Chapter 26 #2
“Round two,” Bekn whispered. “You like cages, don’t you? Let’s see how small yours can get.”
The air pressure dropped. The holo screens curved inward, like the room itself was breathing. Theo whimpered, the sound small, strangled. Sparks danced up his chain, kissing his skin.
“Enough!” Kylix roared. His fire lashed out, pure instinct, catching the edges of the holo. The blue light shattered in a hiss of vapor and glass.
Kylix’s fire flared too bright, heat choking the room until the counters glowed.
Mirel caught his wrist, grip sure. “Enough.” The sound cut through the blaze.
The connection pulsed, heat collapsing into breath, fury swallowed by control.
For a heartbeat, Kylix realized how easily Mirel could steady him.
Everything went dark. For a moment, the only sound was Yure’s ragged breathing. Then the chain at Theo’s throat pulsed with light, and Bekn’s voice returned, so soft it almost sounded like a whisper from inside Kylix’s ear.
“Still keeping the Imperial’s pets in order, Kylix?” The voice came from everywhere, through the walls, through the chain, through Theo’s throat. Kylix’s heat spiked, a tremor in the air that made the cupboards rattle.
“Tell me. Did he send you, or are you still pretending to be your own man?” Aviel’s hand tightened on Theo’s collar, light flared where he touched.
Yure’s console flickered, lines of code jerking into place on their own.
Aviel’s hand stayed at Theo’s throat longer than needed, the glow still pulsing beneath his fingers.
“Submit,” he murmured, voice low enough that only Theo heard.
The chain stilled, light trembling between them.
“Ah. There you are.” The sound shifted, lower, crueler. “Helianth. My golden boy. Miss me?”
Every screen in the room bled white. For a breath the light shaped itself, shoulders, a grin, eyes too bright, Bekn’s ghost rendered in static. Kylix’s hand found Mirel’s wrist, grip hard.
No one moved. “I still hear you scream, little sun. I dream of it.” Yure flinched, Aviel’s jaw locked.
Even Theo, chained and trembling, made a sound that wasn’t quite a sob.
Mirel didn’t need to ask who Helianth was, he felt the memory press against every man in the room. The threat spoke for itself.
Helianth’s voice cracked faintly through Yure’s comm, static cutting every syllable. “Bekn, stop.”
“Stop?” The laugh was quiet, almost tender. “We never stopped. You just left the door open.”
The image flickered again, one last pulse before it died.
A second feed caught in the light. Another cell blinked into view. One captive, about their age, thin and bare-footed, lightning crawling beneath his skin like something alive. His eyes glowed white-blue, electricity threading through the veins at his wrists.
No one spoke. The hum of the holo filled the air, too loud. A spark arced across the bars, then again, as if the energy inside him wanted out.
Before anyone could move, Mirel stepped forward, drawn as if the air itself pulled him.
“Mirel,” Moargan warned, but it was too late.
Frost bloomed across Mirel’s palm as it touched the glass. On the nearest screen the captive’s head jerked, eyes flaring white. The pulse ran through every monitor at once, light bursting in a chain.
“Good Light,” Helianth breathed. “He’s reacting to him.”
“He’s Dariux,” Kylix said. A charge crawled over his arms, the hair at his nape lifted. The air hummed with mirrored power, frost and lightning folding together in a single heartbeat before the feed shattered into static.
“Cut it,” Kylix ordered.
But before anyone could move, the boy froze mid-scream, every muscle locked, and then the entire image collapsed into static. The air reeked of ozone. Mirel’s pulse kicked hard.
Kylix struck the nearest console. Fire hissed, metal warped. “End it!” Yure killed the power. The screens went black. The silence that followed was thick enough to taste.
Aviel crouched beside Theo, voice low. “He was waiting for us.”
Kylix’s jaw tightened. “Not waiting. Listening.”
From somewhere inside the dead hardware, a final breath escaped, distorted, half-laughter, half-machine. “Round two, princes.”
Yure rubbed at his temples, still staring at the dark screens. “Don’t trust the silence,” he rasped. “The stream wasn’t live. It was looping itself, feeding on us. Whatever Bekn sent, it’s bait.”
Kylix didn’t wait for the lights to return. He caught Mirel by the wrist and pulled him into the corridor, the hum still clinging to their bones. Each step echoed too loud. The air smelled of smoke and iron.
