Chapter 22
TAKHISS
Freedom isn’t supposed to smell like disinfectant and fear.
But that’s what the hangar reeks of—the kind of sterile air that tries to scrub humanity out of war.
White floodlights glare off polished steel.
Rows of soldiers stand like statues on either side of the diplomatic corridor, Alliance blues on one end, Coalition crimson on the other.
Me, I’m the trade. The cargo. The breathing relic they can’t decide who owns.
My wrists are bound in static cuffs that buzz faintly against my scales. I don’t fight them. I could. But not yet. Not when the outcome is still uncertain.
“Sergeant Takhiss of the Coalition,” a human liaison announces, reading from a datapad like he’s reciting the weather. “Under terms of the Trident Accord, you are hereby released from Alliance custody and transferred to Coalition jurisdiction.”
I keep my face blank. Inside, my heart slams like a hammer. Released? No. Bartered.
Behind him, Coalition officers wait in their crimson armor, faces hidden behind mirrored visors. They look like me and nothing like me all at once. The kind who obey the whip because they don’t remember it cutting.
One steps forward, rank sigil gleaming. “We’ll take him from here,” he says.
The liaison nods. “All charges have been voided under article fourteen. You’re free to go, Sergeant.”
Free.
The word tastes like ash.
I step forward. The Alliance cuffs release with a click. The liaison extends a polite smile—the kind men wear when they think they’ve done something noble. I watch his lips move, his eyes soft with false sympathy.
Something in me snaps.
My fist connects with his jaw before I can think. The sound is clean—cartilage, bone, shock. He drops like a sack of meat. Gasps echo. Weapons rise.
“Restrain him!” someone shouts.
I don’t resist this time either. Two guards shove me to my knees, slamming my face into the deck. My mouth fills with copper.
I laugh.
It’s raw and ugly and real.
Good.
Prison is safer than indoctrination. I’d rather rot in a cage than let the Coalition rewire my head. I’d rather die remembering her name than live forgetting her face.
They haul me up. Someone’s shouting protocol violations. Someone else is calling for medical assistance. The Alliance commander looks furious. The Coalition one looks smug.
“Unstable specimen,” one mutters.
“Reflex control compromised,” another agrees.
I grin through blood. “Keep writing your reports,” I rasp. “I’m sure they’ll keep you warm at night.”
They don’t like that.
The shock baton digs into my ribs. My body convulses, knees slamming the floor again. But the pain anchors me. Keeps me from drowning in the hollowness.
When they drag me away, I lift my head just once.
Across the hangar, through the blur of light and motion, I see a woman in an Alliance uniform—dark hair, civilian stripes on her sleeve. Not her. Not Ella. But the shape makes my breath stutter anyway.
The guards shove me into a transport cage. The door seals with a hiss.
I sit there, breathing hard, tasting iron.
“Back to custody,” a voice crackles over comms.
Good.
Let them.
Let them bury me again. Because at least here, in the dark, they can’t make me forget her.
Seasons blend. Time is a wound that never scabs.
My new cell is narrower than before. The walls hum with recycled power. Every eight hours, they flood the vents with inhibitor gas—a pale haze that dulls my muscles, slows my thoughts. I’ve started counting heartbeats instead of hours.
It’s not working.
The dreams come anyway.
I see her, standing barefoot in the ship’s corridor, sparks raining down. She’s yelling at me to move faster, her voice half panic, half defiance. Then the blast. Then her hand reaching through the smoke.
When I wake, I’m drenched in sweat. My claws carve shallow grooves into the wall.
“She’s gone,” I whisper.
The cell doesn’t argue.
I sit there, chained, breathing through the static hum. Let them keep me here. Let the gas dull the edges of my mind. As long as I stay in the dark, I can keep her face clear.
And that’s the only freedom I have left.