The Spire rose from the land like a wound that refused to close.
A towering needle of white adamantine, piercing the earth itself, its surface smooth and featureless as it vanished into the clouds above.
At its base, the world had broken.
A vast circle of disrupted nature spread outward from the structure—trees bleached to bone, soil fused into glassy plates, roots torn free and left exposed like veins ripped from flesh.
Nothing grew here. Nothing stirred.
Within it, there was only silence and the low, almost imperceptible hum that set teeth on edge.
—
Kochav stood at the edge of that invisible line, hand in his pockets, eyes tracing the Spire's impossible height.
"So that's the thing that ends worlds," he muttered.
No one answered.
Rouar stood beside him, ears twitching, the fur along his arms and neck slowly bristling—raised by some unseen current in the air.
Behind them, the scouts began to react as well.
Felinids clutched at their heads, fur standing rigid.
A few staggered back, retching, while others swayed in place, overcome by sudden vertigo.
Kochav's gaze flicked between them, his eyes narrowing for a brief, calculating moment.
Then he dismissed it.
"We've been here for three days," Kochav sighed, letting his back slide against the slope.
"Any longer," he added, rolling his head to the side, voice edged with sarcasm,
"I might as well march in there myself."
—
"You would spare my ears your useless whining?" Rouar replied as he settled beside him, eyes never leaving the vast dead zone.
"I would not object."
—
"Ha. Tormenting you is what keeps me sane, my feline friend,"
Kochav shot back, pushing himself upright.
He reached into his jacket, thumb flicking across a dataslate as he hastily scrawled something onto its surface.
"Please—kill yourselves. From yours truly," he mouthed.
Then he hurled the slate into the dead zone, psychic force snapping around it as it left his hand.
—
Thud.
"Such little restraint for someone bearing the title of Apex,"
Rouar sighed.
"And a waste of perfectly functional equipment—"
Szkk!
The dataslate spasmed midair, its casing shrieking as arcs of blue-white energy crawled across its surface.
It jerked violently, tumbling end over end as if caught in an invisible current, before detonating in a sharp crack of light and smoke well short of the ground.
—
Kochav smirked, turning his head sideways to meet Rouar's visibly annoyed stare.
"You were saying?"
—
Rouar crossed his arms, gaze fixed on the ruined dataslate smoking in the dead zone.
"Out with it, then."
—
Kochav pushed himself to his feet, brushing dust from his jacket, and spoke with infuriating calm.
"I've found us a way through."
He did not wait for agreement.
"Walk with me."
He stepped into the dead zone.
—
Rouar followed a heartbeat later.
His stride remained steady, but the tension in his posture—and the flick of his ears—betrayed a wariness he did not voice.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
A distant roar thundered from the Spire, deep enough to rattle bone.
The ground shuddered beneath their feet as streaks of fire clawed across the sky—artillery shells arcing toward them in slow, merciless parabolas.
"You have twenty seconds to make your point,"
Rouar said flatly, eyes tracking the incoming trails,
"or we are both dead."
—
Kochav glanced sideways, unfazed.
"Your fur's standing," he said lightly.
"Scared?"
—
"Of pointless death, yes," Rouar replied.
Then his brow furrowed as he brushed his paw across his arm.
The fur crackled beneath his touch—brittle, prickling, standing on end as if charged.
—
Kochav's grin sharpened, teeth bared in something close to triumph.
"Yes. That," he said, pointing past the dead ground toward the distant Spire.
He lifted his gaze, pupils tightening as another tremor rolled through the air.
"It's emitting an electromagnetic field.
Strong enough to kill plant life, scramble machinery,
and turn this whole place into a dead zone."
The shells screamed closer.
"That's why the land's rotting,"
Kochav continued, voice steady despite the oncoming fire.
"And that's why your fur's trying to crawl off your body."
He looked back at Rouar.
"And you know what else does the same?"
The light behind Kochav swelled—an expanding bloom of fire and pressure—until it swallowed his silhouette whole, casting him in stark darkness.
Like the pupil of a god opening.
—
Rouar's eyes widened, the realization striking him all at once.
"The Vraskariin..."
—
"Yes," Kochav shouted over the rising roar, exhilaration and fury braided in his voice.
"The old apex predator of this world."
The artillery reached its apex.
