22. Rhykor #3
Varrik finds me in the armory as I'm sealing the last plate on my vest.
"Team's assembled and routes are mapped.
Comm relay is live." He leans in the doorway, cane against the frame, his face carrying an expression I've only seen once before, specifically on the night he told me about the battle that took his wing and the soldier who threw himself onto a grenade to save him. "You know what this is, Rhykor."
"I know."
"If the tunnels hold, the machines cooperate, the access codes work, and we navigate Daxos's demolition network safely—if all of that goes right—we still have to fight through whatever Legion has built down there." He shifts his weight off the bad leg. "This could be a one-way trip."
"I know that too."
"And you're going anyway."
"Varrik," I turn to face him. He stands against the doorframe, carrying the weight of decades spent following commanders into fights that should have killed him. "You've followed me into worse."
"I have walked in your shadow in more places than I can count.
" He straightens, his expression hardening with an unyielding clarity that reflects a long-held decision.
"When you were Command’s weapon, I stood by you.
My loyalty held when you ran supply drops to refugees in the dark, and it persevered through the moment you fell in love with a human medic to let it rewrite everything you thought you were.
" He plants the cane and pushes off the doorframe, standing as tall as his broken body allows.
"Thirty years of my life were spent tethered to Kraaj command, but I never followed anyone the way I followed you.
Tonight, my allegiance is yours. Just you at whatever the costs. "
The undeniable presence of it manifests in my chest, seating itself beside the bond. I grip his shoulder—firmly and carefully—and he grips mine in return.
"Let's bring her home, Old Fang."
His mouth pulls into a demeanor too fierce to be a smile and too warm to be anything else. "About damn time somebody said it."
Elias catches me at the maintenance hatch.
The strike teams are assembled—Alpha and Beta in formation, weapons checked, rebreathers distributed, the heavy iron bulkhead open, and exhaling cold, metallic air from the tunnels below.
The compound hums with tense anticipation as forty people prepare to walk into the dark; the faces in the bay turn toward me, waiting.
Elias stands at the perimeter of the formation, his makeshift crutch under one arm. His healing leg is leaning against a cargo pylon for stability, and the wrench he's been carrying since the night of the broadcast is in his other hand like a talisman.
He's nineteen years old, yet his eyes are ancient.
"Commander," his briefing begins, his pitch wavering once before steadying into a display of borrowed bravery.
"The relay network is stable through the first two sub-levels.
After that, the signal degrades, but I've set the array to auto-cycle through backup frequencies.
If you stay within fifty feet of the junction nodes, I can maintain contact for?—"
"Elias."
He stops and swallows. The wrench trembles in his grip.
Crouching down until my eyes are level with his brings back the memory of kneeling beside his hospital pallet the first night Cassia stitched his shredded leg back together. This skinny, soot-stained teenager had looked up at me through pain and shock to ask if I was the Dragon.
"I'm bringing her back," I state, my delivery rough and absolute. "Cassia is coming home. Do you hear me?"
His chin trembles. One hand releases the wrench and grabs the hem of my firm vest, fingers knotting in the fabric the same way the little Kraaj girl did when I carried her through the freight bay, desperate, terrified, a child already having lost too much and bracing to lose more.
"Promise me," he whispers as he looks to me to save the woman who saved him.
"I promise, Sparks." I cover his hand with mine—my claws retract as the heat banks. The sharp edges fold away. "She's coming home."
He nods and releases my vest. He wipes his face with the underside of his hand still holding the wrench, leaving a grease streak across his cheekbone that makes him look even younger.
Standing up, I turn toward the open hatch to address the strike force assembling—both species standing next to each other. They are armed with salvaged weapons along with stolen military codes. The group carries the furious, shared conviction that Cassia is worth the risks they're about to take.
"We go down. We override Daxos's charges.
We will find her. Once we do, we dismantle everything standing in our way," I announce, letting the heat build in my palms until a molten glow casts the freight bay in crimson light and throws the shadows into sharp relief.
"Stay close, and stay together. And if anything with malignant optics stands in our way—burn it to the ground. "
I drop through the hatch into the dark, and behind me, multiple sets of boots follow.