been who she referred to as her master.

“But if you had to guess,” a tear ran down my cheek, despite my best attempts to stay strong.

“My guess may scare you, Amelia.” He warned softly.

I held his gaze, waiting for him to give me the answer I feared to learn. “It’ll eat at me if I don’t know. Please.”

He squeezed my hand. “Then I would say… she’s alive, in a sense. In her manner of speech, the nicknames, the references… it’s all pulled from her memories, her life and relationship with you. She’s gone through her own hell, but she’s still in there somewhere. But like the Adamant Horde, Blaire has an intense desire to serve The Full Spectrum. I fear what's been done to her cannot be easily undone.” his other hand reached up toward my face. With his thumb, he wiped away the tear, letting his other fingers gently curl behind my ear. “We may not have the means to help Blaire now, but after we find Sio, I’m sure we will get access to what we need to save her. Sio has access to unimaginable power. Power the monster who enslaves your friend greatly desires, and fears. We won’t let The Full Spectrum win. You got that?”

I pressed into his hand as more tears flowed out when closing my eyes. I wanted to ask him if he thought Blaire was suffering - how long she’d have to wait and endure… but he knew as much as I did about this. We were both in the dark. Both making guesses.

“That monster did something awful to her." A tight sob lumped into my throat. "A-and I abandoned her a s-second time-"

The hand he curled around my ear pulled me in, then his other arm wrapped itself around me in an embrace. “Shhh.” he soothed, cradling me between his legs. He held me there, riding out the broken sobs I had no control over. His hand softly brushed down the length of my hair, waiting until the storm inside me calmed.

I wasn't sure how much time passed, how long he let me cry against his chest. When he spoke again, his tone was gentle and patient. “This isn’t your fault. We’ll find a way to fix this. Your friend is going to be okay. The Full Spectrum just showed us that she isn’t going to kill her. She thinks using Blaire will be the best way to get to you. That monster won’t risk wasting that leverage. She’ll survive this.”

His voice soothed me like rolling steam, and my aching heart was in desperate need of that reassurance - of his comfort. I buried my face in his chest until all I could hear was the steady beat of his heart.

“She’s strong.” I said after a long moment. “Most people underestimate Blaire, but she’s always been a badass. A petite one, but a badass nonetheless.” I laughed weakly, wiping sand and tears from the cheek that wasn’t pressed against the warmth of his chest. “She never shied away from bullies or let anyone define who she is. She won’t let this so-called Full Spectrum get away with doing this to her for long. If there's a loophole, Blaire will find it.”

“Is that right?” Reks smiled that rare, sweet smile of his. “She must have a strong will.”

I smiled, noticing the various cuts across his body beginning to heal. “When those crystalline gladiator monsters attacked my home, she was more concerned about helping me rather than getting to safety. She even had the nerve to chunk a bat at one of them. A bat.”

“Kind of like how you had the nerve to throw a broken step ladder at the ringleader of the Black Market?” he chuckled.

“Hey, no need to thank me. I was just doing what any hero would do to save the day.” I leaned up from his chest and tossed my hair to the side with an ornery grin.

He pushed himself up as the last of the cuts sealed shut, leaving only stains of blood and dirt across his smooth, golden skin.

“So, you said something about a Plan B?”

“Yeah,” he looked down at his gate ring, which emitted a faint, ominous glow. When his dark eyes found mine, there was a hint of amusement settling back in. “About that…”