Chapter 6 #3
Rhyden scoffed and mumbled something under his breath—something that sounded an awful lot like, You shouldn’t have been with her last night, then.
Nessen turned away from the monitors. "He’s right. No outside sources interfering. If my observations are correct, the Nova inside her is different than that found in the Rogues. Understanding it could explain her absent Stella."
Nessen hobbled to a table and lifted an empty syringe. The long needle gleamed. "I’ll take a sample of your blood and compare the genetic markers to the Rogue blood I have." He nodded his head to a small medical fridge near the monitors.
Rin tensed. Her heart began to race.
She wasn’t even aware she was panicking until Lucien crouched before her. "Give us a minute," he said without breaking eye contact with her. "Vesperin, it’s okay. If you don’t want to do this, you do not have to. We can find another way to figure all of this out."
Rin shook her head, trying to regain her composure. It was easier, without staring at the needle. "No, I want—I need to do this. We need to understand why the Nova inside my heart is different. Maybe… maybe this can help me get my Stella back?"
She just wanted to be normal—and if normal was allowing herself to be poked, prodded, and tested, then she would pay that price. The mere thought of having her Stella and being able to use it… It was all she’d ever dreamed of.
"Let’s do this." Rin tried to sound brave.
Lucien nodded and stepped back, his hand on her shoulder.
As Nessen approached with the needle, Lucien kept her face turned toward his, not allowing her to look away.
A small, cool cloth wiped the crease of her elbow. She tensed as she felt Nessen’s cold fingers prod her flesh, looking for a vein.
A small prick. She held her breath as she felt her blood being pulled from inside her—a strange feeling, not dissimilar to when Rhyden had drunk from her.
At the thought of the vampire, she met his eyes. Rhyden had a hand pressed to his mouth and nose, shoulders tense, eyes pinned to the spot where Nessen slowly drew her red blood into the vial atop the syringe.
Rin swallowed and looked away.
When Nessen withdrew the needle and moved to carefully place the vial of her blood in the fridge, he turned to the monitor and enlarged the body scan, highlighting the empty spot where her Stella should be.
This, she was used to—the creak of the circular device as he swung it to her chest, and the faint thrum from the electrodes at her temples as they read her vitals.
Lucien’s hand left her.
Untethered, her fingers twisted against the leather of the chair, unable to let her eyes close, lest she fall back into those nightmarish memories with Kit—the humming of electricity, the seizing of her body.
Her half-lidded eyes met Cyrus’s, and she didn’t look away from him, and he didn’t look away from her. As if, even without tasting her emotions, he could just tell, she was one breath away from breaking.
Rin couldn’t help but find the deep shadows beneath Cyrus’s eyes a bit alarming. Everything about the incubus seemed muted. His complexion was ashen, his hair seemed a bit more flat, and the purple in his eyes was dull.
As the machine whirred, Rin wondered if Cyrus was feeding enough.
Lucien tensed, watching Nessen’s brows knit together as he leaned forward, staring at the monitor. He reached for a dial, adjusted it, and the machine’s whirr ticked up in pace.
Nessen hummed, mouth tugging down at the corners.
The monitor registered Vesperin’s sudden spike in heart rate.
"What?" Vesperin’s soft voice broke through, that single word sending tension straight through Lucien’s bones. "What is it?"
Nessen remained quiet for a moment, continuing to stare at the monitors. His hand waved, pulling up another screen—her vitals.
The numbers flickered imperceptibly. Any doctor would recognize the subtle, unnatural pattern.
The outline of her body flickered occasionally on the largest monitor. At its center pulsed the hollow mass that marked the absence of her Stella.
"Your heart rate," said Nessen. "It is still exceptionally resilient. Even after the—Pulse. I wonder if it would recover well under stress?" he mumbled as if to himself.
"Is that a problem?" Rhyden interjected.
Lucien’s hand shook, and he let it fall to the back of Vesperin’s chair to hide the faint tremors.
If anyone found out he had used harmony…
"It is a variable," Nessen replied. "There seems to be interference. Her vitals are unreadable. Unsteady. It is something I have seen referenced before."
The weight of a journal in his hands, the scratch of a pen’s tip against the thick paper.
