Trebuchet’s voice, calm and cold, comes next, soft as syn-oxide dripping: “A king must learn humility before he crowns his bride.”
The bubble jerks. Hooks catch under my arms, snap-locks fasten around shoulders and wrists. I’m lifted — suspended — a cargo of rage. My limbs flail; each movement sends bone-plates grinding and joints screaming. I feel every brittle fracture they once healed, every war-scar crack under stress.
Freya’s scream splits the air — somewhere distant, muffled by corridors and locking doors. I strain forward, claw-hand scraping against the invisible wall — nails ripping grooves in air that doesn’t yield. I see her silhouette, tossed roughly by two traitors: one sweaty, roaring; one calm, mechanical, darker than guilt.
“Hold her!” one of them commands. He smacks her side with the butt of a rifle. She tries to brace — curls up — but the impact tilts her. Her head snaps. Eyes roll upward. Body goes slack.
“No!” I roar. It’s not a war-cry, not a challenge. It’s agony — a broken howl of love, betrayal, and failure wrapped in one. The bubble shakes violently, then hisses as power surges. A halo of blue-white arcs across the wall — chance flickering like dying hope. But the locks hold. The prison stays tight.
A stretcher-skiff rides into place beneath me. I’m lowered — limp as a corpse — into its cradle. The crate-walls rise instantly, sealing me inside. The world tilts. Blood, sweat, metal. The pungent stink of charred wiring, scorched walls, betrayed blood. I catch only fragments: the roar of dread, the moans of other wounded defenders, the faint whine of engines starting up.
Through a viewport I glimpse the compound shrinking — lights flickering, fires licking corridors, chaos blooming like a sickness. The traitors speak of “rebirth,” of casting off old bones, forging new blood. Their voices echo distant and cold inside the transport — the promise of ash and ruin.
Then the skiff jolts. We drop.
The bottom falls out.
The chute opens.
Darkness swallows me whole.
The fall lasts too long.Time warps. My body slams against containment ribs of the bubble — force ricocheting through joints, rattling bone-straps, bleeding pain that crushes breath out of lungs. The bubble vibrates like a dying star. I hear metal screaming, the snap of supporting ribs giving way — then nothing but crushing blackness and the slow drip of blood echoing in my ears.
The final blow is silence: a hollowthud, then the snap-crack of energy dispersal. The sphere shatters around me — glass spatter of light and distorted noise. I free-fall through the air, arms flailing, lungs burning. A hiss of stale wind, rock scraping teeth, stone edges sliding razor-sharp under my belt and spurred boots.
My spine slams the wall of the crevasse. Hard. Bone-plate shuds, joints compress. Pain rips tooth-deep. My ribs snap over each other like dry branches under weight. My vision bleeds — white-light sparks behind dark lids.
My senses go out quicker than dreams. The world spins — a vortex of dust, rock, shattered oxygen — and I fight to stay alive. Not for me. Not for revenge. For her.
Consciousness fades, but instinct claws. Bone memory. Survival muscle-reflex. I roll against the stone floor. Black gravel bites. Cold seeps into armor plate, seeps into marrow. My claws dig deep — cracking grit under nails. I grip the jagged rock with every ounce of strength left.
Pain screams. Blood fills my mouth with iron and salt. My lungs burn. Each breath a battle. But I taste something else — something solid, something valuable: purpose.
Her name echoes in my skull. Freya.
I refuse to die.
CHAPTER 21
FREYA
Iwake to darkness that tastes like ash.
My head pounds — a drumbeat behind my eyes that throbs with every breath. My mouth is dry, my tongue heavy, and when I try to move, pain flares across shoulders, ribs, thigh. But the worst part — the part that sinks first — is the silence. The absence of the ship, absence of metal hum, absence of comfort.
I stare blind for a moment. Nothing but black. Then slowly — painfully — I realize: I’m not alone in this dark. I’m contained. Bound. Broken.
My arms feel too heavy to raise. Fingers don’t respond right. I try to shift; the mattress — if you can call the slab I’m pressed against a mattress — groans under me. I taste metal and rot and fear. I breathe — raw air, stale, stripped of ventilation flow. The smell of damp stone, rust. Cold. Wrong.
I force my eyes to focus. The cell is small. Four walls I can’t see in the gloom, but I feel their closeness. A low ceiling. Hard floor slats. I can faintly detect a dull green glow from a single panel overhead — weak, flickering. The light casts long shadows.
And there — across from me — something moves. A shape. Silent. Still.
“Awake.” The voice echoes off stone, soft and low, but every guttering vibration in it carries cold malice.
My head snaps toward the sound. I blink once. Twice. The shape resolves — a man. Or something pretending to be a man. Bare metal plating where flesh should stretch, sharp edges, seams, a thin wire running from the jawline up to a skull plate. One eye glows red, pulsing slow — like a wounded beast waiting to strike.
My heart lurches.
