Chapter 197: 197. The Dune Line
Day thirty-three.
The desert stretched ahead like a frozen ocean, dunes rolling beneath two suns. Owen carried Gorvax across his back, the Sower’s blue-skinned arms loose around his neck, breath shallow against his shoulder.
Yalira walked twenty ters ahead, scouting. Her tail swept low to the sand, scanning for threats. Her ears twitched at every shift in the wind.
They had been moving for six hours.
Owen’s legs burned. His CE reserves sat at 4,200, he’d been suppressing his own signature to match Gorvax’s, making them harder to track. The cost was a constant drain, slow and steady.
"How’re you holding up?" Yalira called back, voice low.
"Fine."
"Liar."
Owen smirked despite the exhaustion. "Yeah."
She slowed, falling back to walk beside him. Her amber eyes flicked to Gorvax’s slack face. The Vexari’s abyss-black eyes were closed, his blue skin paler than usual from blood loss. The deep lines around his mouth had hollowed further in the past day.
"Fuck, He’s losing weight..." Yalira said.
"He’s not eating at all"
"Can he even?"
Owen exhaled. "He says he can’t keep anything down. Internal damage. Needs CE to heal, but using CE makes him visible."
Owen was quiet for a few steps. Then: "How much further?"
"Two more days at this pace. Maybe three."
"Two days through open desert with you carrying a wounded Tier 4 across your back, both of us suppressing our CE, no shelter, no real cover, drone sweeps every six hours, and a thirty-percent chance of Lifer patrols between here and the ruins." She paused. "Just wanted to make sure I had the situation summarized correctly."
"That about covers it."
"Great. Just checking."
---
They stopped at midday under the shadow of a rock outcropping, the only cover for kiloters. Owen lowered Gorvax against the stone, and the Sower’s eyes flickered open.
"Dragon."
"Hey. We’re stopping for a bit."
"How long?"
"Twenty minutes. Yalira’s scouting ahead."
Gorvax tried to sit up straighter, winced, gave up. His blue hand pressed against his bandaged ribs, Owen had wrapped them with fabric from his own torn shirt. Crude and functional.
"You should leave ."
Owen sat down beside him. "We’re not having this conversation again."
"It’s the smart play."
"Then I guess I’m an idiot."
Gorvax made a sound that might have been a laugh. It beca a cough. Pink-tinged spit landed in the sand between them.
Owen’s jaw tightened. "How bad is it really?"
A long pause. The wind hissed across the dunes. Then Gorvax spoke quietly. "Three broken ribs. One punctured lung, sealed itself, but barely. My left arm has nerve damage I haven’t fixed. There’s bleeding inside that I can’t reach without active CE healing." His abyss-black eyes t Owen’s. "Without RCT, I won’t last another week."
Owen processed that. "Then you do RCT."
"And the mont I do, drones sweep my signature, the bounty hunters mobilize, the Lifers co for the kill. We both die in that case."
"So you do it in bursts. Small ones. Cover the signature with mine."
"That makes you visible too."
"I’m already visible. I’m rank nineteen on the leaderboard." Owen leaned his head back against the rock. "If we’re moving toward Zone 18 anyway, drones will pick
up eventually. You heal in short bursts during my hunts. The drones see Owen, the Dragon King, fighting and burning CE. They don’t look for a second signature underneath."
Gorvax was silent. Considering.
"Smart," he finally said.
"I have my monts."
"Yes." A faint smile. "Rare. But genuine."
"Asshole."
That got an actual laugh this ti. Soft. Pained. But real.
---
Yalira returned as Owen was helping Gorvax sip water from his canteen. She crouched beside them, tail flicking.
"Patrol’s coming," she said. "Lifer scouts. Three of them. East ridge. About four kiloters out."
"Heading?"
"This way. They’re sweeping the dune line."
Owen’s mind moved fast. "Ti?"
"Forty minutes if they keep their pace. Less if they spot tracks."
He looked at Gorvax. The Sower was barely staying conscious. They couldn’t fight three Lifer scouts and protect him. They couldn’t outrun them either.
"We need to disappear," Owen said.
Yalira nodded toward the rock outcropping. "There’s a fissure on the north face. Narrow. Goes about eight ters into the rock. We could fit if we squeeze."
"Drones?"
"Stone above us blocks signature scans for a while. If we suppress hard enough, we read as background heat."
Owen stood, lifted Gorvax carefully. "Then we move."
---
The fissure was tight. Owen had to turn sideways to fit, then pull Gorvax in after him. Yalira squeezed in last, her tail curling around her legs. The three of them pressed into the narrow space, barely enough room to breathe.
The temperature dropped imdiately. The rock above them was cool, sun-shielded.
"Suppress everything," Yalira whispered. "Heartbeat. Breathing. CE. Everything."
Owen activated the breathing technique Gorvax had taught him months ago—slow, deep, almost imperceptible. His CE folded inward, condensing into the smallest possible signature. Beside him, Gorvax did the sa, despite the cost to his already-failing body.
Yalira’s ears flicked back. Listening.
Minutes passed. Then more.
Then Owen heard them—boots on sand. Three sets. Voices, too low to make out, but close. Maybe thirty ters from the outcropping.
He held his breath.
The voices passed. Got fainter. Faded.
Yalira held up a hand. Wait.
Five more minutes. Ten.
