The opening to the caverns several hundreds metres north of the City of Feasts yawned before them like a thing waiting.

  Dahlia tightened her grip on her warhammer, swallowing as she stared into the dark, gaping maw of the underground desert tunnels. The midday sun above the five of them did little to illuminate the cavernous opening carved into the side of a sandstone cliff. The shadows were thicker than they had any right to be. A hot gust of wind carried the scent of dry sand and something… else. A deep, cloying smell, thick and pungent, like rotting chitin and stale blood.

  She didn’t like it.

  Something about the tunnels.

  [You always feel like something’s wrong in dark places. That’s just a base human instinct.]

  Her fingers twitched on the handle of her hammer. This was different. It wasn’t just the oppressive darkness. It wasn’t just the smell. Something was off in a way she couldn’t put into words, but she most certainly felt it.

  The others didn’t seem to share her unease.

  Otto was rustling through his enormous backpack, already sorting through their supplies. Emilia’s arms were crossed, bouncing lightly on her feet, eager to move. Muyang and Wisnu stood quietly beside her, looking at the entrance with unreadable expressions. Not one of them was worried they might be walking into a trap of sorts.

  “... Alright. Listen up,” Otto said, tugging out a handful of paper from his backpack. He handed each of them a rough, crinkled map, freshly unfolded. “I got these from a famed cartographer.”

  Dahlia held hers carefully, studying the faded ink. The underground tunnels—once the insides of a colossal spider—had been crudely mapped out into labeled sections. Judging by the hastily scribbled red arrow at the top of the paper, they were currently standing at the head, about to descend through the mandibles. After that, they’d move through the lungs, then deeper into the abdomen. The heart—more a long chamber lining the upper abdomen walls of the spider than a single, pulsing organ—would be at the very bottom of the carcass.

  They’d have to navigate the tunnels and canals like a labyrinth.

  Otto jabbed a finger at his own map. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find our way if we pay attention.” He shot a look at each of them. “So don’t do anything stupid, keep to each other, and—

  “Don’t be the lone hero in an action-romance novel who runs off to fight alone,” Emilia finished, clapping her hands. “Right! Let’s go!”

  Muyang cracked a small grin. Wisnu gave a dry chuckle. Otto ignored them, strapping his now-lighter backpack onto his shoulders. The rest of them pulled on their backpacks as well. Uncle Safi had come by just moments ago to drop off a months’ worth of dried food for each of them, and somehow, their backpacks weren’t comically large compared to Otto’s trinket pack. They were as ready as they could be for the expedition.

  But Dahlia was still staring into the head of the spider, hesitant.

  The smell was worse up close.

  …

  She exhaled slowly, adjusting her grip on her warhammer.

  Then, one by one, they stepped forward, their boots crunching against the sand as they entered the carcass.

  Darkness swallowed them whole, and the first thing Dahlia noticed was the way the air changed.

  The moment they crossed the threshold, the wind vanished. The heat of the desert was replaced by a damp, humid thickness that clung to her skin. The smell—already bad outside—was somehow even worse here.

  It’s also drier here than I thought.

  She’d braced herself for something wet—slick walls of decaying, pinkish-purple flesh—but instead, the tunnels were brittle and crumbling, like the inside of a husk long since abandoned. The walls were simply cracked sheets of dried flesh, so shriveled and hardened they barely resembled organic matter at all.

  [No shit. Insects in general don’t have blood vessels like humans do. These tunnels aren’t natural veins or arteries, but rather, they’re artificial pathways carved through the carcass by human hands, bored into its body long after its death.]

  Her warhammer scraped against the uneven ground behind her, dragging slightly with each step, the weight of it steady in her hands. The sound of their footsteps filled the tunnels in slow, rhythmic beats, bouncing off the cavern walls and creating a strange, dull echo. Like a heartbeat pounding through an empty chest.

  Wisnu ran a gloved hand along the dried wall beside her, frowning slightly as she examined the texture. “I had hoped for more flesh,” she murmured, her voice tinged with mild disappointment. “That way, we could eat while walking, and we would not have to carry so much dried food with us.”

  Otto snorted, adjusting the heavy pack on his back. “The Fool already said it. This thing’s dead. Completely dried up. No fresh meat left to carve.” He kicked a stray piece of hardened tissue at his feet, sending it skittering across the ground, brittle as old leather. “If you were hoping for something edible, you’re outta luck.”

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  Dahlia’s stomach twisted slightly at the thought of eating flesh from the walls, but she said nothing.

  They continued walking in silence, and about half a minute in, sunlight from the mouth of the tunnel was getting too thin, so they all turned the dial on their bioarcanic lanterns hanging off their hips. The lanterns cast an eerie golden glow along the tunnels. Supposedly, they could be endlessly refuelled by stuffing small insect parts into the drawer next to the golden flame—the flame would melt the insect part and automatically extract the essence within for fuel.

  It’s kinda like my hammer, no?

  They both ‘eat’ insect parts.

  [Yours is considerably scarier,] Kari said plainly. [Bioarcanic lanterns like these are a dime a dozen across the continent. Besides, the process of refueling these lanterns is just the flame melting the insect parts. Your hammer chews the parts up and does… something with them.]

  [I do not believe there are any bioarcanic engineers savvy enough to explain what your hammer is actually doing in the City of Feasts, but if you were to either go east or northeast—to the Mori Masif Front or the Rampaging Hinterland Front respectively—you would probably find someone smart enough to tell you.]

  Let’s pass this exam first.

  Maybe once I become a Hasharana, I wouldn’t even get to pick where I want to be stationed.

