13. Nyra
NYRA
Artificial light stabs at my eyelids, dragging me out of a sleep so deep it feels like I was buried in the hull plates.
I stay still, soaking in the sensation of gravity.
My body feels heavy, aching with a slow wave that I eventually realize belongs to me.
A continuous, driving heat pulses through the stone to match the cycles of the ship.
He is awake. His presence hangs over me, heavy and undeniable, before I open my eyes.
Draevik rests at the dais’ threshold, his back a vast landscape of ash-pale skin and glimmering lines.
He looks like a relic, something ancient and terrible that was never meant to be touched by human hands.
The veins hidden under his skin flutter with a persistent, calm light, a discerning difference to the chaotic, violent energy he usually radiates.
I shift my weight, and the memories hit me in a messy, disjointed flood: the cold, dark stone of the dais, the flush of his veins, and the intensity in his eyes that made me feel like the only thing left in a dead universe.
My skin still carries the ghost of his touch, a lingering electricity that makes my heart skip.
I should feel something clean and definitive about last night—shame, maybe, or regret.
Instead, the feeling sitting in my chest is something muddier.
Warmer. It is beyond fear and past anger, and the absence of both is more terrifying than either one alone.
I lift my right arm, a breath slipping out of me as I peek down at my wrist. Yesterday, Virex Prime shredded this flesh. I should be looking at a mess of gauze and blood or a stump. Instead, a fine, silver line—no thicker than a piece of sewing thread—encircles my skin.
Sitting up with trembling fingers, I trace the smooth, flawless mark, pressing down as I brace for a jolt of agony, but there is only a strange, cool sensation.
That Sovereign Weave works like a miracle.
It worked through my system, knitting together the mess the ship made of me with a terrifying exactness.
Human meds would have left me in a sling for months with a permanent limp in my grip.
This is alien. It makes me feel like I have been rebuilt, augmented by the same technology that powers the stars.
"Your cellular recovery is complete," Draevik rumbles, still facing the viewport. The glossy walls beam a soft indigo in time with his words. "The Weave has integrated with your biology."
"It's weird," I admit, softly flexing my hand.
My grip is perfect—better than before the injury.
"A human doctor would have amputated this.
Those Hegemony nanites essentially rebuilt a new radius bone from scratch.
I should be in pieces. Instead, I feel stronger.
Like my structure is forged from the same metal as your hull. "
He turns then, and the cold, distant mask he wears like armor is gone this morning. He is focused. He watches me with a predatory sort of curiosity that elevates my pulse. His gaze travels unhurriedly down the length of my body, lingering on the curve of my shoulder and the line of my throat.
Swinging my legs off the dais, I realize that despite being naked, I feel powerful instead of exposed.
The thermal cover slips to my waist as I retrieve the bowl the ship produces from a recessed compartment.
It is the same thick, savory stew he has been feeding me, but there on the tray sits a small, dense block of something iridescent on the side.
"What's the glow-cube?" I ask, poking curiously at the block with a finger.
"A concentrated nutrient block. It will stabilize the remaining nanites in your bloodstream."
"Great. More grey sludge and a side of glow-sticks." I take a bite of the stew. "Truly, Drae, you're a romantic."
He pauses, his eyes flickering slightly at the shortened name. Bypassing any correction, he stands and moves with a controlled grace that makes the floor tremble. He is closer now, looming over the dais. His thumb brushes my cheek. His skin is like a furnace, radiating a dry, metallic heat.
"I need you to remain on the dais," he instructs, more like a man fascinated by a new toy than a general issuing commands. "The stabilization requires another several hours of rest."
"I'm fine, Draevik. I'm a scavenger; we're built to bounce back," I argue, even as I lean into his touch.
"You are staying." The words are quiet, final.
He presses his palm flat against my sternum—over the mark—and the warmth that floods through me is so immediate, so disarming, that my protest dies in my throat.
"The Weave has sealed the surface. The deeper integration needs time.
You will rest, or I will ensure you rest."
I know he means it. I also know I feel completely fine.
