Chapter 17 #2
"Stop it!" Serna's composure was cracking now, her voice rising. "Riuondo, stop!"
He moved the implement to my other arm.
More burning. More pain.
"You can make this stop," Riuondo said calmly. "Just say the words. Tell me you accept your defeat. Tell me you'll abdicate without conditions, without reservations. Tell me you surrender."
Through the haze of pain, I felt Serna's internal struggle via our synchronized heartbeat. The desperate need to make it stop warring with her pride, her duty, her refusal to give this monster what he wanted.
"I..." Her voice wavered. "I can't—"
"Can't?" Riuondo pressed the disruptor harder against my arm. "Or won't?"
"Both." The word came out strangled. "You're asking me to betray everything I've built. Everything I've fought for. The Alliance needs—"
"The Alliance needs a leader who isn't weak." Riuondo activated the chair again.
Level six.
I didn't know the pain could get worse. I was wrong.
This wasn't just physical agony—it was something deeper, something that felt like it was unraveling the very fabric of my being. My vision went dark. My hearing cut out. All that existed was pain and the distant, desperate pull of Serna's presence down the bond.
When it stopped, I was barely conscious. Couldn't lift my head. Couldn't speak.
"Cullen." Serna's voice cut through the fog. "Cullen, stay with me."
I forced my eyes open. Found her face across the chamber.
She was crying. Silent tears streaming down her face, her expression twisted with anguish.
"Please," she said, and the word was directed at Riuondo. "Please. Just give me time to—"
"Time?" Riuondo laughed. "You've had a century. How much more time do you need?"
"I need to think. I need to—" She was grasping now, trying to find any angle, any way to delay. "The Council will be suspicious if I abdicate too quickly. They'll know something's wrong. Let me do this properly, let me—"
"No more delays." Riuondo moved to the controls again. "No more negotiations. You're going to agree right now, or I'm going to level seven."
Serna's terror was palpable. Level seven would kill me. We both knew it.
"Wait." Her voice broke. "Wait, just—give me a moment. Please."
"Why?" Riuondo's hand hovered over the controls. "So you can think of another excuse? Another delay?"
"So I can say goodbye." The words came out raw, honest. "If you're going to kill him, at least let me—"
"I'm not going to kill him." Riuondo's smile was cruel. "Not yet. But I am going to break him. And I'm going to make you watch."
He pressed the control.
Level seven.
The world exploded into white-hot agony. I felt something tear inside me—something fundamental and irreparable. My heart stuttered, stopped, started again in an irregular rhythm that sent panic flooding down the bond.
Serna was screaming. I could hear it distantly, could feel her terror and rage and helpless desperation.
The pain stopped.
I hung in the restraints, barely breathing. Blood ran from my nose, my ears. My vision was a narrow tunnel, darkness creeping in from all sides.
"He's dying," Serna said, her voice high and desperate. "You're killing him. Stop, please, you're killing him—"
"Then agree." Riuondo's voice was implacable. "Abdicate. Unconditionally. Right now."
"I..." She was sobbing now, all composure shattered. "I can't. The Alliance needs—"
"The Alliance needs nothing from you." Riuondo pulled out a blaster, checked its charge. "You've had your chance. Multiple chances. But you're too proud, too stubborn to accept reality."
He aimed the blaster at my head.
"So here's your final choice, Lady Prime. Abdicate right now—no conditions, no negotiations, no delays—or I execute him. Here. Now. And you can watch your true mate die knowing you could have saved him."
Down the bond, I tried to reach her. Tried to tell her not to do it. That the Alliance was more important than one life. That she couldn't let him win.
But I was too weak. Too broken. All I could do was hang there and wait for her decision.
Serna stared at the blaster. At me. At Riuondo.
I saw the moment she broke.
Not her body—that remained straight, proud, Vaktaire. But something inside her, something fundamental, shattered like glass.
"All right." Her voice was hollow. Empty. "All right, I'll do it. I'll abdicate. No conditions. No negotiations. I'll give you everything. Just stop hurting him."
