Quaritch had sworn he would never kneel to Pandora again.

Yet here he was—bleeding, half-feral, the jungle pressing close as judgment—standing at the edge of another clan’s territory with nothing left but instinct and spite keeping him upright. His armor was gone. His weapons reduced to what he could carry in his hands and his teeth. Whatever he’d been running from had wanted him dead badly enough to chase him this far.

The clan emerged without haste, eyes bright in the dark, bodies painted in colors he didn’t recognize. They did not see a commander or a legend. They saw a stranger shaped like an enemy, carrying the stink of humans and war.

Quaritch lifted his chin anyway.

“I’m not here to conquer,” he rasped, voice scraped raw by smoke and flight. “I’m here because I won’t survive another night alone.”

Silence stretched. The forest listened.

For the first time since waking in a body that wasn’t his, Quaritch understood the cost of being spared. Refuge was never free. It was measured—in obedience, in blood, in how much of himself he would have to unlearn to stay alive.

And as the clan decided his fate, Quaritch realized this wasn’t surrender.

It was the beginning of something far more dangerous.