“Hold the line. Protect what comes next.”
The words burn straight through me, but I’m not hearing them—it’s more like I’m remembering. My knees buckle. I would fall except Rakkh’s arm closes around my waist.
“Lia!” His voice sounds far away. “Look at me.”
I can’t. The images keep flickering—too fast to catch, too coherent to ignore.
A sense of urgency coils inside my chest that isn’t mine. The woman in those flashes—whoever she was—built this thing. Created it and fed it purpose. And that purpose is still alive.
I drag a breath through my teeth, forcing my eyes open. The corridor is back. The glow. The hum. The weight of Rakkh’s arm steady around me, but the ship is still echoing in my head, like a song caught under my ribs.
Travnyk steps close, his voice measured. “What did it show you?”
I shake my head. My voice comes out hoarse. “It didn’t show, really—it’s more like… I remembered.”
“Remembered what?” Tomas asks, looking like he wants to crawl backward out of the ship.
I meet Rakkh’s eyes—sharp, molten, watching me too closely.
“Someone,” I whisper. “She was afraid. Angry. She said that line again—hold the line; protect what comes next.”
The ship hums, louder at the phrase, as if agreeing. Rakkh’s jaw tightens, and his wings rustle, sounding like leather rubbing against itself.
“Is that voice why it listens to you?” he asks.
“I think…” I pause, throat tight. “I think she built it. Or maybe it built itself around her orders. It’s not exactly showing me images, but it is running memories.”
Travnyk kneels, touching one palm to the wall.
“Residual logic echo. You are, somehow, recognized as being within its chain of authority.”
That sounds like an explanation, but it feels like a curse.
I step out of Rakkh’s hold slowly. The metal underfoot ripples faintly with each heartbeat.
Every pulse feels like recognition. Every breath feels borrowed.
“This isn’t a recording,” I whisper. “It’s a feeling. A living memory trying to finish what it started.”
The hum deepens again, responding to my voice. Rakkh’s wing sweeps slightly forward, a wall of living muscle between me and the dark ahead.
“Then we move carefully,” he says.
“Carefully,” I echo, though the word feels thin. Because deep down, I already know?—
the ship isn’t just waking.
It’s remembering too. Remembering the one who built it. Its purpose.
The ship goes quiet?—
Not silent—never silent—but the hum drops so low it becomes pressure instead of sound, a weight that settles behind my eyes and along my spine. The glow drains from the walls in a slow, deliberate withdrawal, leaving only thin lines of pale light etched into the metal like scars.
This is not calm; it’s focus.
Rakkh feels it too. His posture shifts, wings drawing in tighter, muscles coiling beneath his scales. He’s gone still in that way predators do when the world narrows to a single point.
“What now,” Tomas whispers, voice barely there.
