15. Naeris #2
As we walked, Thyros’ fingers flexed lightly on my hip. I didn’t shrug him off. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I let someone stay close without fighting it.
The tunnels were… grueling. I had never swum before, other than in an oversized bathtub, and submerging myself into deep water felt…
intimidating, even to me. I could fight, I could shoot, I could do a lot of things, but enclosed spaces…
they tore at my nerves, calling for all my willpower not to tear my hair out.
And now I was supposed to walk into a body of water, where the men told us we would emerge on the other side deep underneath the ocean.
I hated the idea. Hated it with all my being, but there was no point in making a fuss.
Somehow Thyros felt my apprehension and stayed close. I even allowed him to take the lead and my hand.
The tunnels were just like the Arkhevari had described and more. The men had a much harder time getting through some of the tight spaces, but the rocks still formed a large clump in my stomach that didn't want to dissolve.
Thyros did all the hard work when we reached the other side.
Still holding my hand, he pulled me up. Up, up, up.
Through the depths of water that seemed to press all its weight on me.
It didn't take long until I got the hang of moving my legs like he did, and, thankfully soon, I could make out sparks of light high above.
Never in my life had I been happier to see sunlight, even if the sun was about to set.
The small transport vessel offered little in the way of comfort, but it did have a functioning shower.
One by one, we disappeared into the tiny compartment, emerging cleaner, drier, and only slightly less exhausted than before.
The automated drying cycle blasted away the lingering seawater and somehow managed to leave our clothes warm and fresh, as though we hadn't just crawled out of the ruins of a lost civilization.
By the time the transport docked with the Pandraxian flagship, every muscle in my body ached, and my stomach was threatening open rebellion.
The meal that followed should have felt like a celebration. We were alive. We had found the lost city. Answers.
Instead, the atmosphere around the table felt oddly subdued.
Conversation came in short bursts before dying away again.
Ashley picked at her food while leaning against Xandros.
Ella stared into her drink more often than she spoke.
Even Nadine seemed distracted, her thoughts clearly still trapped somewhere among ancient ruins, impossible probabilities, and questions that refused to fit neatly into any scientific model.
My crew, or what remained of it, was little better.
Rylan usually couldn't stay quiet for more than thirty seconds, yet even he seemed content to simply eat and occasionally glance toward the viewport where Earth drifted silently beyond the glass.
He and Jax had carried Marek's body back to the ship.
We were still digesting his loss. Overwhelmed.
We had spent years fighting the Sythari, and suddenly, there was something else. Something larger. One of us had given his life for it, and none of us quite knew what to do with that. Any of it.
My gaze drifted toward Thyros across the table.
The Arkhevari sat with the casual stillness of a predator at rest, broad shoulders relaxed, silver eyes distant as though his thoughts were somewhere far beyond the ship itself.
As if sensing my attention, his gaze lifted.
The connection hit instantly. Sharp. Hot. Dangerously familiar.
For a brief moment, the noise of the dining hall seemed to fade entirely. It was just him. And me. Just those impossible eyes and a bond between us that defied all logic. My pulse stumbled.
Then Ashley said something, breaking the moment, and the spell shattered. Thank the suns. Because I had enough problems without adding an ancient alien god to the list.
Zapharos and Ella disappeared into their quarters first. Dravok and Nadine followed soon after, starting a low argument about gravitational shear patterns and ancestral memory echoes. The rest followed. Rylan more reluctantly, but after a while, it was only Thyros and I in the breakroom.
Earth turned slowly beneath the viewport, a fragile blue-and-white marble suspended in the black.
The deck was quiet, lit only by the soft glow of the viewport and the low hum of the ship’s systems. We sat on opposite sides of the dining table. For some reason, neither one of us seemed willing to call it a night. Even when the silence stretched until it felt like a living thing.
“I was never supposed to exist,” Thyros declared suddenly.
I looked up. He didn’t meet my eyes. “The others… Zapharos, Dravok… they were forged in the time before the Fracture. Somewhat balanced. Whole. I was the last. The mistake. Something went wrong in my making. Or right. I’ve never decided which.
” A bitter laugh scraped out of him. “They didn’t expect me to be stable. They were right.”
The bond pulsed, feeding me flashes of cold darkness, crushing pressure, the feeling of being wrong from the very first breath.
“I carry the flaw they couldn’t burn out,” he continued.
“The part of the Abyss that hesitated when it looked at me. The part that recognized something in me it couldn’t digest.” His hands flexed on his knees.
“I’ve spent millions of years waiting for the day it finally wins.
Waiting for the moment I become the thing that destroys everything I’m supposed to protect. ”
He finally looked at me. The raw vulnerability in his amber eyes stole the air from my lungs.
“And then I saw you.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And the bond told me you’re mine. That you’re the balance I was never meant to have. That I could drag something as bright as you into my darkness and call it fate.”
My heart hammered so hard I felt it in my throat. I stood up slowly and crossed the space between us. He didn’t move. I dropped to my knees in front of him, between his spread thighs, close enough that our breaths mingled.
“You’re not a flaw,” I said quietly, thinking of how he had fought his way through the tunnels to come for me. “You’re the part of the Abyss that refused to stay broken.”
His hands came up, hovering on either side of my face like he was afraid to touch me. “Naeris…”
I leaned in and kissed him. This time, there was no desperation of a trapped corridor.
This was slower. Deeper. His mouth opened under mine with a broken sound, and then he was kissing me back like a man who had waited eons for permission.
His hands finally settled, one cupping the back of my head, the other sliding down my spine to pull me closer.
My entire body shook from the experience. Slowly, I rose, never losing eye contact with him.
"You're not a mistake," I told him. But I'm making one, a huge one, my inner voice announced. Swiftly, I turned and walked as fast as I could out of the breakroom before I did things I knew I would regret.