Chapter 20
ARIA DAWSON
Iwake to stillness. Absolute blackness pressed against my eyelids. My breath comes shallow, ragged, like I’m diving through vacuum. I reach to rub my ribs—pain is a burning brandy that spreads beneath my skin. My hands are bound by cold metal cuffs; my wrists sting with every throb.
The air tastes like iron and machinery—stale, metallic, fear-lined. I draw in a sharp breath and realize I can’t see. Just echoes of distant electronic hums and the beat of my own heartbeat.
I sit up slow, arms shaking. My side protests. I swallow past the spasm. Find my voice, though it trembles. “Hello?”
The reply is laughter—mocking, low, collective. Lights flicker on. I squint: a narrow chamber aboard a decrepit orbital station, windowless walls chewed by rust and neglect. Oil stains bloom on the floor like black lilies.
Three Nar’Vosk men stand over me. One tall, with a hunter’s face and a cold smile. Another shorter, cruel, fingering a plasma pistol. The captain—Leori—is the last, leaning back with arms crossed, eyes cruel.
“Well, look what the galaxy spat out,” the hunter says. His holo-bracelet flashes a junkie’s pulse. Behind him, a video feed shows Aebon pacing angry lines in a transit bay.
Leori chuckles. “Reaper isn’t so infallible now, is he? Dragging his little prosecutor wife into his wounds.”
I clench my jaw. Fear scythes through me, but I swallow it. I’ve learned to study fear, not be it. Their arrogance betrays uncertainty.
A man leans forward, feet crackling on broken tiles. “We’re circulating this video to every frickin’ crim-net in the black market. Auction’s open. Bidders include GalRem—it’s going to get ugly.”
I study his posture—his feet lead, weight forward. He’s ready to run if I react. I don’t.
They laugh. I force a soft smile. “You think Aebon will pay a price for me?”
Their predatory eyes flicker. They think I’m broken. They’re wrong.
I shift to feel around and discover I’m strapped to a hover-bed that hovers inches above the floor, rails on both sides. Spacing is slim. I can’t pivot much, but I notice a loose panel near my feet. A screw missing. Small, but significant.
“Tell him,” I say softly, “tell Aebon I’m not salvageable. I’m a weapon. He’ll lose more than he thinks if he comes unprepared.”
They blink. Surprise has made them careless.
The tall one laughs. “You’ve got spirit. But we’ve got muscle.”
I meet his gaze. “Muscle alone doesn’t win wars. Calculated strikes do.” I pause—let the words settle.
They don’t flinch. Yet.
Leori leans closer. I smell his cheap tobacco. “You’re smart. Maybe too smart.”
My pulse steadies. I hope he doesn’t notice.
He gives a slow nod. “You’ll witness Aebon’s downfall. Promise.”
Their laughter echoes as they leave. The door seals behind them with a hiss.
The silence returns. My ribs burn. My wrists ache. Fear is still there, but I’m focusing on the panel, the missing screw, the hinge on the opposite side.
There’s always a way.
Minutes—or hours—tick past. My pulse quiets, mind sharpens.
I can hear the station’s life sign: the hum of twisted generators, a distant whine of depressurized air through a vent.
I imagine the station: an abandoned carcass orbiting too close to dying station cores. Lights flicker like old memories.
I close my eyes and breathe slow. Catalog the chamber: six meters long, two wide, sealed. Maybe two captors at a time, armed. Windows sealed by heavy plates. No camera—just the feed pointed at me.
I weigh options: break panel, reach tunnel behind, slither cables, disable a guard. It’s tight, but possible.
Fear flares when I picture the trade, the darkness, the cost.
But fury drowns it.
I shift again, trying to loosen the straps—stiff old bonds, but there’s give across the back. My ribs scream, but there’s a click: the cuff pin gives. Not enough to slip free, but enough to ease my wrist. I grin in the dark.
They think I’m helpless.
They don’t know what they’re facing.
Because I’m not afraid.
And I won’t break.
I shift again and feel a vibration beneath the deck—shuttle movement. Either they’re refreshing the auction feed or transporting me closer for the winner. Either way, I might get a chance.
When I heard “auction,” they thought to terrify me. What they gave me instead was a map: countdown to rescue or escape. I let fear live somewhere else behind my ribs.
There is no fear.
There is only resolve.
And the faint hum of rebellion rising in the cold orbit.
