I stare at the sensor feed on theVesper-3's console in stunned silence, my hands freezing over the controls. The numerical data confirms the impossible: the command hierarchy locking my ship simply ceases to exist anymore. The realization hits me with staggering force, knocking the breath straight out of my lungs. While I thought he just casually unlocked the doors, he instead deliberately dismantled his own absolute control. For a Reaper Warlord, relinquishing a system override over something he claimed is an agonizing rejection of his deepest instincts, all just to ensure I had a safety net. My ship, my only real home for so long, is drifting further into theblack, totally independent and safe from the crossfire. A hot tear slips down my cheek as the profound magnitude of Draevik's sacrifice finally sinks in.
He is facing down a scavenger fleet alone, prepared to burn with his vessel, but he made sure I could walk away clean.
Then I realize the truth. He's letting me go. The warlord who claimed I was his is opening the cage, entirely willing to break himself if it means I survive.
"No, leave it," I command, my heart constricting. "If Draevik set it to a safe holding pattern, it's safer there."
My hand hovers over the launch console. The path is open. I could run, fly right out of this war zone, clear my debts, and disappear into the Fringe. But staring at the empty space where Draevik should be, the truth anchors me. I have a flawless escape route, but taking it means leaving him to die alone in the dark.
"I stay," I blurt out.
The certainty arrives organically, taking root as a bone-deep knowing rather than a logical deduction. When he touched me in the stasis chamber, something clicked into place. No archives explain it, no manuals cover it. Walking away feels like cutting a live wire still carrying current both ways. I've spent my whole life haunting the edges of the galaxy, drifting from station to station, but with him, I have a weight. I have a place.
K-Seven emits a low, mournful whir, its lenses dimming as it analyzes the shift in my biometrics.
"Seven, update theHarrow's autopilot," I order into the shuttle's short-range transmitter. Now that Draevik has released the docking clamps and dropped his system lockout, my old command codes will work again. It might still be a shot in the dark given the distance, but I need to ensure she doesn't drift back into the firing line. I watch the sensor feed of my ship, fully accepting the goodbye. "Tell her to stay dark and maintain distance. If this ship goes nova, I want theHarrowsafe."
"Nyra, the window is closing," Seven warns. "Ten seconds to lock."
My gaze darts from the ejection lever to the dark void of my old life and finally back to the maintenance hatch. The mark bursts, a warm, golden thread in my mind that points straight to the bridge. It’s a physical pull, a magnetic attraction that makes every cell in my body oscillate.
"Cancel the launch," I command with a sudden, fierce edge.
I leap out of theVesper-3and touch down onVirex Prime’s steel-cold deck.If I leave—I stop. The reasons pile up behind my teeth—tactical, practical, and logical. But the truth is simpler than any of them, and it burns to say out loud. If I leave, I lose him. And I refuse to do that.
I choose this path because I’ve finally found something worth holding onto. The debt of waking him turns into a distant thought; this is about the thread that connects our very heartbeats.
It’s more than the mark. The pretense is already gone.
I want the sound of his voice when it drops low enough for me to feel through my ribs. I want the weight of his hand at my neck. I want that look he gives when I solve what he couldn’t—quiet, fierce pride he believes I miss. I want to argue over fuel ratios and fall asleep to the steady sync of his hearts.
I want him. The mark has no place in this choice. All authority begins with me.
I stand on the deck, empty-handed and without my kit, but feeling a new kind of readiness. The mission has changed. I'm something he needs. Something I'm only starting to understand. K-Seven hovers at my shoulder, its rattling frame settling into a determined series of clicks. It follows me as I turn back, its lenses now glowing a persistent, loyal amber.
Beneath me, the metal flexes and moans as I push deeper into the guts of the ship. Every second away from the shuttlefeels like shedding a layer of armor I’ve worn for years. My pulse hammers in my chest, a frantic convulsion syncing with the erratic rhythm ofVirex Prime’s engines. From the mark, the ship’s agitation rises, prickly heat tracing a path up my neck. It wants me back. It needs me back.
I round a corner into a crumbling maintenance corridor just as a heavy percussion shakes the hull. The tremor rips a primary coolant line right off the bulkhead. A venting steam pipe bursts straight into my path. I dive to dodge it, but the scalding mist catches my shoulder, the skin there instantly turning raw and blistering through my torn sleeve. The force of the ship lurching throws me hard against the wall. A deep, heavy ache blossoms along my jaw where my face slams into the stone-like plating. I bite down a scream, blinking stars out of my vision. Scrapes line my arms, but I force myself to roll back to my feet. The pain is sharp, a white-hot needle, but I barely register it. My focus is entirely on the bridge.
I stumble into a narrow access tunnel, my breathing coming in ragged, shallow gasps. The air here is thinner, the life support struggling to maintain pressure while the ship reroutes power to the weapons and shields. I place my hand against the wall, and for a heartbeat, I feel the metal breathe. It’s an extension of Draevik’s will, and right now, that will is fracturing.
The mark on my chest acts as a conduit, actively feeding raw data from his consciousness into mine as the distance between us closes. Foreign images flicker across my vision—vast icy nebulae, the hush of a stasis chamber, the crushing pressure of a thousand years alone. A younger Draevik materializes in my mind, his skin unmarred, his eyes bright with a different kind of fire. He is a conqueror, a leader, a man who once held the stars in his palm. And then, the darkness.
He stands on the bridge of this same ship, surrounded by others of his kind—tall, armored, burning with the same light.A fleet stretches behind them through the viewport, hundreds of ships, an empire's worth of war made manifest. And then the moment ends. The instruction flows into him, heavy and immovable, lodging in his chest. Retreat. Stasis. Preservation of the command lineage.
He steps into the pod. The gel rises around him. His eyes—those burning eyes—stay open until the very last second, staring at the ceiling of the chamber while the cold takes him. He watched himself be buried alive with his eyes open. The long sleep unfolding. Time becoming a betrayal.
The vision fractures, and I’m gasping in a maintenance tunnel, tears streaming down my face without permission.
Gasping, I lean my forehead against the cool metal to ground myself against the history the mark feeds me. I squeeze my eyes shut to force the visions away.I am real.
Shoving myself away from the wall, I keep moving until the tunnel opens into a wider service corridor, revealing the first signs of the ship's internal defenses. The corridor turrets track my movement with a whine, their barrels following my stride. As I pass beneath them, the targeting lights flicker from red to amber, then a soft, flaring violet.
They recognize me as a component. A vital part of this ancient, lethal ecosystem. It’s terrifying, and yet, it’s the first time I’ve ever felt truly essential for the very survival of another soul.
I reach a vertical ladder and begin to climb, my muscles screaming from the effort. Every rung feels like a mile. The heat is becoming unbearable now; the violet glow is so intense it’s hard to see. The bridge is just above me. I can hear the sounds of the struggle—the roar of Draevik’s power, the mechanical screeching of the ship’s systems, and the heavy, visceral thud of a heart that beats in sync with mine.
I pull myself onto the upper deck, and the sheer scale of the chaos hits me. The air is alive with static, and my hair is standing on end. The bridge doors are fused shut, glazed with the heat of the energy being channeled through them. I can feel Draevik across it, a towering inferno of rage and desperation. He’s losing himself. The monster is winning.