Chapter Eight
Rhazek
Seryn removes the shrapnel from my back with unnecessary aggression.
The treatment chamber smells of antiseptic resin, heated metal, and my own blood.
I kneel on the treatment platform to bring my wounded shoulder beneath the scanner. My armor is half-stripped to my waist, and Seryn threatened to sedate me if I continued standing while bleeding on her floor.
“There,” she says, and pulls the last shard free.
Pain flares white-hot across my shoulder.
Jorren stands near the door with his arms folded, jaw tight, throat still bruised from my hand yesterday. He has said nothing for thirteen minutes.
Seryn seals the wound with a strip of biolight. The heat bites into torn muscle. My back locks despite my control.
Her gaze drops to the glowing mark on my forearm.
Elara’s handprint has faded from bright gold to a low molten outline beneath my skin, but it has not vanished. Five narrow marks, small and unmistakably human, lie over the dark ridges of my bonding lines.
“She remains in recovery?” I ask.
Seryn checks her slate. “Elara is with Asha. Nima is with them. Two guards outside. All survivors moved to inner recovery. Atmospheric systems stable. No active breach. She is exhausted but refusing sleep with impressive commitment.”
Seryn follows my glance toward recovery. “You know very little about her beyond what she is like in a crisis.”
Jorren steps closer. “The prisoner is awake.”
“Keep your blood down when you interrogate him,” Seryn says.
She seals the cut across my upper arm while I wait.
At last she steps back. “You are medically cleared to interrogate the prisoner if you remain boring.”
Jorren touches the door panel.
It opens.
The Black Star’s corridor waits beyond, dark and gold and too silent.
As we step out, the ship speaks.
“Protected lifeform Elara Quinn requests update regarding captured attacker.”
“Tell her the prisoner is alive,” I say.
“And she will be informed of relevant findings when questioning is complete.”
The ship’s gold veins brighten once and then dim as it sends the message.
We head for detention.
Jorren walks at my left. Seryn at my right, because she does not trust either of us not to turn interrogation into surgery. The lower detention deck is colder than recovery, deliberately so. Prisoners heal slower in cold. They speak faster too, if one understands where to apply fear.
The attacker is chained upright in a containment frame when we enter.
He is Rhyssan, one of Sarkan’s preferred mercenary breeds. He has lost blood from Jorren’s restraint and my grip.
His cracked translator disc flickers at his throat.
He smiles when he sees me.
“Black Star Warlord,” he rasps.
I say nothing.
Jorren circles to the side table and activates the recording field.
The prisoner’s gaze drops to my forearm.
I cross the room slowly and stop just outside his reach.
“Yes,” he says softly. “It’s true, then.”
I keep my voice calm. “What is true?”
“The human touched you and lived.”
I consider removing his tongue, then remember Seryn’s condition. Boring.
“Who sent you?” I ask.
He laughs, then coughs black blood onto his chin. “You know.”
“I prefer confession.”
“Lord Sarkan Veyl sends his congratulations.”
Jorren marks the file.
The prisoner’s yellow eyes gleam. “He wondered whether the old stories were true. Whether the Black Star still knew how to choose.”
“How did Sarkan know about the human?” Jorren asks.
When the prisoner gives no answer, Jorren touches the side control. The frame forces his injured shoulder backward by one precise degree.
The Rhyssan inhales sharply.
Jorren’s voice remains mild. “How did Sarkan know?”
“Bought the files,” the prisoner spits.
“From whom?”
“The soft-skin researchers. Their ship sent a partial transfer burst before your warlord ripped it apart.”
“You boarded too quickly for a response to that burst,” I say. “Sarkan’s ships were already near Nyxara’s path before the attack. He knew earlier.”
“Who on the laboratory vessel contacted Sarkan before we boarded?” I ask.
“I do not know.”
Jorren touches the control again.
The frame rotates the prisoner’s wrist until tendons strain.
“I do not know,” he hisses. “Sarkan had her classification before the raid. Sovereign-compatible. Unconfirmed. High priority.”
Seryn says my name softly. I unclench my fist.
“Elara Quinn is under Black Star protection,” I say. “So are the survivors of the Mercy Ark. If Sarkan sends another ship, I will feed its core to mine. If he sends another soldier, I will return the body in enough pieces to educate him.”
“But you will carry a cleaner message,” I continue. “Where is Sarkan?”
“I don’t know.”
Jorren adjusts the frame.
The prisoner jerks. “I don’t know. His ship masked after the breach deployment. We were not given return coordinates.”
Fear enters his scent. “I know the next contact point,” he says.
The prisoner swallows. “Veyl’s envoy waits near the Rhaedon Moon. Two days. He expected the recovery team to bring the human there if we succeeded.”
“Why?” I ask.
The prisoner’s lips peel back from his teeth. “You know why.”
“Say it.”
“Sarkan has sovereign blood too. He believes she could give him heirs.”
