Thalyn stirred as the throne eased her upright, the cold metal pressing against her palms, now familiar. The chamber sharpened slowly around her. The blinding light of the memory left an aftershock behind her eyes, her limbs still tingling with the phantom pain of Echo's last moments. She blinked, clearing her vision, and took in the place.
Korr Draven hunched over the scanner, muttering like a man caught in prayer. His fingers danced over the screen in jittery patterns, tapping, swiping, never resting. The device whined with an erratic beat, like it had a pulse of its own, syncing with the energy flickering in his eyes.
Commander Hurst slouched against the stone wall, pallid and drenched in sweat.
Dr. Voss stood nearby, arms folded, and posture rigid. Her fingers drummed against her sleeve with suppressed urgency. “Enough, commander,” she said, her voice taut. “You’re not well.”
“I’m fine,” Hurst rasped, brushing her off with a dismissive wave. “Don’t start.”
Thalyn pushed herself upright, her legs uncertain beneath her, a familiar tremor running through her calves. “What happened?”
Elara didn’t look away from Hurst. “He won’t say. But something hit him hard.”
“It's nothing,” Hurst grunted. “I don’t need a nursemaid.”
Thalyn moved in closer, searching his face. “How are you feeling?”
“Dizzy,” he admitted, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “Weak… but nothing I can't handle.”
She nodded, almost smiling. “Just like me when I wake on the throne.”
Hurst huffed a dry laugh. “Maybe I’m dreaming too.”
“Stuck between here and Solastis,” she replied, matching his tone.
He snorted, but his face twisted with pain.
Elara’s gaze sharpened, snapping to Korr. “Korr, did you notice anything happen?” She asked, voice tight as a wire. “While I was watching over Thalyn?”
Korr’s hands stilled over the device. His beady eyes flicked up, then darted back to the glowing screen. “I… might have scanned him,” he muttered. “While he was out. Just to get a baseline.”
Elara’s voice chilled. “You did what?”
“I needed the data…”
“You didn’t ask,” Elara snapped, stepping toward him. The quiet coiled in her tone was infinitely more dangerous than a shout. “And you didn’t have a medic on hand. If something had triggered a response, we wouldn’t have known until it was too late.”
Korr gave a small nod, chastened, but his fingers hovered over the console like they itched to continue. “Noted,” he said, though his eyes didn’t leave the readout.
“We don’t know how this tech works. If it’s more than a passive scanner. No more scans. Not until we know what we’re dealing with. We wait for a proper sanctum.”
Korr didn’t argue. But his gaze stayed locked on the screen.
Hurst pushed off the wall, hiding a sharp wince by quickly reaching for his gear. He grabbed the drill, his knuckles white. “I feel better,” he muttered. The fine tremor in his jaw told a completely different story. “It passed.”
He turned to Thalyn, forcing a tight grin through the tension. “Your turn. What did you see?”
Thalyn held his look a moment, then closed her eyes, letting the memory settle. “I was herded into the Directorate. Scanned, stripped, treated like an infected specimen,” she said. “Then Nether beasts breached the city, but that was cover. Someone inside hijacked the panic. A Directorate officer betrayed and abducted me. That’s all.”
Korr’s frown deepened. “A coordinated abduction. Inside the Directorate?”
Thalyn nodded, the chill lingering in her bones. “They had someone inside.”
Elara’s gaze flicked back to Hurst’s white-knuckled grip on the drill. “We should eat.”
They opened ration packs, the stale, synthetic taste clinging to their tongues as they chewed in the heavy silence. The throne’s presence loomed behind Thalyn like a quiet, dormant storm, while the ancient consoles hummed and flickered in the periphery.
Hurst rose first, gathering his gear. “Back to the minerals,” he grunted. “Keep an eye out.”
Elara’s hand half-lifted to stop him, but she let it fall back to her side. He wasn’t asking for help, and she knew better than to challenge his command in front of the others.
Thalyn gave her a slight nod of unspoken solidarity, but the pull of the throne was already coiling deep in her chest. With a slow breath, she turned and settled back into its cold embrace, the weight of the crown settling heavy on her brow.
The world around her dissolved at the edges, reality slipping away, shadows deepened, senses dulled, and a mocking whisper slipped in like oil through cracks.
“Children shouldn’t play with the tools of their elders….”
Thalyn tensed, recognizing Arvie’s sly tone. But the world was already gone, fading into a place where time held no meaning.477Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkVrxsVg6Sk
and then Add to home screen.