My grip is strong, my lungs are clear, and the only ache in my body is the pleasant, bruised soreness from last night.
But Draevik plants himself between me and the door like a wall of stone, and I have learned enough about this man to know that arguing with him when he is in this mood is like arguing with gravity.
The next two days pass glacially. I feel restless, alert, ready to move—but every time I stand, he is there.
A hand on my shoulder. A roaring rumble that means sit down.
He checks the silver line on my wrist with a clinical focus that gradually shifts into something else entirely.
His fingers linger. His thumb traces the healed scar with a pressure that exceeds the language of medicine.
When I catch him doing it, he holds my gaze with that firm stare, daring me to name what’s happening here.
On the first morning, I wake to find him sitting on the floor beside the dais, his back against the stone wall, his long legs stretch out across the bio-mat.
He is reading something on the holographic display—ship diagnostics, from the look of it—but his free hand rests at the dais’ rim, close enough that his fingers are almost touching mine.
Uncertain of his biological sleep requirements or his reasons for staying, I withhold my questions to delay the inevitable answers.
He feeds me with a deliberateness that sends a jolt through me.
He holds the bowl while I eat, adjusting the angle when I struggle to grip it with my healing wrist. When I protest that I can manage on my own, he ignores me with a calm, immovable patience that is somehow more infuriating than his earlier commands.
"You're hovering." The observation slips out with an unexpected heat, a sudden, glowing ember that ignites in the cold air surrounding us.
“I am monitoring," he corrects, though a twitch at the corner of his mouth threatens to betray his rigid composure.
He walks me to the reclamation alcove—the ship's version of a shower that uses sonic wavelengths and a fine mist to scour the grime away.
He waits outside the archway, shadow draping the threshold, the bond shimmering through the steam.
When I step out, Virex Prime is already waiting with a fresh flight suit, the fabric warm and smelling faintly of an unfamiliar spice.
I wonder when the ship started learning my preferences or whether it has always known and is only now bothering to show it.
There are moments where the silence thickens into something physical.
He sits on the command dais reviewing starcharts, and I sit on the sleeping dais pretending to read his poetry, and neither of us mentions the fact that we can feel each other's heartbeat through the connection.
I catch him watching me—a quiet, careful attention that makes my skin prickle.
Once, I look up from the book and find him standing at the viewport with his hands behind his back, and I realize he has been watching my reflection in the dark glass the entire time.
On the third morning after the injury, he lets me walk.
As I move through the corridors a few days later, I notice the shift.
The ship is anticipating me. The panels part before I reach the three-foot mark, as if they anticipate my approach.
The moment my hand nears the storage compartment, it clicks open on its own, revealing precisely what I need.
It is like Virex Prime is reading my biometric intent, translating the signals my body puts out into action before my hands can catch up.
I find K-Seven hovering near the dispenser in the galley. The little drone's blue eye whirrs as it focuses on me, and I find myself genuinely happy to see the bucket of bolts. It has become the only familiar thing in this sea of alien technology.
"Hey, Seven," I greet it, a genuine smile tugging at my lips.
The drone spins its chassis in a frantic circle, its light flickering from blue to a rapid, flaring white.
"Nyra! You are mobile! My sensors indicate your cellular integrity is within optimal parameters.
" It hovers closer, its lenses cycling over my wrist, my face, my posture.
"Unit experienced a forty-seven-hour period of severely limited access to your biometric data.
The Commander restricted my proximity protocols during your recovery.
Unit has been cycling diagnostic requests every six minutes and receiving the same response: 'The human is resting.
Stop asking.' Unit request it noted that Unit’s concern was consistent and well-documented. "
I laugh—a real one, the kind that surprises me. "You missed me, Seven."
"Unit does not 'miss.' Unit experienced a statistically significant reduction in operational purpose.
" The drone pauses, its lenses narrowing.
"Your heart rate is elevated but stable.
Your endorphin levels are abnormally high.
Also, the Commander has updated the vessel's internal security protocols.
You are no longer classified as 'External Threat.
' Your current status is 'Integrated Biological Variable. '"