Dawn broke over Prison World in shades of p urple.

Owen sat against the boulder wall of the camp, watching Gorvax’s chest rise and fall. The Sower had been in RCT for nearly four hours now. His abyss-black eyes were closed, his blue skin slowly regaining color. The bandage across his ribs had stopped seeping. The internal bleeding was slowing.

But it wasn’t enough.

Owen could see it even without scanning. Gorvax was healing the surface. The cracked ribs were knitting. The punctured lung was sealing properly this time. But the deeper damage—the nerve pathways in his left arm, the cosmic-energy ruptures in his core—those needed more than time and meditation.

Tessa crouched beside him, offering a strip of dried meat. "You should eat."

"Not hungry."

"You’ve been carrying him for two days and suppressing your CE the whole time. Eat, or you’ll pass out next."

He took the meat. Chewed slowly.

Tessa sat down across from him. Her brown skin caught the dawn light, the burn scars from Raxka’s claws still pink and tight. She hadn’t pressed for the explanation yet. Hadn’t asked the obvious questions. She was waiting.

He appreciated that.

"Thank you," he said.

She looked at Gorvax. "He’s a Vexari, isn’t he?"

"Yeah."

"Vexari don’t end up on Prison World. They’re a wealthy species."

"He’s not your average vexari I guess"

"No." Her eyes flicked back to Owen. "He’s the gardener. Isn’t he? The Sower. The one the Tribunal put on indefinite sentence."

Owen didn’t answer immediately. Tessa was sharper than he’d given her credit for.

"Yes," he finally said.

"So the official notification—the one that said he was eliminated by the Nullborn during the hunt—that was fake."

"Yes."

"Because the Nullborn invoked Right of Offering."

He looked at her sharply. "You know about that?"

"I’m not stupid. I’ve been hunted three times. You learn things." Her mouth twisted. "Right of Offering is an old Nullborn honor code. They spare prey worthy of remembrance. Falsify the record so other hunters don’t claim the kill. It’s rare."

"Raxka’s old. And bored, apparently."

"Lucky for him."

"Lucky for both of us."

Tessa was quiet for a moment. Then: "What’s the play here, Owen? Honestly. Not the version where you protect us by lying."

He thought about it. About what to give her. About what she needed to know.

"We’re trying to get him to Zone 18. Yalira knows of an underground river system in the ruins. Stable mineral deposits, low drone coverage, natural CE-shielding. He can heal there. Hide. Wait out the rest of the season while I keep hunting and earning credits toward my pardon."

"And then?"

"Then I figure out how to get him off this rock." 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Tessa whistled, low. "That’s a long plan."

"It’s the only plan."

"Mm." She stood, stretched. "Well. You’ve got two days of cover here. Maybe three. After that, drones will start sweeping this sector again, and we can’t dampen forever. So whatever you need to do, do it fast."

She walked toward the camp’s perimeter, where Vren was on watch.

Owen looked back at Gorvax. The Sower’s breathing had evened out. Real sleep now, not unconsciousness. The RCT had stabilized him.

But he was a long way from healed.

---

Yalira returned at midmorning.

She’d been out scouting since dawn, mapping nearby threat patterns. She slipped into the camp silently, her scout’s instincts as sharp as ever, and dropped into a crouch beside Owen.

"Got something," she said.

"Patrol?"

"No. Better." She pulled out a rough hand-drawn map, sketched on a scrap of cured hide. "Three kilometers northwest. There’s a canyon. Old riverbed, dried up centuries ago. I picked up a CE signature there during my sweep."

"What kind?"

"Beast. Big one. Tier 5, four-star, maybe pushing into five-star. Solo."

Owen frowned. "You want me to hunt right now? While he’s recovering?"

"That’s the thing." Yalira’s amber eyes met his. "I recognized the signature pattern. I’ve seen it before, two seasons ago. It’s a Crimson Hide."

Owen waited for the explanation.

"Crimson Hides are rare," she said. "They’re apex predators native to a few different prison worlds in this sector. The Tribunal seeded them as part of the prison ecosystem. Their cores aren’t just useful for credits—they’re medicinal."

"Medicinal how?"

"Their CE structure has a regenerative resonance. It accelerates healing in compatible biology. Rich species used to hunt them on private game preserves before the Tribunal restricted their distribution. A single Grade-4 Crimson Hide core can do weeks of advanced RCT in a single absorption."

Owen sat up straighter.

"How do we know it’s compatible with Vexari biology?"

"Because Vexari are mammalian-based humanoids. Same root architecture as half the species in the cosmos. Crimson Hide cores work across most baseline biologies. It’s not a perfect cure—but it would do for him in one session what a week of cover-RCT couldn’t."

Owen looked at Gorvax. At the lines around his mouth that hadn’t softened. At the left arm still curled awkwardly against his side, nerve damage unhealed.

"How dangerous is this beast?"

"For me alone? I’d avoid it." Yalira’s tail flicked. "For you, half-suppressed and tired? Difficult. Manageable. You’re Tier 5, five-stars. The beast is, optimistically, Tier 5, four-stars. You’d win, but you’d burn through reserves."

"Drones?"

"Sweep pattern doesn’t reach the canyon for another four hours. We have a window."

Owen stood. His legs ached. His CE felt sluggish from suppression. But this was the kind of opportunity that didn’t come twice.

"Let’s go."

---

They moved through the morning heat. Yalira led the way, picking a route that kept them in shadow when possible, in low ground when not. Owen kept his CE signature tight—not fully suppressed anymore, since they were hunting, but small enough to pass for a Tier 5, two-star scout.

The canyon opened up ahead of them like a wound in the earth. Red stone walls. Dry riverbed at the bottom. The air was hotter here, baked by the trapped sun reflection.

Yalira pointed. "There. Two hundred meters down. See the cave mouth?"

He saw it. A dark opening at the base of the western wall.

"Inside?"

"Sleeping during the day, hunting at dusk. We should catch it groggy."

"Plan?"

"You go in first. Make noise. Force it out. I’ll position above the cave entrance. When it emerges, I drop in from above and pin one of its rear legs—Crimson Hides have terrible balance when one of their hindquarters is compromised. You take the kill from the front."

"And we don’t ruin the core."

"Don’t crush its chest. Strike the throat or the temple. Brain death keeps the core intact."

"Got it."

They split.