“Every dying throne will come for her once they know. You cannot protect her from hunger. You are hunger.”
I close my hand over the prisoner’s throat.
I lift him until the frame groans and his breath cuts off.
Asha’s scream echoes in my memory.
Elara’s hand on my arm.
Do not let him make you into my next cage.
I release him.
He drops against the frame, coughing and retching.
I turn away. “Jorren, extract coordinates. Verify through ship logs. Prepare pursuit pattern.”
Jorren inclines his head. “And him?”
“Put him alive in a message pod with his confession and one hand.”
His breathing rasps behind me as I leave the chamber.
Jorren follows me into the corridor. “She needs to know.”
“From you,” he adds.
“Where is she?” I ask.
“Still with Asha,” Seryn says from behind us.
The Black Star sends my request to Nima’s slate.
Then the ship speaks.
“Elara Quinn agrees to receive update in observation corridor. She requests Nima’s presence. She requests no guards within hearing. She requests Rhazek Vonn not stand ‘too close and warlordy.’”
I continue walking.
* * *
The observation corridor curves along the outer spine of The Black Star.
It is one of the few places aboard where the walls open fully to space, shielding rendered so clear it appears one could step through into stars.
I rarely come here. The crew likes it. Refugees like it.
Those who need to remember there is something beyond metal, blood, and command.
Tonight, the corridor is empty except for Elara and Nima.
Elara stands near the viewing glass with her arms folded. She has changed out of the scan fabric into soft black clothing again, but a dark wrap lies over her shoulders. Her hair is damp at the ends, braided unevenly over one shoulder. One hand is freshly sealed. Her wrists remain bandaged.
Nima sits on the nearby bench.
Elara turns when I enter.
I stop four paces away.
Elara does not smile, but something tired and sharp moves across her face. “You have news.”
“Yes.”
“About Sarkan.”
I incline my head. “The prisoner confirmed Lord Sarkan Veyl sent the boarding team.”
Her fingers tighten on her own sleeve. “To kill us?”
“To retrieve you.”
“He attacked a room full of survivors to retrieve me.” She turns toward the stars. “Why?”
“Sarkan believes you may be capable of waking dormant Dravari sovereign bloodlines. Mine. His.”
“I may be special to any old-blood alien with a fertility crisis.”
“We do not know that,” I say.
“And your council?” she asks.
I hesitate, and her face hardens. “They would want me too.”
“Seryn, Jorren, and I have sealed the information.”
“And you? Am I in danger from you?”
I hold Elara’s gaze.
“Yes,” I say.
“My instincts are not neutral. Part of me would call keeping you here safety and believe it.”
Elara hugs herself tighter. “Then why shouldn’t I run the first chance I get?”
“If you see a real chance to reach safety, you should take it,” I say.
Elara studies me like I have become a more complicated machine. “Would you stop me?”
“If leaving put you directly into Sarkan’s hands, yes. I would not stop a safe transfer you chose after understanding the threat.”
“Even if your bond thing hates it?”
“Yes,” I say.
Elara’s eyes remain fixed on my arm. “Does it hurt?”
“Not like injury,” I say.
“What is it like?”
“Like an order I am refusing.”
“And when I touched you in the corridor?”
“The order became louder.”
“You said witnessed.”
“Witnessed enters a public act into ship and crew memory with formal weight,” I say.
“What act?”
“You stopped me when I would not hear anyone else.”
Elara’s voice lowers. “Does everyone think I have some kind of claim on you now?”
“Some will interpret it as early mate influence.”
“I should not have used that word before explaining what it could mean.”
Her attention settles on my horns, and a deep ache wakes at their base.
Her brows draw together. “Are they sensitive?”
“Yes,” I say.
She lifts her hand.
“Wait,” I say.
“Is that a no?”
“A warning.”
“Horns are sensitive. Culturally intimate. Touching them would invite me closer.”
Elara steps closer. Nima says her name softly.
“I’m choosing it,” Elara says.
Her fingertips touch the base of my left horn.
My markings ignite from throat to ribs. My second heart slams once, then tries to match hers. A sound leaves me, low and raw and too close to a growl.
Her fingers rest against the black curve of my horn, light as breath, devastating as conquest.
I grip the edge of the viewing rail behind me until metal bends under my claws.
Her eyes widen. “That much?”
“Yes.”
My tail snaps forward as her fingers move along the horn.
It coils around her calf.
Elara gasps.
I release the rail and force my tail back immediately. “Forgive me.”
She looks from her calf to me. “You really don’t control that thing as much as you pretend.”
“No,” I admit.
I lower my head a fraction, hands open at my sides.
“I don’t want to be used,” she whispers.
“You will not be used by me.”
Her hand slips from my horn.
She steps back, and I straighten slowly.
Elara pulls the wrap around herself. “I want to go back to Asha.”
Then she turns and leaves with Nima.
My horn aches where she touched it. I turn away from recovery.