Mirel’s breath came uneven. “That voice—”
“Don’t.” Kylix’s tone was low, protective. “He’s gone for now. Just residue. But now you understand why I want you safe. He’s after anyone with Dariux blood.”
“Why?”
Kylix’s grin was cruel. “Little boy’s syndrome, if you’re asking me. We
must have killed his papa during an Aureate. I sure as fuck hope we did.”
They stopped near the back door. Cold wind leaked through the frame. Kylix turned him, hands firm on his shoulders. “You are mine to protect. Will you let me?”
Mirel stared at him, one eye ember, the other pale blue. At last, he nodded. “I, so alone. Then you came.”
“That’s right, darae. Then I came. And I’m not going anywhere. Neither are you.”
Their joined palms hissed quietly as heat met skin.
Somewhere behind them, Yure’s console blinked once, a faint blue pulse, and died.
Outside, Zephyr’s skyline pulsed red against the night.
Each tower flickered with static light, thousands of eyes open, recording, feeding, waiting.
Somewhere, another feed was already starting to stream.
The silence held after Bekn’s voice vanished. The air still smelled faintly of burnt circuits, ozone curling against the back of Mirel’s throat. Nobody moved.
Vandor was the first to speak, voice steady, low. “Systems offline.” He crossed the room, disconnecting one terminal after another until the last hum died. Only then did the tension start to ease.
Moargan poured the rest of his drink straight into the sink, watching it swirl before turning off the light above the bar. “He’s not gone,” he muttered. “Just waiting.”
Mirel stayed close to Kylix, their wrists brushing each time the other shifted. The contact was small but grounding. He could still feel the echo of the frost under his skin, the same shimmer he’d seen in Norma’s room. Now it pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat in the dark.
Aviel guided Theo toward the corridor, his hand resting at the back of the boy’s neck. Neither spoke. The chain dragged once against the floor before disappearing around the corner.
Helianth leaned against the counter, eyes unfocused. “He sounded the same,” he said quietly. “It’s only been weeks, but it feels longer. Like he never left.”
“He hasn’t,” Moargan said. “Men like that don’t move forward. They rot in place and call it power.”
Kylix didn’t answer. He turned to Yure instead. “Shut down every network path that touched that feed. Everything.”
Yure nodded, fingers trembling as he began the process. “On it.”
The room dimmed again. Outside, night settled heavy and close. The storm that had threatened all day finally broke, rain streaking across the glass walls. Each flash of lightning threw their reflections into motion, a room full of ghosts staring back.
Mirel exhaled, slow. His throat felt tight, the taste of smoke still there. When Kylix touched his shoulder, the world narrowed to that single point of heat.
The monitor went dead. Heat fell out of the air.
Yure’s fingers flew. “Got it! Got it,” he breathed, half laugh, half swear. “While he was preening, a wall slipped. I’ve got a live path.”
Helianth didn’t look away from the blank screen. “Please don’t tell me it’s the warehouse grid again. Those bastards already made fools of us once.”
“They won’t do it twice,” Kylix said, voice low, the sound more growl than words. “Show me.”
Yure expanded the image, streams of light sliding across the map. “Not the factory blocks,” he said quickly. “Closer to the port. Sky pier Nineteen, north side. The feed’s clean. No loop, no static.”
Kylix watched the pattern settle, jaw tight. “They hid in plain sight. They thought I’d rush. Not this time.”
The room held still, the air thick with the echo of Bekn’s laughter.
“We don’t rush and lose them,” Kylix said finally. “We prepare.”
“Come,” he said quietly. “Enough for tonight.”
Mirel followed him through the empty corridor. Behind them, the lights flickered once and steadied. The building hummed on, pretending to be alive.
Outside, the air smelled clean again. Rain hit the pavement in hard, cold drops. Kylix’s coat brushed Mirel’s arm as they walked to the car. Neither spoke. They didn’t need to.
The city had turned black and silver under the storm, the towers flickering like old memories. For the first time since entering that room, Mirel’s breathing evened out.
When Kylix opened the car door, he paused, scanning the skyline before gesturing for Mirel to get in. His eyes caught the glow of the streetlights, ember-bright.
“He won’t touch you,” Kylix said finally. It wasn’t a promise made out of pride, but a quiet statement of fact.
Mirel nodded, climbing inside. The door closed with a soft click.