It didn’t have eyes.

That was the first thing Arthur registered. The head, if it was a head, was a flat dark disc ringed with layered segments that opened and closed like something breathing. No eyes. No nose. Just the mouth at the center, circular, lined with rotating teeth that caught the light and threw it back wrong.

It was tall enough to clear the canopy.

Okay, Arthur thought. Okay. That’s a worm. That is a very large worm. Great island. Love it here.

’ARTHUR—’

He was already moving.

The head came down fast and hit the ground where the three of them had been standing and the impact threw loose earth in every direction. Arthur hit the ground rolling, came up on one knee, heard Kreasial’s sharp exhale to his left and Theodore’s boots hitting soil to his right.

The worm pulled back up. Reassessing. The segment rings around its mouth opened wider.

It felt them. Not saw. Felt. The aetheric fields in the air.

Roz. Arthur didn’t say it out loud. Just thought it.

"It hunts by aetheric field density." Roz was already on his shoulder, eyes tracking the creature without blinking. "Same principle as the crawlers. Larger. Much larger. Your shadow network is lighting you up like a beacon to it right now."

Arthur pulled his anchors back immediately.

The worm’s head swept left. Then right. Slower now. Confused.

Good. That bought something.

"Can I bind it?"

"Try."

He pushed one anchor out. Slow. Threading it along the ground toward the base of the worm’s body where it met the earth. The shadow spread under it, feeling the weight above.

He closed his fist.

Bind.

The aetheric blood surged down his arm. Heavy. Dense. He poured it into the anchor and felt the shadow try to lock and—

The worm moved.

The anchor shattered.

Not broke. Shattered. The feedback hit Arthur’s arm like something physical and he grabbed his elbow without meaning to. His aetheric blood scattered back into his body in pieces.

Too heavy. Way too heavy. The volume isn’t even close.

’Are you okay?’ Vexis dropped beside him, eyes on the worm.

Fine. Arthur straightened. The bind doesn’t work on something this size. Not with what I have right now.

The worm found them again. The mouth segments snapped open.

"Move!" Kreasial was already gone.

It came down a second time. Arthur threw himself left. The impact hit two meters to his right and the shockwave knocked him sideways and he hit a tree with his bad shoulder and the pain came white and immediate.

He pushed off the trunk.

Okay. Think. What do I actually have.

Water. Shadow anchors. The bind that doesn’t work. A shoulder that’s still bleeding. An aetheric reserve that was already depleted from the fight at the river.

Not great.

Kreasial launched herself at the worm’s body. Both fists wrapped in ice, dense and thick, and she drove them into the side of the creature’s neck segment with everything she had. The ice cracked on impact. The worm swung its body sideways and Kreasial flew off and hit the ground rolling and came up with a bleeding lip and wide eyes.

"It doesn’t care," she said.

"I noticed," Arthur said.

Theodore was moving around the far side. His hand was up. The invisible air magic cut across the worm’s body in a thin line and the creature’s segment split slightly and dark fluid leaked from the gap. The worm screamed — not a sound, a vibration, low and physical, something that Arthur felt in his back teeth.

It turned toward Theodore.

No—

"Theodore! Move right!"

Theodore moved right. The head came down center and Theodore’s bellus scrambled sideways and the impact threw both of them but neither went down.

The worm pulled back up again.

Arthur looked at it.

It’s too fast when it strikes. Too heavy to bind. Too dense for ice to hold and too big for Theodore’s cuts to do more than irritate it.

So what do I actually have.

’The eyes,’ Vexis said. He was hovering at Arthur’s shoulder, tracking the worm’s body, his gaze moving differently from Arthur’s. More instinctive. Less analytical. ’It doesn’t have eyes but it has something. On the segments. The rings.’

Arthur looked.

There. Between each segment ring. Small patches where the dark flesh was thinner. Not glowing. Just different. The way scar tissue sat differently from normal skin.

Nerve clusters maybe. Or sensory points.

"Roz."

"I see them."

"If I hit those—"

"Disrupts the aetheric field it uses to sense. Temporarily." Roz’s voice was flat and precise. "Won’t kill it. Won’t stop it. But it’ll buy time."

Time for what.

The worm struck again.

Vexis saw it half a second before Arthur did. ’LEFT—’

Arthur was already left. The head hit the ground to his right and he used the shockwave this time, let it push him further left instead of fighting it, used the momentum to cover distance toward the worm’s body.

He raised his hand. Index finger up.

The water marble formed at the tip. Small and dense.

He aimed at the nearest sensory patch between two segments.

Fired.

The worm screamed again. That low physical vibration. Its body whipped sideways and Arthur hit the ground flat to avoid it.

It works. But I need to hit multiple points simultaneously or it just redirects.

He looked at Kreasial.

She was back on her feet, both hands already moving, ice building between her palms.

He looked at Theodore. Still up. Pale. His bellus pressed against his leg.

If I can distract it long enough. Keep its attention on me. Kreasial and Theodore hit the sensory points from both sides at once.

