17. Sophie
SOPHIE
T he wreck smells different in the morning.
Less like burned metal and old fuel, more like dust warming under the sun, like the planet itself is breathing around it. The light slants in low through the ravine mouth, turning the sand gold and the ship’s torn hull into something almost soft if you don’t look too closely.
Ragon and I move slow, deliberate, circling the perimeter with the kind of quiet coordination you only get after surviving something together. He counts steps. I mark bearings on my compad. We don’t talk much because we don’t have to.
My father’s ship sits behind us like a question no one’s brave enough to answer out loud.
“You sure about this radius?” Ragon asks, stopping at a jagged rock outcrop.
I crouch, brushing sand aside to reveal a faint scorch pattern. “Positive. See how the glassing spreads thinner here? Whatever energy surge hit, it bled off in this direction.”
He hums thoughtfully. “Meaning the field wasn’t random.”
“Meaning it was shaped,” I say. “Or redirected.”
I straighten, wiping sweat from my brow. The heat’s already climbing, the kind that settles into your muscles and dares you to keep moving anyway. I love it. Hate it. It keeps me focused.
Ragon’s eyes flick up suddenly.
“Do you hear that?”
I freeze. At first, there’s nothing—just wind sliding through stone, the distant creak of cooling metal.
Then I hear it.
Footsteps.
Not ours.
I turn, heart slamming into my ribs.
A figure crests the dune to the west, moving fast, unevenly. Dust coats him head to toe, clinging to dark hair, to armor scraped raw in places. His shoulders are hunched, weapon already up, scanning, finger tight on the trigger.
For half a second, my brain refuses to catch up.
Then he steps into the light.
“Jax,” I breathe.
His weapon jerks toward the sound of my voice?—
And Ragon is there instantly.
He moves without thinking, stepping between us in one smooth motion, body angled just enough to shield me without blocking my line of sight. Not aggressive. Not challenging.
Protective.
Jax freezes.
His eyes lock on me, wide and disbelieving, then flick to Ragon’s broad back, to the proximity, to the way Ragon doesn’t move away.
The silence is sharp enough to cut.
“Sophie,” Jax says, voice raw. “Get behind me.”
“No,” I say at the same time Ragon says?—
“She’s fine.”
Jax’s jaw tightens. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Ragon doesn’t turn. “You came in hot. Weapon raised. That’s my problem.”
“Your problem,” Jax snaps, “is that you took her out here without telling me.”
I step around Ragon’s shoulder, forcing myself into view. “Enough.”
They both look at me.
Jax’s expression crumples for just a heartbeat before he reins it in. He looks wrecked. Dust-caked. Blood dried along his temple. His eyes are bloodshot, haunted.
“You left,” he says. “You just—left.”
“I didn’t disappear,” I reply, keeping my voice steady. “I followed the trail.”
“The trail could have waited.”
“No,” Ragon says, finally turning. “It couldn’t.”
Jax’s gaze snaps to him. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“I do,” Ragon fires back, calm but unyielding. “Because the window was closing. Because people are watching this place. Because every hour increased the odds someone else found it first.”
“And if she’d died?”
Ragon doesn’t flinch. “She didn’t.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I step fully between them now, lifting my hands.
“Stop. Both of you.”
They pause, breathing hard, speaking past each other even in silence.
I look at Jax. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
“You weren’t supposed to do this alone,” he says hoarsely.
“I wasn’t,” I reply, glancing at Ragon. “I wasn’t alone.”
That does something to Jax. I see it land, see the conflict flash across his face—relief, anger, jealousy, fear—all tangled tight.
“You’re hurt,” I add.
He scoffs. “You should see the other guy.”
“I don’t care about the other guy.”
That gets a ghost of a smile out of him. Gone as fast as it comes.
Ragon clears his throat. “We should move this conversation inside. Sun’s rising. And if he found us—” he gestures vaguely back the way Jax came, “—others can too.”
Jax bristles. “You giving orders now?”
“No,” Ragon replies evenly. “Offering survival.”
I don’t wait for them to argue again. I turn and head for the wreck, trusting—hoping—they’ll follow.
They do.
Inside, the air is cooler, shaded, thick with the scent of old metal and dust. Jax takes it in with a soldier’s eye, noting exits, angles, cover.
I lead them straight to the cockpit.
“This,” I say, gesturing to the etched symbol burned into the metal bulkhead. “This is what matters.”
Jax steps closer, frowning. “That’s not Alliance.”
“No,” Ragon says. “It’s older.”
I pull the data plates from my pack, hands steady despite the way my pulse spikes. “My father wasn’t running. He wasn’t fleeing an accident. He was studying the planetary energy field.”
Jax looks at me sharply. “You’re sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.” I activate the first plate, projecting schematics into the air—field vectors, harmonic oscillations, annotations in my father’s handwriting. Familiar. Comforting. Devastating.
Ragon exhales softly. “He mapped it.”
“He learned it,” I correct. “And he realized something.”
I bring up the next plate. Notes. Theories. Hypotheses.
“The field isn’t wild,” I say. “It’s managed. Regulated. Tuned.”
Jax’s brow furrows. “By who.”
I don’t answer immediately. I let the implication hang.
“By someone powerful,” I say finally. “Someone embedded in Zhankar’s structure. Someone who benefits from keeping the field unstable—but not destroyed.”
Ragon nods slowly. “Dzu.”
Jax swears under his breath. “Absolutely not.”
I turn to him. “You knew this would come up.”
“You’re talking about walking into the citadel,” he says. “That’s suicide.”
“Charging it is suicide,” Ragon counters. “Approaching it intelligently is strategy.”
Jax rounds on him. “You think you can outmaneuver a warlord who’s survived three planetary purges?”
“I think shadows are patient,” Ragon replies coolly. “And Dzu bleeds like anyone else if you cut the right artery.”
“And how many people die while you’re looking for it?” Jax snaps.
I slam my hand against the console.
“Enough.”
They both fall silent.
I take a breath, grounding myself in the feel of cold metal under my palm, the hum of the wreck, the smell of dust and memory.
“Dzu is the only one with answers,” I say. “He knew about the field. He let my father study it—or used him to.”
Jax shakes his head. “We don’t even know if he’s alive.”
“I do,” I say quietly. “Because if he wasn’t, these notes would end in fear. Or despair. Or finality. They don’t. They end in intention.”
Ragon watches me closely, something fierce and proud in his gaze.
“We go to the citadel,” I continue. “Not as captives. Not sneaking. Openly.”
Jax stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “That’s insane.”
“Maybe,” I admit. “But it’s the only move that forces the truth into the open.”
Ragon nods once. “Power hates being observed.”
Jax looks between us, frustration etched deep. “You’re both gambling with your lives.”
I meet his eyes. “I’m done running from this.”
The silence stretches.
Finally, Jax exhales hard. “I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to,” I say. “You just have to decide.”
He looks at me for a long time. Then at Ragon. Then back at me.
“Fine,” he mutters. “We go together.”
Ragon inclines his head. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
They don’t agree on anything else. I can feel it—the tension, the unresolved clash of methods and morals.
But they stand on either side of me now.
Unyielding.
Unwilling to leave.
And for the first time since I was sixteen, I don’t feel alone facing the truth.
Outside, the wind howls across the ravines, carrying us toward Dzu’s lands.
Toward answers.
Toward whatever waits for us in the heart of the lie.