"Say it properly." Riuondo kept the blaster trained on me. "Say you surrender. Say you accept defeat."
"I..." She closed her eyes. Opened them. "I surrender. I accept defeat. The Alliance is yours."
"You'll endorse my claim as Prime?"
"Yes."
"You'll do everything in your power to ensure a smooth transition?"
"Yes." The word was barely a whisper. "Yes, I'll do it all. Just... please. Don't kill him."
Riuondo lowered the blaster slowly, his smile triumphant. "There. Was that so difficult?"
Serna didn't answer. She just stood there, tears streaming down her face, staring at me with an expression of such profound grief that hurt worse than any torture.
She'd given up everything to save me.
"Cullen." Serna's voice cut through muck. "Cullen, look at me."
The Alliance. Her position. Her life's work.
All of it, gone.
Because she loved me more than duty. More than honor. More than the future of a thousand worlds.
And I didn't know whether to be grateful or devastated.
My gaze found her face across the chamber.
She was crying. Not for the loss of her position as Prime. For me.
"I love you," I managed to say. The words came out slurred, barely intelligible. "I love you, Serna."
"I love you too." Her voice was fierce despite the tears. "Stay with me. Please, stay with me."
"How romantic," Riuondo said. He picked up another implement—this one with wicked-looking prongs. "Let's see how long that love lasts, shall we?"
He pressed it against my ribs.
The pain was electric, sharp, concentrated. I felt something crack—a rib, maybe two. Blood filled my mouth.
"Stop!" Serna was screaming again. "You're killing him!"
"That's rather the point." Riuondo moved the implement to my shoulder. More pain. More breaking. "Though I had planned to draw this out longer. But you know what? I think I'm done playing."
He set down the implement and drew a blade from his belt.
Long. Curved. Wickedly sharp.
Down the bond, I felt Serna's despair. Her absolute horror.
I'm sorry, I thought. I'm so sorry.
Riuondo raised the blade.
And the world exploded.
The shuttle rocked violently, throwing Riuondo off balance. Alarms blared. The lights flickered and died, replaced by emergency red lighting that cast everything in hellish shadows.
Another explosion. Closer this time.
"What—" Riuondo staggered, catching himself against the wall. "What's happening?"
One of the guards spoke into his comm. "Sir, we're under attack. Two Alliance warships just dropped out of hyperspace, the Bardaga and the Historia. They're firing on us."
"Impossible!" Riuondo snarled. "How did they find us?"
But I knew. Chloe had understood the message. My baby girl had sent the cavalry.
The shuttle rocked again, and this time the guards flanking Serna stumbled. She didn't hesitate.
She moved like lightning—a blur of controlled violence. One guard went down with a crushed windpipe. The other she disarmed with a brutal strike to the gut, then finished with an elbow to the temple.
Riuondo turned toward her, blade still in hand.
Serna grabbed something from the fallen guard's belt—a collapsed baton. She flicked it open, and it extended into a staff about five feet long. Not quite a traditional quarterstaff, but close enough.
"You should have killed me when you had the chance," she said.
And then she attacked.
I'd seen Serna fight before—had watched her kill the caphik with brutal efficiency. But this was different. This was a warrior in her element, fighting for everything that mattered.
She was magnificent.
The staff became an extension of her body, moving in patterns too fast to follow. Strike, block, spin, strike again. Riuondo was bigger, stronger, but Serna was faster. More skilled.
Riuondo slashed with the blade. Serna deflected it with the staff, the impact ringing through the chamber. She spun, bringing the staff around in a devastating arc that caught him in the ribs.
He grunted, staggered back.
She pressed the advantage, raining blows down on him with relentless precision. Head, shoulder, knee, ribs. Each strike calculated to disable, to hurt, to kill.
But Riuondo was a warrior too. He caught the staff on the next strike, yanked it toward him, and drove his blade toward Serna's chest.
She twisted, and the blade scored across her shoulder instead of her heart. Blood bloomed across her bodysuit.
I saw her flinch in pain. But she didn't slow.