The stars were hidden behind clouds, and the jungle held its breath.

  Rell didn’t.

  He hung still, arms pulled above his head, eyes half-lidded — but his mind was clear. The energy around him shifted, slow and patient. Below the surface. Beneath the stone. Beneath the island.

  He reached out again.

  Not to Ko Mala.

  To something deeper.

  Something ancient.

  Something angry.

  The sacred beast didn’t speak. It pulsed. It remembered the pirates that chained it, starved it, bled it for “discipline.” It remembered the last scream it heard when its sibling was killed in the flood cages.

  Rell didn’t order it.

  He asked.

  ::One roar. One night. Then you’re free.::

  The response was a low echo that shook the walls.

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  It had heard.

  Across the camp, Neyxa moved without a sound. She crouched low near the toolshed, slid a weathered key ring behind a loose crate, and laid two waterskins near the back exit of the children’s cage. She didn’t stop. Didn’t look back.

  Then she vanished into the mist.

  Down near the trenchline, Ko Mala was already waiting. Crouched beside a locked flood grate, he rolled his thick shoulders and cracked his knuckles.

  “Let’s see if this rust holds.”

  He stood, dug his fingers into the metal seam, and pulled.

  Steel screamed.

  Wood snapped.

  The jungle responded.

  A surge of brackish water exploded from the trench as the gate flew open. A dark mass writhed beneath the surface — large enough to crush a ship, fast enough to vanish between blinks.

  The beast was awake.

  And it was furious.

  The first pirate screamed before he could reach the bell.

  Then came the wave.

  It slammed into the lower camp, capsizing crates, tents, and two rafts at the dock. The sacred beast lunged from the surf like a leviathan, body covered in sleek black scales and trailing luminous tendrils along its fins and spine. Its jaw opened wider than a man’s chest, revealing spiraling rows of teeth.

  It struck the watchtower first.

  The wood snapped like wet bone.

  Alarms sounded — late.

  By then, the creature had coiled through the camp’s central firepit, crushing bodies and wagons in one sweeping motion.

  Inside the vault, Rell exhaled.

  His left cuff clicked open with a twist of the wrist.

  He dropped to the ground, rolled to his feet, and moved.

  He slipped through the shadows, past the cages, unlocking them one by one. Ko Mala appeared moments later, dragging a stunned guard by the leg.

  “Quiet,” Rell said.

  The children were awake but silent, as if they knew.

  Thessia took Lirah in her arms.

  Neyxa appeared on the far side of the cages, eyes glinting in the dark.

  “Cargo dock. Far slope. Move now.”

  They did.

  No one questioned her.

  By the time Rell and the others reached the outer path, most of the camp had no idea the cages were even empty.

  At the tree line, Neyxa met them again — crouched low near a pile of logs. Her eyes didn’t reveal much, but her voice was sharp and clear.

  “Main dock’s too hot. Go inland. There’s an old hunting trail that circles behind the ridge. Leads to the other side of the island.”

  Rell didn’t question her. He just nodded once.

  Ko Mala took point, carrying two children on his back. Thessia covered the rear, holding Lirah tight. The group moved fast and quiet, vanishing into the jungle.

  Rell glanced back one last time.

  The sacred beast loomed at the trench’s edge, water dripping from its scaled sides, mouth still cracked wide with quiet fury.

  Then it turned and slithered back into the deep.

  The screams of pirates still echoed behind them.

  But the jungle ahead was silent — and vast.

  They were free of the cages.

  But far from safe.

  Chapter End.