A room made of Daria rock to regulate temperature, leaving him always chilled.
Slippers sliding across pristine floors as he paced.
The swish of robes and tickle of his long, black hair against his elbow as he bent over the pages—writing his theories and ideas, until his hand grew numb.
Staring out at the courtyard and the purple-tinged eve, colored by the two moons.
And the quiet feeling that he should never speak of it, even as he wrote—
Standing before a council and proposing his research, expecting to be turned down, but instead met with wicked eyes, thinking only of what his research could do for them.
"I have found that Earth Stella can be a valuable asset in keeping organisms alive.
I have used my Stella to continue the existence of smaller organisms when they are faced with extenuating circumstances from experimentation.
An incredible phenomenon occurred: I could control them.
" Lucien’s voice echoed in the white stone room of the scientific and research council building.
He stood at the base of the chamber, faces peering down at him from a sea of robes.
Echoes of invalid findings resounded, stopped only by a hand raised. A blur of a face.
"No, let him speak. Share your findings, Quenlan," a feminine voice rang out.
Lucien unveiled what was covered on the low observation table to his side.
As the white sheet was pulled away, a glass box with a tiny creature was revealed.
A nireloo, a small mammal with four legs and splotchy fur.
It was barely the size of Lucien’s palm.
A native of Tarz, known for its heat resilience.
Severe cold was deadly to the creatures.
Lucien pressed a button on the side of the box, and frost began to fill the air within.
The nireloo hopped and chittered. He turned the dial up, making the air colder, and just before the nireloo began to fall over, he let his Stella seep out, green glimmers filling the air as he touched the nireloo’s heart, steadying its beat and slowly acclimatizing it to the frigid temperatures.
Slowly, the nireloo stood and shook its tiny head, then twirled in fast circles. It stopped by the glass and rose on its hind legs, its slitted orange eyes blinking up at him as if it adored him.
Lucien turned back to the council and waited for them to speak.
Slow claps filled the air.
"I see that you have proven your research is well-founded, but how do you propose it might translate to a larger specimen, Quenlan?"
"I would have to do further research, but it would need to remain merely theoretical, as the moral and ethical basis of this procedure is highly dubious. I do not feel right enacting it upon a human subject. This process allows for a unique type of neurochemical imprinting."
A low hum of displeasure rippled through the council.
"Well, Quenlan, that is to be discussed at a later time, after it is perfected with smaller specimens, if you please. Now, tell me, what do you call this phenomenon?"
Lucien met the woman’s eyes, wondering why her face was blurry. "Harmony."
He was brought out of the strange memory, with the face he could not quite recall, by the sound of Vesperin’s voice. She peered up at him, her grey eyes wide and still so full of trust. "Referenced where?"
Nessen turned away from the monitors and shuffled toward a small filing cabinet lining the far wall.
His movements were slow and deliberate. His voice rose the further he walked, echoing around them.
"In old research. Discredited in most circles and viewed as highly dangerous.
The methodology was… unethical. But the thorough findings changed Stella theory. "
Lucien went very still, his fingers unable to keep their grip on the back of Vesperin’s chair as his hand fell to her shoulder. She jumped slightly and turned to look up again. Whatever she saw on his face made her features grow contemplative.
Nessen opened one of the drawers and withdrew a thick, worn journal.
The cover was cracked with age, the edges softened as if it had been read a thousand times.
He turned it over in his hands before walking back to them, continuing, "A theory founded on Tarz centuries ago.
It proposed a unique synchronization could be found between one with Earth Stella and a normal Soul.
This synchronization would alter biological responses.
Neural tolerance. Pain thresholds. Cardiovascular strength. " His red eyes flicked to Lucien.
"This synchronization was called harmony. This text is highly sought after. There have been duplicates, but I was able to procure the original years ago—in its native language. I had to use a lingual decoder to translate it. It was auctioned at an underground market. Cost me a pretty penny. When I first met you, your name sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t figure out where I had heard it before.
It had been a while since I studied the journal—as time has passed, the findings have grown obsolete.
" The doctor turned the journal’s cover out so that they could all see.
Engraved in gold at the bottom right corner—a name written in the complex, flowing symbols of the Tarzian language. "The works of a Lucien Quenlan."