Then she nodded. "Clear."
Owen exhaled. His lungs burned. Beside him, Gorvax had gone limp—he’d passed out from the effort of suppression.
"Shit." Owen pressed two fingers to the Sower’s throat. Pulse was there, but weak. "He needs to rest before we move again."
Yalira squeezed past him to check Gorvax herself. Her hand pressed against his blue forehead, then his ribs. Her face tightened.
"He’s running out of ti, Owen."
"I know."
"No, I an—" She looked at him directly. "If we don’t get him sowhere he can do real RCT, sustained CE healing, in the next thirty-six hours, he’s not making it to the underground river. Or anywhere else."
Owen’s hands curled into fists.
"Then we change the plan," he said.
---
They erged from the fissure as the second sun set behind the dunes. The desert turned violet, then deep blue, then black with stars too sharp and too many—Prison World had no atmosphere thick enough to dim them.
Owen carried Gorvax. Yalira scouted.
"What’s the new plan?" she asked over her shoulder.
"There’s a Season 47 prisoner camp about six kiloters north of here. Tessa, Jorik, and Vren—the three who helped
during the Raxka hunt. They owed
one before. I think they’ll owe
another."
"Are they rustworthy?"
"They’re not friends. But they’re useful, and they need allies. They’ve been hiding out, recovering from their wounds." He shifted Gorvax’s weight. "Their camp has shelter. It’s hidden in a rock cluster. Drones can’t easily sweep through it."
"They’re going to recognize Gorvax."
"Yeah."
"And then Gorvax’s secret isn’t a secret anymore."
"I know." Owen’s voice was steady. "But three more people knowing is better than him dead. We control the information by giving it to people who need us alive."
Yalira’s tail flicked. "You’re playing it cold."
"I’m playing it survivable."
She glanced back at him. The starlight caught her amber eyes. "You’ve changed in the last day, you know that?"
"Yeah?"
"You used to overthink. Hesitate. Now you just decide and move." She turned forward again. "It’s good. Keep it."
Owen didn’t answer. But sothing in his chest tightened. He knew exactly what had changed. Gorvax’s "death" had broken sothing open. And finding him alive again had welded it back together harder.
He wasn’t going to lose him twice.
---
They reached the camp three hours before dawn.
It was tucked into a depression between four massive boulders—natural cover, with a fabric tarp stretched overhead to break up infrared signatures. Small. Crude. But clever.
Yalira whistled low—a coded signal she’d learned from Korvan. After a few seconds, a return whistle ca back from inside.
A figure erged. Tessa. Tall, brown skin marked with healing burns from Raxka’s claws. Her eyes went wide when she saw Owen.
"Holy shit. Owen?"
"Tessa. I need help."
She looked past him. Saw Yalira. Then saw Gorvax slumped over Owen’s shoulder.
"Who’s that?"
"Long story. Can we co in?"
She hesitated. Then stepped aside. "Get in. Fast."
---
Inside, Jorik and Vren were already awake. Both showed signs of recovery—Jorik’s broken arm in a makeshift sling, Vren’s face still bandaged from the slash Raxka had left across his cheek.
Owen lowered Gorvax onto a roll of fabric they’d set up as a bed. The Sower was unconscious, his blue skin almost grey now in the dim lantern light.
Tessa stared. "Hey... That’s a Vexari."
"I know."
"Vexari are rare species. None of them are supposed to be on Prison World."
"I know."
"And he’s—" She stepped closer, her CE sense flaring. Her eyes went wider. "Hey.... His baseline reads at Tier 4. Five stars. That’s—"
"Tessa." Owen’s voice was firm. "I need your help. I’ll explain everything. But right now, he needs to do RCT, and he needs cover so the drones don’t catch the signature. Can you give us a few hours?"
She looked at Jorik. Jorik looked at Vren. So silent conversation passed between them.
Then Tessa nodded. "Yeah. We can give you that."
"Thank you."
"But Owen—" She held his gaze. "After he’s stable, we gotta talk. All of us. Because whatever you’ve gotten yourself into, we just got pulled into it too. And we deserve to know."
"Fair enough"
"Okay then." She gestured to her companions. "Vren, take the periter watch. Jorik, set up the signature dampener. We’ve got work to do."
---
Owen sat beside Gorvax as the others moved around them. The Sower’s chest rose and fell. Slow. Shallow. But steady.
After a mont, Gorvax’s abyss-black eyes flickered open. They focused on Owen.
"Where..."
"Safe. For now. Friends from Season 47. They’re giving us cover so you can do RCT."
Gorvax processed this. His mouth twitched. "You told them?"
"They figured most of it out themselves. Your CE signature is a bit hard to hide when you’re unconscious."
"Mm."
"You should rest. Then heal. We’ve got ti. Maybe."
Gorvax’s blue hand found Owen’s wrist. Weak grip. But there.
"Dragon."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
Owen looked at him. At the Sower who’d erased a galaxy of dragons, who’d beco his unlikely partner, who’d faked his own death and crawled into a cave to spare Owen the burden of mourning him.
"Don’t ntion it," Owen said quietly.
Gorvax’s eyes closed.
His CE began to flow. Slow at first. Then steadier. The wounds inside him began, finally, to knit.
Owen sat there a long ti, watching. The lantern flickered. Outside, the first hint of dawn began to lighten the sky over Prison World.
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