More chills swept down my arms. Nythor’s smile never faded as he drifted closer, making the library’s holovids stutter and freeze wars mid-battle, halting stars mid-birth.
“Stay where you are,” Ilythas barked, his hand snapping to his sword. “That’s close enough.”
For a heartbeat, the Oracle obeyed, tilting his head as if considering. Then the air cracked. In a blur, he wason me, his hand clamping around my arm with inhuman strength. He yanked me forward, slamming me against him.
Ilythas' blade cleared half its arc when Nythor’s gaze flicked toward him, eyes glimmering with fractured starlight. His voice was sing-song and terrible. “You saw nothing. She is still here. She is safe.”
And then the void swallowed me whole.
The library, Ilythas, the flickering holovids, it all ripped away in a rush of cold nothingness. Darkness pressed against my skin, filled my lungs, and smothered sound and sight alike. It was like being dragged through the hollow between heartbeats.
The darkness tore apart; light and shape began to reform around me until I crashed backward into a chair. Cold metal, deep cushions, it looked like a captain’s seatfrom oneof those sci-fi movies.
We were aboard a ship.
Nythor slid into the console chair beside me, and his long fingers began to dance over screen panels that bloomed with alien script that meant nothing to me and looked all too familiar all at once. I had seen those things a hundred times in movies. His voice was a whisper of amusement as the ship responded.
Panic clawed up my throat. He’d kidnapped me. He’d dragged me out of Zaph’s fortress, out of Ilythas' protection, and onto a God-damned spaceship. Anger surged through me, and I jumped to my feet, half-ready to bolt, half-ready to throw myself at him and claw my way free. My knees wobbled, but adrenaline shoved me forward.
His head turned; his eyes glinted dark. “Sit,” he said softly.
To my utter horror, my bodyobeyed.I collapsed back into the chair, my breath hitched, my hands trembled against the armrests, and my mind screamed at my extremities to get up, to fight, to dosomething,but my limbs refused. A heavy fog pressed down inside my skull, muffling my thoughts, dragging them into a sluggish circle.
I felt him in my head. Cold fingers brushing through the corners of my mind like he was rifling through my memories, testing the weight of my will.
“No,” I rasped in a thin voice that sounded near breaking. “Get out of me?—”
Nythor only smiled; his hands still moved over the controls. “Shhh, little spark. The Dark Abyss opens more easily when you don’t struggle.”
Terror wrapped its icy hands around my heart as his presence pressed deeper, like cold needles threading through my skull. I jerked in the chair, my teeth grinding against the pain.
“Where is Earth?” His voice was soft, almost curious. It sounded way too calm for the agony he was causing me.
The pressure continued to build, sharp and unbearable. It wasn’t just in my head, it was in my chest, my spine, my very bones. Like something inside me was trying to crawl out, tearing at the seams of flesh and soul. I gagged on a sob, clutching at the arms of the seat.
“I—I don’t know!” My voice cracked, the words sounding like a half-scream. “I have no fucking clue where Earth is! Because I have no fucking clue where we are, you sick bastard.”
He tilted his head, unbothered, as if I were a specimen under glass. The sensation shifted, tugging, pulling like invisible hooks raking through my brain.
My stomach lurched. The revulsion was so complete, so alien, I wanted to peel my own skin off just to make it stop. The fog thickened around me, my own thoughts muffled under the weight of his invasion. My soul… it felt like he was tugging at mysoul,trying to wrench it free.
Nythor smiled faintly, his fractured eyes gleaming. “You shine, little spark. Even when you do not know where you burn.”
The words slithered through the agony, and I hated him more than I had ever hated anything in my life. I felt another tug—like a hook tearing at the back of my skull—and I screamed, my body jerked against restraints that weren’t even there. Then, suddenly, the pressure snapped free. The fog receded just enough for me to breathe. Nythor leaned back in his chair. His fractured eyes narrowed, and anger flashed in their depths.
“You really don’t know where,” he murmured, and for the first time, his voice wasn’t sing-song, wasn’t amused. It was cold. “Do you?”
I sagged forward, clutching my head, still trembling. “No,” I rasped, fury and tears burning together. “I told you—I don’t know where Earth is.”
His jaw tightened. “That changes things.”
His long fingers drummed against the armrest, each tap echoing through the chamber like the tick of some cosmic clock. Then, without him touching a single control, the ship shuddered to life. Panels lit, engines thrummed, and through the massive viewing pane before us, the darkness began to shift. The void around us peeled back, and the ship moved forward, accelerating into the lightless abyss.
I lifted my head—my vision was still swimming—just in time to see it: a vast black hole yawning across the stars, the same one that had once dragged me screaming towards it when I was on Rotodex. Only now, it was in reverse.
We were leaving it.
The sight stole the breath from my lungs, a terror I hadn’t felt since that first abduction slammed back into me. The stars warped and bent at the edges of the singularity, as if the universe itself were trying toclaw us back into the dark. My stomach dropped, and all my memories collided—the Cryon ship, the panic, the helplessness.
