Chapter 35 #2
His commands flowed into the comms, cool and decisive. They drove Isshyr’s fleet back over the forested valleys, deeper into the glowing grey where the mist thickened upward like a second ocean.
Somewhere below lay the old boundary between their domains.
Isshyr’s ships strained to hold the line. Kyrax’s forces did not relent.
He could feel the Bastion at his back, shields firm, people safe. And beneath that—the constant pulse of Morgan, steady but concerned, sheltering in the fortress he defended.
“Vykan,” came the voice of his navigator over the link, calm despite the chaos. “We have identified Isshyr’s personal vessel. The Kethran Lance.”
Talen Rhess had served as his navigator for over a decade—sharp-minded, unflappable, with an instinct for spatial shifts that bordered on precognition.
“Mark its position,” Kyrax said.
The projection before him highlighted one of the enemy cruisers—a slightly larger silhouette, engines running hotter, formation instinctively clustered around it.
“Take us in,” Kyrax ordered. “The others will cover.”
Nuar adjusted their vector without argument. They had done this before. Too many times.
The Vorath’s Edge plunged toward the highlighted ship, flanked by two escort vessels that peeled away at the last moment to draw fire. Enemy guns swung to track them, but Kyrax’s defenses soaked the initial barrage without issue.
“Bring us alongside,” he said. “Lower ventral hatch when in range.”
The hull shuddered as they matched speed with the Kethran Lance. The enemy ship loomed beneath them, its armor closer now, score marks from the earlier exchange visible along its flank.
“Ventral alignment optimal,” Nuar reported. “You have a stable drop vector.”
Kyrax did not hesitate.
He rose from the command throne and moved to the lower access bay. The oval hatch cycled open, revealing a brief tunnel of air and mist before the enemy ship’s roof.
Without breaking stride, he stepped out into the void and dropped.
Wind slammed against his armor for an instant, then vanished as his suit compensated. He landed on the Kethran Lance’s hull in a crouch, metal ringing under his weight. The enemy ship bucked, trying to shake him off, but his gauntlets dug into the plating and held.
Stronger.
He almost startled himself with how easy it felt now.
Attunement had not weakened him. It had sharpened everything. The bond with Morgan threaded through his awareness, a quiet line of warmth that steadied rather than distracted.
He drove his fist into the hull.
The metal buckled. He punched again, tearing a ragged circle free, prying it open with a strength no Saelori or other species could have matched. Atmosphere howled for a moment, then the emergency seals kicked in, stabilizing the breach.
He dropped through into the ship.
Alarm klaxons blared. Crew members shouted in panicked voices. Kyrax ignored all of it. He stalked down the corridor, following the pull of instinct and the faint trace of Isshyr’s venom in the air.
The bridge doors loomed ahead.
They tried to seal them.
They failed.
He forced them open with a slow, relentless push, stepping through the warped metal into a chamber full of frozen motion.
The bridge crew went silent.
Every eye turned to him.
Isshyr stood at the central command station, armor less pristine than before, mask turning toward Kyrax with a jerk of disbelief.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Kyrax drew his sword.
The blade sang as it left its sheath, a low, lethal tone that cut beneath the wail of alarms.
Isshyr’s own sword came up in answer, angles sharp and practiced. “You are insane,” Isshyr hissed, voice transmitted through his helm. “You’re tearing down everything we were built to protect.”
“No,” Kyrax said. “You did that when you tried to take what is mine.”
He stepped forward.
The crew scattered back, some tripping over consoles, others simply collapsing as a faint leak of his venom seeped into the air with a subtle, controlled exhale.
He kept it minimal, even though he knew it wasn’t enough to kill any Saelori.
Isshyr’s crew slumped where they stood, sliding bonelessly to the floor.
Only Vykan could stand in a cloud of Vykan venom.
The duel began.
Isshyr was older, his style rooted in centuries of tradition. Predictable patterns, calculated counters. Kyrax had learned all of them… and then taught himself how to break them.
Metal clashed, sparks cutting bright arcs through the dim bridge. Isshyr struck hard, aiming for gaps that did not exist. Kyrax turned each blow aside, letting his opponent feel the difference between them.
Attunement had altered his center of gravity. His movements felt cleaner. Anger existed, yes, but threaded through it was a deeper focus, grounded by the quiet, steady presence waiting for him back in the Bastion.
Morgan.
This was what she had given him.
Isshyr faltered as their blades locked again, pressure driving him to one knee.
Kyrax’s boot came down, pinning his chest to the floor.
With his free hand, Kyrax seized the edge of Isshyr’s helm and tore it away.
He saw him at last: blue skin, sharper features than most, eyes burning with fury and fear. The moment the mask came off, Isshyr’s unfiltered venom spilled into the cramped space, thick and sharp in the air.
The remaining conscious crew dropped instantly.
It rolled over Kyrax like heat.
It did nothing.
“You cannot kill me,” Isshyr rasped, struggling against the weight pinning him. “I am Vykan of Drath Var. Protector of the Iron Veil Bastion. Our laws—”
“You chose to break the balance you claim to protect,” Kyrax said quietly. “The moment you attacked my domain, you forfeited the shield of those laws.”
Isshyr’s eyes widened as realization dawned.
“This is the bond,” he whispered. “It strengthened you.”
“You were warned,” Kyrax said. “You did not listen.”
Isshyr’s hands—one gloved, one ending in a ruined stump where his other had once been—scrabbled uselessly against Kyrax’s boot.
“You risk everything,” Isshyr spat. “If your bond fails—if the human dies—”
“She will not,” Kyrax cut in. “You do not get to speak her fate.”
He raised his sword.
Isshyr’s face twisted in last-minute rage. “The others will—”
“The others will adapt,” Kyrax said. “Or they will fall as you have.”
The blade came down in a clean, decisive arc.
When it was done, he stood alone in the bridge, crew unconscious, the older Vykan’s body still beneath his boot.
Isshyr had walked willingly into this end, driven by fear and resentment and greed. If Kyrax had spared him again, the cycle would only have repeated—more attacks, more risks to the Bastion, to Morgan, to the people he had sworn to protect.
He wiped the blood—deep, luminous blue—from his blade with practiced precision and slid it back into its sheath.
Across the link, the Vorath’s Edge awaited his signal. Beyond that, his fleet held position, keeping Isshyr’s still-functioning ships at bay. He sent the necessary orders—secure the vessel, stabilize the crew, lock down the ship’s systems for transfer.
Drath Var and its bastion would not be left without protection. He would take responsibility for them now. Their Saelori would fall under his dominion until the council formalized a new arrangement.
At the edge of his consciousness, he felt Morgan again.
He had tried to shield her from the worst of it, but attunement was not a simple mechanism to be toggled on and off. Emotion leaked through—sharp, metallic echoes of violence, the cold finality of his decision.
She did not recoil.
Her presence wavered once, like a heart that stuttered in its rhythm, then steadied.
You’re all right, she thought, not as a question, but as an observation.
Yes, he answered.
She was silent for a moment.
It had to be done, she said at last.
He stood in the ruined bridge, surrounded by unconscious bodies and the weight of a dead Vykan’s legacy, and exhaled slowly.
“For now,” he murmured, voice low inside his helm, “the balance is altered.”
But he was stronger.
He would hold.
And with Morgan bound to him—calm, bright, defiant human that she was—he finally believed that he would not break.