“Such a touching reunion,” Tavash sneered, his voice cutting through the rhythmic thrum of the petrified core. The Sun-Rifle remained steady, its muzzle a dark maw aimed at Zarbek’s chest. “A pity it must end, Zarbek. And you, Tasmira. To think you’d choose *him* over an empire. Such a… sentimental mistake.” Tasmira tasted bile, hot and bitter against the back of her tongue. Zarbek shifted, a low growl rumbling in his chest. “What game is this, Tavash? You speak of empire, yet you’d destroy the very heart of the Citadel?” Tavash’s teeth gleamed white against the soot-caked basalt chamber. “Destroy? No, Zarbek. I merely… re-engineer. You see, the Imperial Apex doesn’t *cure* the Wasting Curse. It *powers* it. A slow, agonizing drain of life force from the host, feeding the colossus's inert systems. A clever design, don’t you think? A mechanism to keep a commander bound, constantly forced to bleed the dunes. A way to bind them to the Citadel itself.” Tasmira stood motionless. The black veins on Zarbek’s neck, the exhaustion, the pain she’d seen. It was not rot at all; it was engineered siphonage. “My father, the Elder-Patriarch, understood this,” Tavash continued, his gaze drifting from Zarbek to the pulsing heart. “He used it to keep rival factions in line. But he grew weak, sentimental, clinging to dusty scriptures. He failed to see the true potential. This isn’t just a power source, Zarbek. It’s a conduit. The beast itself is a dormant deity, its heart a fountainhead of boundless energy. And I, unlike my father, have the vision to harness it.” He gestured with the rifle. “The decay that nearly took you when we were boys, Zarbek? That was no accident. I merely expedited its progress, ensuring you were too weak to resist my coup. I bled the Sun-Vein mines dry, not for profit alone, but to ensure the energy flow to *your* lineage was disrupted. A controlled famine, leading to a controlled death. It was all a prelude to this, to fully sever the existing power structure and re-route the beast’s awakening through *me*.” His eyes gleamed with manic triumph. “Olema? A useful fool, obsessed with his desert god. He thinks he is summoning a primordial divinity, but he merely prepares the vessel for my throne. Once the carcass fully stirs, its power will flow through me. The Oshad Empire will be reborn, with me as its true monarch, a god among men. And you, Zarbek, will be the final sacrifice to ignite its true potential.” He cocked the rifle. The metallic click echoed in the chamber, a sound of absolute finality. “Now, drop your guard, commander. Or your devotion will become a funeral pyre.” Tasmira scanned the basalt walls, tracking the veins of raw amber minerals embedded in the rock. Her chin dipped toward the cut glass bangles clustered along her left wrist. She didn't need a sand dune; the chamber was a faceted mirror. Her left arm whipped up, shifting the cut prism stones flush with her sleeve. She angled her wrist, catching a stray beam of light from their lantern. Her knowledge of light refraction and the precise angles of the faceted crystals, honed by years of studying Sun-Vein mining and its nuances, was absolute. A blinding flash erupted, a concentrated beam of reflected light searing into Tavash’s eyes. He cried out, a guttural sound of pain and surprise, his vision momentarily annihilated. The Sun-Rifle clattered to the ground, spinning on the stone with a metallic whine. Zarbek moved like a sandstorm. Before the rifle had even settled, his hand shot out, seizing Tavash by the neck. The cousin’s feet dangled, thrashing, his cries muffled by Zarbek’s iron grip. Zarbek tightened his fingers until cartilage ground against knuckle. Tasmira didn't hesitate. Her gaze fell to a dark crevice near the wall, a pit where tiny, iridescent sparks flickered. She knew these. Chitin-shelled glass mites, drawn to body warmth within deep ore fissures. They would make short work of anything living. With a strength that belied her frame, she pushed past Zarbek, her shoulder colliding with Tavash’s dangling form. She put her full weight into a brutal kick to his shins, knocking his legs from under him even as Zarbek held his neck. Tavash shrieked, a high-pitched sound of terror, as Zarbek lost his purchase, thrown off balance by her sudden lunge. It was enough. Tasmira’s foot lashed out again, a ruthless, precise strike to Tavash’s chest. He tumbled, sprawling head-first into the dark pit. His screams instantly changed pitch, becoming gurgles, then choked gasps, followed by a sickening chorus of tiny, chitinous clicks and faint, tearing sounds from below. The iridescent sparks flared brighter, a macabre celebration of their feast. Zarbek gaped into the dark cleft, then turned toward Tasmira, his chest rising in jagged gasps. She stepped past the brink, wiped soot from her mouth, and did not look back down. “The Apex heart,” she rasped, her voice still rough from her earlier scream, though now it held a steely edge. She didn’t look at him, her attention fixed on the colossal, thrumming organ. “We must take it. Now.” He blinked, then nodded, his confusion warring with a new, profound awe. He approached the colossal heart, his hand hovering over its shimmering surface. “How?” Tasmira pointed to the thick mineral tethers. “Those are not roots. They are conduits. Sever them.” With a roar, Zarbek drew his battle-knife, its serrated edge gleaming. He slashed at the nearest tether. The mineral resisted, but Zarbek’s strength, fueled by rage and desperation, was monstrous. The strand groaned, then snapped, showering them in glittering dust. A tremor rattled the floor. They worked in frantic unison. Zarbek cut, Tasmira directed, pointing out the most vulnerable points in the calcified seams. One by one, the tethers holding the Apex heart were severed. The suspended mass flared, its pulse quickening into a rhythmic clatter that set their teeth on edge. Just as the last tether was cleaved, a deep, resonating chant began to echo from somewhere far above them, reverberating through the stone. Olema’s voice, amplified and distorted, filled the hollow, chanting in an archaic desert dialect. The ground beneath their feet began to heave violently. Dust and small stones rained down from the ceiling. The colossal heart, now free, pulsed with an almost blinding intensity. Zarbek grunted, heaving under its staggering heft as Tasmira helped guide it into a reinforced cargo harness they had brought, salvaged from the ruins. They had barely secured it when a terrible, grinding sound erupted from all around them. The ribbed bulkheads and petrified ribs of the titan groaned, inward-bowing. A deep, shuddering intake of air, vast and primeval, shook the marrow in their shins as calcified bone-plates collapsed inward, eager to crush them inside the ribcage.

Face-Slapping in the Deep