I watched the way her shoulders remained squared, the way her dark hair caught the holographic light. Impressive didn’t even begin to cover it. She stood among gods and Superior Commanders and gave ground to none of us. The Aelyth bond sang in recognition, heat curled low in my gut despite every vow I’d made to keep my distance.
Xandros’ eyes narrowed with fresh calculation. Zapharos and Dravok exchanged a weighted glance. The humans leaned in closer, their voices rising in excitement and speculation. But my focus stayed locked on her. Always her. Naeris. My Aelyth. The female who was quickly becoming the most dangerous variable in this entire war.
I stayed exactly where I was, shoulder against the wall, arms still crossed. My body hummed whenever Naeris moved, every time her voice cut through the room. She was magnetic without even trying.
Nadine, the sharp-eyed astrophysicist, tilted her head, her mind clearly racing along logical pathways. “If aliens descended helter-skelter from the sky, snatching people from what was presumably a central, thriving civilization… what would the early humans have done?”
Ashley answered without hesitation, her soldier's posture snapped into place. “Retreat. Scatter into nearby forests or mountains, anywhere with natural cover and difficult access. You don’t stand and fight superior air power with spears and stone tools. You hide. You make yourselves hard to find.”
Ella nodded slowly, still turning the dual-layered holovid with careful fingers. “Makes sense. Fragmented settlements. Hidden enclaves. Oral traditions passed down in secret.”
Nadine looked directly at Naeris. “So after what? A few hundred years? A thousand? When did the Sythari finally stop?”
Naeris’ fingers paused on the palmtop. “Roughly six hundred Earth years.”
The three human females exchanged a long, heavy look, trying to digest the scale of it.
“Almost a millennium,” Ella breathed, “living under the constant threat of being taken by… whatever they thought these beings were.”
“Would they have seen them as gods?” Ashley asked.
Ella nodded. “It would make sense. Beings descending from the sky in ships that must have looked like chariots of fire or divine vessels. Power beyond anything they could comprehend.”
Naeris shook her head, and some of her dark strands slid over her shoulder. “Remember, you cannot think of them as the kind of humans you know. They were Ashera’s descendants. They carried more than primitive minds and fragile bodies. They carriedherblood. Her knowledge passed down over generations.”
That statement landed like a live charge in the room. The females immediately dove into it, voices overlapping in rapid speculation. I chanced a glance at the other males in the room and found their attentions raptly focused on their mates, just as enthralled with them as I was by Naeris.
“So maybe they weren’t completely helpless,” Nadine speculated. “Some latent abilities? Heightened intuition? Maybe even forms of the same gifts Naeris talked about?”
Ashley crossed her arms. “Or they developed countermeasures. Hidden cave systems. Warning networks. Rituals or technologies that tapped into whatever power Ashera left in their line. Stories ofsky godscould have been both worshipandwarnings.”
Ella zoomed the ancient Earth overlay again, her eyes bright with an archaeologist’s hunger. “It explains the sudden gaps in the fossil and archaeological record. If entire populationsvanished or relocated en masse, it would explain myths that appear across disconnected cultures: sky beings, divine punishment, chosen ones taken to the stars. They weren’t just primitive humans running scared. They were fighting to preserve something sacred.”
Naeris watched them, a faint, almost proud curve touched her lips. “They resisted longer than anyone expected. Some bloodlines stayed hidden for generations. Others… were taken. But the core of Ashera’s line endured. That is why I exist. Why the Sythari keep us contained in their world.”
Contained.
Not captured. Not sold.Contained.
My attention snapped awake, every instinct I possessed locking onto that single word like prey. The Sythari hadn’t merely harvested Ashera’s descendants the way they harvested other humans. They had kept Naeris’ bloodlinecontained. Deliberately. Systematically. Like something too valuable—or too dangerous—to be allowed to roam free. I reached for her mind without thinking.
The golden thread flared hot between us as I brushed against the outer edges of her thoughts, seeking answers, seekingher. For half a heartbeat, I tasted it—lashes of dark corridors, orange-skinned guards, the cold certainty of orders given from up high—before a wall of pure, blazing light slammed into me and hurled me out.
Naeris’ head whipped toward me. Her glare was sharp enough to cut starsteel. A hard mental push followed, forceful and precise, like a dagger driven straight into the base of my skull. Discomfort bloomed behind my eyes, bright and stinging. I didn’t flinch. Couldn’t have if I’d wanted to.
Instead, a low, dark amusement rolled through my chest. Impressive. Most beings couldn’t even sense an Arkhevariprobe, let alone throw one back with that kind of control. My little rebel had teeth.
And secrets. Because if the Sythari had kept her peoplecontained, then how in the void had she ended up running with rebels? When had she broken free? What had she seen? What had they done to her to make her fight so fiercely?
I wanted it all. Every memory. Every scar. Every name of every bastard who had ever laid a hand on her. I wanted to crawl inside her mind and pull the truth out piece by piece, until there was nothing left hidden between us. The Abyss inside me stirred, hungry for the knowledge, for theherthat no one else had ever been allowed to touch.
My fingers itched for the hilt of my blade. Whoever had hurt her—whoever had dared cage Ashera’s last true daughter—would die screaming. I could already feel the weight of my sword in my hand, the satisfying drag as I sharpened it later tonight in anticipation.
Naeris held my stare a moment longer, warning clear in those luminous eyes.Stay out.
The corner of my mouth twitched.Make me.
The golden thread between us pulled tighter, almost painful now, as if the bond itself approved of the challenge.
