And at its center: a pulse.
Faint. Erratic.
Nythor.
His psychic signature flickered like a damaged star, fragmented, bleeding coherence in jagged bursts. Alive, but barely anchored. Nadine went still beside me. "They're not just holding him."
"No." I agreed.
Data poured through the channels, data indicating that the Ohrurs were monitoring him, studying him. My vision narrowed with anger. Not because it was Nythor. I had never liked the bastard, not even before his fracture. Before his mind began to fracture, he had been insufferable, arrogant in the way Oracles often were, convinced proximity to truth excused every sin of personality. If he died screaming in some forgotten hole, the universe would not weep.
But the Ohrurs' audacity hit like a blade between the ribs. They werestudyinghim! An Arkhevari.
They were studying him like an artifact. Like a specimen. Like something that could be dismantled, cataloged, andmonetized. My aura surged, black flooded the edges of my vision, and the shadows in the room deepened as if reality itself recoiled from my temper. The deck beneath my boots groaned, metal protesting the pressure of power I had spent eons learning to leash.
They dared. Theydaredput their hands on one of us. I took a step forward without realizing it; every instinct screamed for violence, for eradication. For an example so brutal that no merchant species would ever again confuse curiosity with entitlement.
Drykken.
I was going to burn Cronack down to bedrock.
"Dravok?" Her voice cut through the surge. Not loud. Not commanding. Concerned. A hand brushed my arm. Tentative. Barely there. "Are you okay?"
The effect was instantaneous. The black receded. Not slowly. Not reluctantly. Itcollapsed. Like a storm breaking against a barrier it could not breach, the rage drained out of me, leaving behind a stunned, hollow quiet. My aura flickered first red, then gold, then steadied into something I had not felt since before the Fall.
Calm. I sucked in a sharp breath, more rattled by that than I had been by the Ohrurs' offense. By the Abyss… how did she?—
Aelyth!
The word slammed into me unbidden, unwelcome, undeniable. Is that what it did? With a touch? With the sound of her voice? I stared down at her hand like it had struck me.
For a moment, she froze and pulled back. "Oh—I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—I shouldn't have—" Then she straightened, and irritation flared fast on the heels of her embarrassment. "Don't look at me like that. Gee. You'd think I burned you or something."
Her shoulders stiffened. Her feelings—human ones, subtle but obvious once you knew how to read them—were hurt. That realization landed wrong. I had never cared about such things before. But now? It suddenly mattered.
I exhaled slowly and forced my fists to unclench. "I wasn't angry at you," I heard myself explain, pushing the words out before my pride could interfere. "I was… surprised."
She crossed her arms, clearly unconvinced.
"When my aura turns black," I continued, resigned now to baring my soul, "people around me tend to get injured. Or worse. I don't come back from that easily." I hesitated before adding the truth I didn't fully understand yet. "You stopped it."
Her brows lifted. "I didwhat?"
I looked away for half a second, then back at her. "You calmed me."
The silence that followed was… different. She blinked once. Then twice. And then—damn her—a slow, smug smile crept onto her face. "Really."
I scowled. "Do not enjoy this."
"Oh, I absolutely am," she puffed her chest out, chin lifted. "You're telling me I just short-circuited an ancient god-warrior with one touch?"
I ground my teeth. Grudgingly, I admitted, "Yes. You did."
Her smile lingered for a heartbeat longer, then softened into something quieter. Curious. Almost proud. The kind of expression that made my chest tighten for reasons I refused to catalog.
Between us, the projection continued to pulse steadily, indifferent to personal revelations. Nythor's prison burned quietly at its center, a reminder that the universe did not pause for moments like this. Reality reasserted itself. My gaze drifted back to the image, the tension in my shoulders settled into something colder, sharper. Purpose. The Ohrur thoughtthey were in control. They were dead wrong. They weren't. Not for much longer anyway. Nadine's breath hitched as her eyes tracked a subtle fluctuation in the data stream. Not the projection itself, but the interference around it.
"Wait," she exclaimed. "They're not just observing him."
