The cavern floor still reeked of blood and burnt chitin.

  What had once been a grotesque nursery - an embryonic pit of twitching fungal tissue and churning larval bodies - now lay reduced to heaps of carcass and ash. Yet the stench clung to every breath the survivors took, sour and heavy, as though the cave itself resented their intrusion.

  Sinclair ordered the group back into one of the collapsed side chambers, an old quarry tunnel long abandoned. The natural bowl-shaped dip in the stone offered enough shelter to rest and regroup, though the air remained damp and suffocating.

  Ren slumped against the wall, flexing the new arm until the joints hissed softly. The difference was indescribable - smooth, responsive, almost natural. Nothing like the clunky prototype he’d first been issued. Leo’s work. Ren owed him more than he could ever voice.

  But while the arm felt stronger than ever, the rest of his body was failing the comparison. His shoulders ached; his legs throbbed from weeks of relentless marching; every bruise or cut lingered longer than it should’ve. The fights and the road were wearing him down piece by piece. The arm was improving. He was not.

  The others fared no better. Leo lay sprawled on his side, pale, trying to coax life back into his limbs. Drake leaned against a stalagmite, adjusting armor straps with bloodied hands, silent and watchful. Sinclair crouched near the firepit they’d scraped together, rubbing his temples like a man trapped between headaches and impossible decisions.

  When the fire finally caught - a reluctant flame fed by dried fungus scraps and charred chitin - the light revealed hollow faces. Eight initiates clustered together, barely adults, some not even twenty. Their armor dented, blades chipped, eyes ringed with exhaustion and fear.

  Ren’s chest tightened. They weren’t ready for this. They never had been.

  Sinclair broke the silence first. His voice carried command, but not the strength it used to.

  “We need to talk. Supplies.”

  The word dropped like a stone.

  Raven had been hunched over torn parchment, ink smudged by damp fingers. She looked up, lenses catching the firelight. “What we brought in - minus what spoiled or what we lost in the collapses - gives us rations for ten days at normal intake. Two weeks if we stretch every portion. And if nothing else goes wrong.”

  Subdued murmurs rose, edged with panic.

  Drake’s voice cut through them. “Water?”

  “One and a half barrels. Some skins.” Raven’s expression tightened. “Water doesn’t stretch like grain. If we can’t find a stable underground source…” She let the implication hang.

  Ren knew what she meant. They’d found one pond so far - murky, strange, barely rendered potable by Leo’s purification. There was no guarantee they’d find another.

  Sinclair’s gaze swept over the group. “We ration starting now. No one takes more than their share. Anyone caught sneaking gets dealt with on the spot. We survive or fall together. No exceptions.”

  No one doubted him.

  Ren’s patience cracked. Firelight cut sharp across his expression as he leaned forward.

  “Why?”

  Sinclair’s head lifted. “Why what?”

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  Ren’s fist curled against the stone floor. The question had been building in his chest for days.

  “Why did we bring them?”

  His hand gestured sharply toward the huddled initiates. They flinched under his words, eyes dropping, shoulders curling in.

  “This wasn’t a routine exploration,” Ren went on, voice rough. “We knew what we were walking into. The Divine is tied to this place - an immortal, godlike being. The danger wasn’t hidden. So why march in with half the camp still green?”

  The silence that followed was like a blade falling point-first.

  Leo stirred, coughing weakly, but stayed quiet. His eyes flicked anxiously between Ren and Sinclair.

  Sinclair didn’t flinch, though the muscle in his jaw tightened. His voice held the measured calm of someone who’d spent a lifetime forcing steadiness where none existed. “Because this mission isn’t just about surviving or finding the seal. It’s about what lies beyond it. For that, we need numbers.”

  Ren snapped back, harsher now. “Numbers that freeze the moment monsters hit them? Numbers that almost broke when that proto-thing crawled out of the wall? Numbers don’t matter if they’re dead.”

  Loran - the youngest - paled further but said nothing.

  Drake’s low exhale rumbled like a warning. “He’s not wrong.”

  That weighed more heavily than anything Ren had said.

  Sinclair didn’t answer immediately. Raven did.

  “They were chosen because this isn’t only a strike. It’s a training expedition.” Her tone was clinical. “Those who survive this will inherit the Order. If only veterans came and half of us died, the knowledge dies with us. We can’t afford that.”

  Ren turned on her, eyes burning. “So they’re expendable?”

  “No,” Raven said carefully. “But necessary.”

  “Necessary?” Ren laughed, hollow. “I cooked for them. I trained with them. They’re not pawns.” His metal fist slammed against the wall, the clang echoing sharply. “If this is the Order’s idea of preparing the next generation, then it’s madness.”

  The fire popped, sparks scattering across stone. The initiates shifted, whispering anxiously.

  Sinclair finally rose to his feet, voice scraped raw. “You think I don’t see the fear in their eyes? You think I wanted this?” He motioned to the wounded, the pale, the trembling. “I didn’t. But command isn’t about what I want. It’s about what’s needed. And this - ” he gestured to the group, to the cave, to the dying fire - “is what we have.”

  Ren’s retort stalled in his throat. Sinclair looked… old. Not in years - Ren had seen him fight like a man half his age - but worn, in a way that came from carrying too much for too long.

  Drake cut through the quiet. “Arguing won’t make food last longer.”

  Truth settled over them like cold water.

  Sinclair rubbed his face, then pointed to Raven’s parchment. “Ration plan. Detailed. Assign watch shifts, water duty, supply guards. No exceptions.” Then, softer, to Ren, “And you. Keep speaking. We need your fire. Just… pick your moments. Honesty means nothing without unity.”

  Ren didn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded once.

  The meeting dragged on, voices low, decisions made out of grim necessity. By the end, they had a ration schedule, a guard rotation, and the bitter understanding that every step forward would be paid for in blood or sanity - maybe both.

  When it ended, the younger members settled into uneasy rest, clinging to each other. Sinclair sat apart, staring into the abyss beyond the firelight. Drake sharpened his blade with slow, methodical strokes.

  Ren lay back against the stone ceiling that pulsed faintly with veins of bioluminescent fungus. Hunger gnawed at him, but it wasn’t the emptiness that hurt. It was the image of those kids - silent, exhausted, terrified - waiting for orders that might lead them to die.

  His fist tightened. If no one else kept them alive, then he’d damn well do it himself.

  That night, none of them truly slept.

  Nightmares hunted them.

  Ren drifted in and out, back in the kitchen - but the pans crawled with insects, the cutting boards pulsed with fungal veins. Perrin stood there, apron soaked, smiling with teeth too sharp.

  “Chef,” Perrin whispered. “You’ll feed us all.”

  Ren jolted awake, tasting rot on his tongue.

  Around him, others writhed in their own terrors. One initiate screamed until Sinclair shook him awake. Another muttered prayers to gods Ren didn’t recognize. Leo slept clutching his journal, lips moving soundlessly as he rehearsed spells even in dreams.

  And still - the scratching drew closer.