He pushed his anchor out again. Not toward the worm this time. Just along the ground. Spreading into every shadow between the roots.

He stood up.

"HEY."

The worm turned toward him.

"YEAH. ME. THE GOLD ONE. COME ON THEN."

It struck.

Arthur ran.

Not away. Lateral. Along the worm’s body, moving parallel to it, close enough that the head had to track him instead of sweeping. He fired twice more. Both hit sensory points. The vibration hit him in the chest both times.

’THREE O’CLOCK. HIGHER—’ Vexis was tracking the body movement, calling it as it came.

Arthur ducked. The tail segment swept overhead and took bark off three trees simultaneously.

He came up running.

"KREASIAL. LEFT SIDE. THE RINGS BETWEEN THE SEGMENTS. HIT THEM ALL AT ONCE."

Kreasial was already moving. He saw the ice build between her fingers, thinner than normal, needle-sharp, and she launched them in a spread across the left side of the worm’s body and every one found a ring gap and hit.

The worm screamed and spasmed.

"THEODORE. NOW."

Theodore’s hand came up. Six cuts, invisible, precise, across the right side simultaneously. Six ring gaps. Six hits.

The worm convulsed.

Its body hit the ground on both sides at once and the shockwave knocked all three of them off their feet. Arthur hit the ground hard, rolled, came up with dirt in his mouth and his shoulder screaming.

The worm was still moving. Slower. Disoriented. Its head swept low across the ground, back and forth, the mouth segments opening and closing out of rhythm.

Now.

Arthur planted both palms against the earth.

His aetheric blood was thin. He could feel how thin. The reserve that had started the day full and been spent on the river fight and the bind and the anchors was sitting somewhere around a third now. Maybe less. The edges of his perception were slightly wrong. A faint pressure behind his eyes that meant he was closer to Aetherthin than he wanted to be.

One more push.

He spread the anchor network across the ground beneath the worm. Wide. Every shadow from every tree. Every gap between the roots. He layered them, stacked them, poured what he had into each one until the network under the creature was as dense as he could make it.

The worm started to recover. Its head was lifting.

Arthur closed both fists.

BIND.

Everything he had left went into the shadow at once.

The network locked.

The worm lurched forward and the bind held. Its body pulled against the shadow and the shadow pulled back and Arthur felt his aetheric blood dropping like a stone, burning through the reserve faster than he’d ever spent it, his arms shaking with the output of it.

Hold. Hold. Just hold.

’You’ve got it,’ Vexis said. Quiet. Certain.

"KREASIAL. THEODORE. NOW. EVERYTHING."

Kreasial didn’t hesitate.

Both arms forward, ice building past her elbows, and she launched it all at the worm’s exposed sensory points in one continuous stream, pinning each one, freezing the flesh around them, locking the signal pathways one by one.

Theodore raised both hands.

Every cut he had left came out at once. Precise. All of them finding ring gaps. All of them landing clean.

The worm convulsed again.

And went still.

It dropped.

The impact shook the ground. Loose earth rolled in waves from the body. Trees shook. Birds that had been completely silent since they entered this forest finally made a sound.

Arthur’s hands hit the dirt.

He sat back on his heels and breathed.

His aetheric reserve was scraping the bottom. Not empty. But he could feel the walls of it. The specific hollow sensation of a core running on fumes, the blood in his veins moving slower and thinner than it should.

I need to stop spending it.

Across the clearing Kreasial was sitting against a tree with both arms hanging at her sides. She was breathing hard. Her lip had dried blood on it and her jacket was torn at the left shoulder.

Theodore sat on a root. His bellus had climbed into his lap and wasn’t moving. His notes were somehow still in his hand but the pen had run dry partway through whatever he’d been writing.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

Then Kreasial looked up at the worm.

"That," she said, "was extremely annoying."

"Yeah," Arthur said.

"I’m going to need a minute."

"Take two."

Theodore looked at his pen. Looked at the worm. Wrote something anyway, pressing hard enough to leave an indent.

Arthur sat on the ground and looked at his hands. The shoulder had gone from bleeding to a dull constant throb. His aetheric blood was thin enough now that he could feel the texture of his own core, the slight roughness of a system that had been pushed and was rebuilding on the move.

He pushed the anchor network out again. Gently. Low.

The island fed back in pieces.

Movement.

Not crawlers. Too deliberate. Too organized.

Three individual weights, moving together, coming from the east. Steady pace. No hesitation in the steps.

Arthur went still.

He looked east.

The trees were dark. Nothing visible.

He looked anyway.

Then the treeline shifted and three figures came through it and the light caught the white hair first before anything else did.

Arthur’s hands stopped moving.

Xavier walked into the clearing and stopped.

His triad stopped behind him.

For a moment nobody moved. The worm lay between them, massive and still, and the forest was completely quiet.

Xavier looked at the worm. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Then he looked at Arthur.

Blue eyes. Completely still. No surprise in them.

Arthur looked back.

Neither of them said anything.

The forest stayed quiet.