The ship’s light shifts, narrowing the path ahead. Not blocking it, defining it. It apparently does not like ultimatums. Well neither do I, ship. Neither do I, but for the first time since we entered this vessel, the ship hesitates not because it is confused, but because it is being challenged.
And whatever waits deeper inside, sealed and volatile and unfinished, I will reach it before it reaches her. Because if this war machine still believes it is fighting for survival, then it is about to learn the difference between control—and protection.
I lead the way on, but as we go the path narrows.
That is how I know the ship has accepted my challenge, maybe not willingly, but precisely. It no longer offers accommodation. It offers constraint. Good, I will bend this machine to my will. Whatever it takes to protect her first, then Tajss second.
As I step forward the light adjusts around my mass, thinning at the edges like something reluctantly making space. The floor beneath my claws warms, not for comfort, or welcome, but in tolerance.
Behind me, Lia exhales once, steadying herself, then follows. I immediately feel the way the ship recalibrates around her presence, the way the hum retunes to match her rhythm instead of mine.
It is trying to make her the center again. I angle my wings to block that adjustment. The hum wavers.
“Not like that,” I say aloud.
The ship pauses.
Travnyk lets out a slow breath.
“It is… negotiating.”
“Tell it negotiations require consent,” Tomas mutters.
No one laughs.
The corridor ahead descends, not sharply, but definitely. The walls darken, the pale etchings thinning into narrow threads that glow and fade in measured sequence. This is not a place meant for repeated access. This is where things are stored because they were too volatile to destroy and too valuable to abandon.
The air changes again. Not denser like before, but charged—dry, sharp, prickling along my scales. My instincts snarl. This place remembers violence. It may not know bloodshed but it does know force. It is full of energy turned inward and locked away. Lia’s hand brushes my forearm, not gripping, but maintaining contact. Anchoring.
“I can feel it,” she murmurs. “It doesn’t want us here.”
“Then it should not have led us here,” I reply.
The light hesitates, then reforms. It is thinner and somehow seems less confident. Like, perhaps, the ship is no longer guiding, but is conceding access. The corridor opens into a chamber that makes even my breath catch.
This space is not large, but it is deep. The floor slopes toward a central structure that rises instead of sinks. A column of layered material—dark, translucent, threaded with faint internal light that moves too slowly to be liquid and too fluid to be solid. Bands of containment rings encircle it at intervals, each etched with symbols I do not recognize but instinctively distrust.
I feel the power coiling in this space even though it is not active, more restrained. Travnyk stops short. His tusks gleam faintly as his eyes widen.
“This is not a regulator,” he says quietly.
“No,” Lia whispers beside me. “This is where it sends what it can’t disperse.”
Tomas swallows. “You mean… the poison?”
“Yes,” Lia says. “The excess. The byproduct. Everything I’ve tried to tell it not to bleed into the environment anymore.”
“And if it fills?” Tomas asks.
No one answers him.
The ship hums, a low, strained tone. For the first time since we entered, the sound is imperfect. There’s a tremor in it. It is not failure, yet, but it is definitely stress.
Lia steps forward but I stop her with one hand.
“Say it,” I tell her. “Out loud.”
She closes her eyes for half a breath, then nods.