I crumble when the shutters close behind those arrogant Nar’Vosk pigs and the silence returns. My breath echoes on the metal walls, muffled but persistent. My ribs scream again—burning shards of memory—but it's not physical pain that defeats me. It's the knowledge of what's coming.
I sink to the cold floor, hips pressed into the grit of chipped paint and rust. My shoulders shake with silent sobs.
The tears aren’t for me. Not for the binds.
Not for the bruises. They’re for what awaits him once he knows I’m here.
I swallowed his fierceness like a bullet to save myself, never realizing he'd come for me with equal intensity. And when he realizes he's too late—he’ll lose everything. He’ll unravel the galaxy’s seams.
I dampen my blouse against my cheek and grit my jaw. If he finds me, the sky above Glimner—or what's left of it—will ignite. They’ll call him a monster, as if they don't already know. When they hear the word Aebon, their pulses will stutter. And believe this: that's only the beginning.
But I won't let their fear drown me.
I cover my mouth, whispering into the steel plate collar of my binds:
“He’ll do it. He’ll burn it all.”
My sobs burst again: tears fat with anguish. Not from weakness but from knowledge. From love. From a damn terror I never expected to feel about him.
I press my hands against the floor, pushing up, my ribs protesting in white-hot flashes.
Hot tears slide over cold metal. I imagine him—his coat blood-slicked, his fists cracked, his voice reverberating like a reaper's sermon.
He'll come, burning through orbital drift and compromised locks. For me. For us.
My breathing slows. I scrub my eyes with the sleeve of my blouse. My hand finds that failed panel again and traces the gap. I steady myself. I will fight. I will survive. I will be worth his fury.
Heartbeat steadying. Tears drying. Resolve igniting.
Inhaling the mechanical stench, I hear it first low and buried—a vibration, a tone. Deceptively soft. Like soot humming on memory’s edge. The walls thrum in response. Metal groans in its sockets. Lights flicker, dimming like dying stars.
I freeze—I know that sound. It’s his song. Not melody. Something deeper. A Reaper’s artillery. A whisper of ancestry calling across space.
The corridor doors behind me buck harder. Every bolt rattles. Then, with a thunder of iron and shrapnel, they implode into the chamber. A sonic wave shatters the heavy steel and debris rains into the room.
Silence—and then he steps through.
Aebon stands in the doorway, silhouetted by frenzied sparks and bending light. His suit is torn, armor cracked. His bone spurs flicker white in the haze. His eyes... they burn like twin suns at night. I’ve seen hells less terrifying.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t need to.
The residual thrumming pulses through the walls. Sparks sprinkle at his feet. The atmosphere tastes of ozone, oil, and a mournful thunder.
He looks like a god summoned into our broken world.
I stare—fear and awe twisting through me. I’m parched but cannot speak. My hands tremble, but the binds are gone—or maybe I’m free. Maybe his presence alone ripped the chains from me.
He steps forward. Every footfall shatters the debris. The thrum quiets—fearful hush—but the tremor in the walls doesn’t abate. Like the world is bowing to him.
He reaches out. With slow agonizing purpose, he touches my cheek. My skin tingles—lips part, words catch, but only longing pours through:
“You’re here.”
My tears return—this time for him. Because I know. I know he’d do this. The world will burn. And he’ll carry me through it.
I swallow hard, voice barely a wisp: “I... wouldn’t let them—”
He leans in, eyes bright with something fierce and fractured. My fingers bury into his coat, steadying me—keeping me here. He murmurs, “I’d kill a thousand worlds for you.”
We stand amid the silent wreckage of his wrath and my fear—two broken silhouettes carved by every vow, every wound, every whispered promise.
He sweeps me up in one motion and holds me tight—chest against mine, forehead bowed to mine, death and salvation in his embrace.
I choke back sobs. His voice low. “I’ll never let them hurt you again.”
Somehow the storm has silenced. The orbital station trembles beneath us, but between his arms it’s calm.
Between his arms—everything ends. And everything begins.
I whisper free: “I’m yours.”
He breathes in my words like air, like fuel. His grip tightens—but not enough to crush. I feel the echo in his chest—heart pounding for me, for us.
The world behind us can burn.
Because he’s here.
And I’m here.
And together, we’ll burn or we’ll rebuild.
The song fades, but in its place is feral promise. And we are alive.