Thalyn Ka’el remained in the ancient throne as it returned to its upright state, her breath shallow from the weight of her experience.
Across the chamber, Korr Draven and Dr. Elara Voss leaned over a strange artifact, their voices like sharp blades cutting through the quiet. Korr, in his worn suit, turned the device over in his hands, his beady eyes bright with an almost feverish intensity. “It’s a scanner,” he muttered, as he ran his fingers along its edges, feeling for hidden seams, a scavenger with a prize. “It diagnoses something, but what?”
Elara watched him with a slight smile, her misty blue face a mask of calm, her fingers tapping lightly against her thigh. “We’ll figure it out,” she said softly. The earlier scans had been a mess, a jumble of data, unreadable even to Korr’s keen eyes.
He stood crouched over a half-lit scanner, his skeletal fingers twitching around it, whining softly in the quiet. He didn’t look up as she approached, but the moment he registered her presence, his gaze snapped up, sharp, expectant.
“Thalyn, let me try this on you,” he said, holding the scanner out.
She hesitated, looking at the dark screen, then nodded. “Go ahead,” she said, hoping her steady voice didn’t show unease.
A pale line swept her form, crawling upward in slow increments. The scanner clicked twice.
“Something’s different.” Korr’s brow furrowed, his focus narrowing to a point, eyes locked on the shifting glyphs. “Your scan… it’s not like ours.” He turned slightly, not fully away, muttering as he adjusted the device, mind still engaged.
She took a half-step back, letting her eyes drift. Something in the air had shifted.
A hiss broke the silence.
Stone shuddered behind them, followed by the slow exhale of pressure equalizing. The sealed door at the rear of the chamber peeled open. Dust spiraled in the threshold light, backlit by flickering glyphs. The sentinel droid, silent since their brush with the guardian, stood framed in the passage.
Now it moved, head tilted, optics flaring.
“You are welcome to remain, mistress. For as long as you choose.” Its voice was even, almost reverent.
Then, without ceremony, it turned and strode into the dark corridor beyond. The door whispered shut behind it.
No one spoke, then footsteps came fast on stone.
Commander Hurst burst into the chamber, mask dangling from one hand, the other still gloved in stone dust.
“What happened, Elara? Why the call?”
She gestured toward the closed door. “The droid. It opened the passage. Spoke to her.”
His gaze cut to Thalyn. “Spoke to you?”
She nodded. “Called me mistress. Said we could stay.”
He stared at the sealed doorway, jaw working, then stepped closer, eyes narrowing at the darkness beyond.
He muttered something under his breath and turned back to her. “Well?”
“I don’t know,” Thalyn shrugged.
Korr straightened, the scanner slack in his hand. “Maybe the scan triggered it.”
“It didn’t move until you pointed that thing at her,” Elara said. “Maybe it recognized something in her.”
Thalyn shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. It happened.” Her jaw set. “I’m fine.”
She stepped to the throne. The droid’s voice still echoing in her mind, then she remembered the cascade of memories Arvie had poured into her mind.
“Whatever,” she said. “Arvie filled me in after I woke.”
“Elaborate,” Korr muttered.
“Top-tier upgrades, it seems,” she said. “Fast healing, heightened senses, adapting to that damn fog out there... but she couldn’t pin down my race. Said I didn’t match anything in her database.”
Elara’s brow lifted. “Not in her database?”
Thalyn shrugged. “Arvie can control droids, hack systems, but she needs Neurolink repaired to be at full strength. And there’s a diary in my head, recording everything since I woke up, full sensory playback.” Her lips twitched, a brief smile. “Like me now,” she added, her voice softening.
Hurst moved off, muttering. Set down his gear with a clatter on the shelf. “I’m getting some sleep.”
He glanced at Thalyn once more. Then slipped behind the curtain into the makeshift restroom.
She watched him go. Her face unreadable. Then turned to Elara.
“I saw him,” she murmured. “In the mirror. Tall, lean. Hair like smoke in twilight.”
She paused.
“His face, sharp, calculating. Edges clean. Skin with a kind of glow. But the eyes… green like mine, but deeper, like they could see through you, see everything.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
Korr’s head jerked up, his face animated. “I might’ve heard of a race like that,” he said. “Tall, ethereal, revered by the divines. Druvvak, they’re called. Almost mythical, barely more than a rumor.”
Elara’s violet lips curled. “A race so rare, yet treasured by the divines. There’s a kind of poetry to that.”
Korr’s eyes flickered. “If Echo was Druvvak... then everything changes. Why was he there?”
Thalyn felt the chill slide beneath her skin. She turned, looked again at the throne, its metal frame still gleaming with an otherworldly light.
“Only one way to know,” she said, stepping forward.
She eased herself into the throne’s embrace, felt its cold touch spread across her back. The crown hovered nearby, waiting. With a deep breath, she set it on her head, the cold metal pressing into her temples.
As the chamber dissolved into darkness, Arvie’s voice slipped into her thoughts, light and teasing. “Be ready,” it whispered, a laugh lingering at the edges. “To be captured, interrogated, and abducted.”
Thalyn closed her eyes as the world began to fall away, the present slipping like water through her fingers. She felt the pull of the past, its grip tightening as it began to come alive again. With a final breath, she let herself go.143Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzKAQxMjOGz
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