She was alone again.
*
Along time later,Odin's repeated hails brought her back to herself.
"Kira, answer me. Damn it, Kira, the kid is going crazy."
"I'm here."
Kira's throat felt raw and dry as if the outpouring of emotion had sucked the energy out of her.
"Finally," Odin said in relief. "Did you get Jin?"
The walkway under her body vibrated.
Kira turned her head, watching as a Tsavitee war party stamped toward her. Infantry drones, not so affectionately nicknamed demons, made up the ranks.
They spotted her.
The big one in the center barked several guttural commands in Tsavitee.
Would you look at that? The lambs had delivered themselves to the slaughter.
"Kira?" Odin asked.
Kira didn't answer, pulling herself to her feet. Runes wrote themselves on her skin as she raised her face to the ceiling.
She relaxed the stranglehold she’d somehow managed to retain over her inner monster. Her primus surged up from the deep.
*
The aftermath of acarnage confronted Graydon and his oshota when they arrived at the location Finn had indicated.
Streaks of blood smeared the hulls of nearby ships. Headless torsos rested precariously on the edge of the walkway, and a dismembered limb waved at Graydon from the nose of a ship.
"This is—" Solal started before trailing off.
"I finally see why you're so taken with this woman." Torvald studied the massacre with a dispassionate gaze. "This level of blood thirst is terrifying in one so young."
Graydon didn’t hear, his gaze already locked on the woman perched on the beams high above. Crouched up there, her enemies’ blood coating her arms and streaked across her face, she resembled a nightmare.
Her skin was charcoal gray, violet runes scrolled all over it. Her eyes flashed in the same way an animal’s would, catching the light and refracting it.
Abruptly, her gaze shifted from the slaughter to them, the weight of her regard oppressive.
Feeling as if he was in a dream, Graydon started toward her. He didn’t care how this had happened. He was simply grateful she’d survived.
“Careful,” Torvald warned. "I'm not sure what happened, but if she ever had control, it’s gone now."
The primus was a double-edged sword. It was an ultimate weapon, but it was also a weakness.
They were nearly indestructible, graced with an insane amount of speed, power, and strength. The flip side lay in how easy it was to lose yourself in the form.
It was a creature that operated on instinct. Tuann history was littered with tragic tales of Tuann who couldn't control their primus and wound up killing those they loved as a result.
They were never more vulnerable than in the years after their first transformation. It took decades of rigorous training to exert their mind over their primus. It was one of the reasons a child with Kira’s bloodlines wasn’t released into the galaxy unrestricted.
The Tuann knew an uncontrolled primus would cut a wide and bloody swath through the universe before someone finally put it down.