  Every so often, the narrow tunnels would open up into wider chambers—‘sinuses’, as she knew them—where the remains of giant internal organs had collapsed into shriveled masses, their once-living tissue now hardened into something resembling sandstone. The air was heavier in those places. Dense and suffocating. And the deeper they went, the more the scent of something old and wrong filled Dahlia’s lungs.

  Her warhammer dragged slightly behind her, and she forced herself to lift it fully as she continued trudging to Emilia’s beat.

  Eventually, the straight tunnel split into three.

  They slowed to a stop as they reached the fork, staring at the dark, gaping mouths of the three paths ahead. Their lantern light didn’t reach far, leaving the tunnel depths swallowed in shadow.

  Muyang and Wisnu exchanged a quick glance as if they’d already decided. Without hesitation, Muyang stepped toward the rightmost tunnel, his expression calm, almost serene.

  “Miss Balam Hunahpu and I will go this way,” he said, pointing down the tunnel as he glanced back at Dahlia, Emilia, and Otto. “May the winds of fortune guide the three of you safely to the end.”

  Wisnu nodded slightly, dipping her head toward Dahlia and the others as she stepped up with Muyang. “We will meet again,” she said gently. “I hope all of us can pass this stage of the exam and have another feast.”

  Dahlia hesitated, then nodded as well. “Be safe.”

  She meant it.

  Emilia and Otto had no parting words to say, so Muyang and Wisnu disappeared into the rightmost tunnel after a few more moments, their lanterns shrinking into distant specks of gold before vanishing entirely.

  “... Don’t know why they’re splitting off like that, to be honest.” Otto clicked his tongue, rolling up his map. “It’s safer if we stick together.”

  Emilia shrugged, adjusting the backpack straps across her shoulders. “It’s fine,” she said cheerily. “They’ll find the heart chamber on their own. We should just worry about ourselves.”

  Dahlia opened her mouth to reply—then froze.

  A sound.

  Faint. Distant.

  Moving.

  It was subtle at first, barely noticeable against the heavy silence of the tunnels, but then she heard it again—skittering, dry and rhythmic, the scrape of countless legs against stone. It was distant, somewhere beyond the reach of their lanterns, but getting closer.

  The darkness in the centremost tunnel ahead shifted, and Dahlia tightened her grip around her warhammer, her pulse hammering hard against her ribs. Otto let out a sharp breath as well, narrowing his eyes at the darkness ahead.

  “Real funny how they come crawling the second those two split off as well,” he muttered, shifting his rifle up and aiming it down the tunnel. His finger hovered over the trigger. “They were waiting for us to split off.”

  Emilia exhaled through her nose, rolling her shoulders as she ran a hand along her throat.

  And the three of them braced themselves.

  The bugs were coming.

  The bugs were dead.

  Dahlia blinked, hammer still raised, her breaths coming in short, gasping exhales. The tunnel behind them was littered with Giant-Classes carcasses, legs curled inwards, twitching antennae going still, thick bodies split open by invisible force. Blood—dark, sluggish—ran in uneven rivulets along the dried walls, pooling in the crevices of the uneven floor. The air hung thick with the scent of ruptured innards, metallic and cloying.

  She exhaled shakily.

  Neither she nor Otto had lifted a finger.

  [... Lower your hammer, Dahlia.]

  [It’s over.]

  She lowered her hammer slightly, eyes trailing over the remains of the fight—or rather, the lack of one. Emilia had cut through them all, her voice alone slicing through layers upon layers of chitin armour like they were made out of paper. Dahlia had barely processed the fight itself. All she felt was the sensation of pressure against her skin, and all she heard was sound waves given physical form, splitting the air in front of her.

  Forty Giant-Classes rushed at them, and none of them managed to reach within ten metres of Emilia.

  Only now did she finally remember the first stage of the exam, when Emilia had taken down that Mutant-Class sun moth with a single song.

  Dahlia swallowed.

  The Cicada Musician was strong. So much stronger than the rest of them. Her grip on the hammer tightened slightly, but… she wasn’t sure why.

  Was Emilia the reason why Muyang and Wisnu had left?

  After all, if they’d joined the exam not only because they wanted to become Hasharana, but also because they wanted to prove their strength, there wouldn’t be much point doing so when Emilia could just sing and end every battle before it began.

  Was she ‘cheating’, too?

  Dahlia hadn’t thought of it before, but now, standing here—staring at the broken carcasses of bugs she hadn’t even touched, she wondered—she couldn’t help but notice she hadn’t yet made a single decision of her own. If all she did was cling to the strongest person and let them do all the work, was she even proving anything?

  Was she going to pass the exam like this?

  … No. I just have to find the right—

  A sharp thud cut through her thoughts. Emilia kicked one of the carcasses, sending it skidding a few inches across the dirt as she surveyed the pile with mild disinterest.

  “We should eat first!” she said. “Meat’s still fresh! We’ll save the dried stuff for later!”

  Dahlia wrinkled her nose slightly as her gaze trailed over the heap of carcasses. The stench was still thick—heavier in the enclosed tunnels than it would’ve been outside—but Emilia was right. Better to eat the fresh while it was still fresh.

  The three of them set to work. Dahlia pulled a small knife from her pack, crouching beside one of the more intact carcasses. Even if the scent made her want to gag, the meat itself wasn’t bad. They’d done this before—carving up giant bugs, roasting the meat, eating their fill before moving forward. They could do this again.

  But this journey wasn’t going to be short.

  Even if the bugs they’d just fought had been easy, she had a sinking feeling things weren’t going to go quite right down here.

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