Kochav clenched his fist.
Psychic force detonated beneath them, violent and precise, tearing them free of the ground and hurling both bodies skyward as the blast below erased where they had stood a heartbeat before.
Fire bloomed.
Stone vaporized.
And above it all,
Kochav laughed—already reaching for the key that would carry them through the storm.
—
Back in the Underwoods,
the air carried the clean bite of fresh oxygen—filtered and renewed by the living roots woven through the caverns.
Despite the growing number of occupants, it never felt stale.
Beastmen from the northern ranges moved through the training halls in steady streams, drawn here by necessity and war.
Their broad forms glistened with sweat, dirt, and grime, hooves and claws scraping against root-reinforced stone as they drilled, sparred, and hauled equipment into place.
The scent of iron, musk, and churned earth clung to them.
Shadowgaze watched it all from her elevated seat, unmoving.
Her expression tightened.
One armored hand curled around the armrest, fingers biting into the living wood as irritation simmered beneath her calm exterior.
The disorder of it—the noise, the sweat, the crudeness—grated against every instinct she possessed.
This place had once been quiet.
Then an even more irritating presence entered her awareness.
She did not turn immediately.
She didn't need to.
That infuriating smirk was unmistakable.
"Why are you here?" Shadowgaze asked at last, irritation sharp in her voice as she shifted, resting one armored foot against the edge of the table.
"You could have reported over the comms."
—
Kochav didn't answer immediately.
He stepped closer, brushing past the faint glow of bioluminescent fungi and the living grain of the roots beneath them.
His expression was unapologetically proud—bordering on egotistical.
"Well," he said lightly, "I'm just stopping by."
"I need to use the Woodsway to reach the Vraskariin's corpse anyway."
He sat on the edge of the table.
Shadowgaze dropped her foot to the ground at once, irritation flashing across her face as she looked up at him.
—
"Vraskariin?" she asked, brows knitting.
"You found a solution?"
—
Kochav shrugged, casual to the point of offense.
"Something like that."
Then, as if it were an afterthought,
"And where are Chi'vak and Ruk'tan?"
—
"You… crazed Mon-keigh," Shadowgaze scoffed, rolling her hand sideways to indicate a passage deeper into the Underwoods.
"Now get your filthy face out of my sight," she added,
pouring every lingering irritation into the words.
—
Kochav covered his mouth, feigning shock.
"I know I'm magnificent," he replied lightly,
"and you're jealous."
His smirk widened, already reaching for another opportunity to needle the volatile xenos woman.
Shadowgaze did not answer with words.
PEW! PEW! PEW!
Three lances of green energy snapped from her ranger long rifle, streaking straight toward Kochav.
Her eyes were wide, veins standing out against her skin as she fixed him with a predator's glare.
"Hold—"
Pew. Pew. Pew!
The shots kept coming.
Kochav's force shield flared under the assault, its surface rippling and whining in protest.
Sparks crawled across its edges as the pressure mounted, leaving him with only one option.
He moved.
Straight toward where her finger—and now her gun—was pointed.
Kochav followed the indicated path, emerging into a broad training hall carved from living wood and stone.
Root-arches stretched overhead, braided with veins of faintly glowing fungi, while the floor bore the scars of constant use—scored by boots, claws, and hooves alike.
He slowed, the distant echo of drills and shouted commands washing over him.
Kochav exhaled, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
"Worth it," he muttered to himself.
The air smelled of oil, sap, and old blood.
—
And there—off to one side—sat his targets.
Two Kroot, hunched comfortably over their gear, long fingers moving with practiced precision as they maintained weapons of bone, metal, and things that had once been neither.
Each motion was deliberate, ritualistic. Patient.
Predatory in its calm.
They worked without speaking.
Kochav strolled over without ceremony.
He slipped an arm around one of their shoulders like an old friend, leaning in with just enough weight to be irritating.
Ruk'Tan didn't even look up.
"You're lucky I choose what goes into my mouth," the Kroot said flatly.
"Otherwise, you'd be an armless Mon-keigh."
With effortless ease, he rolled Kochav's arm off his shoulder and returned to his work.
—
"Calm down, my avian friends," he said brightly, grin sharp and conspiratorial,
"Just hear me out." He pleaded, getting down to his knees beside them.
—
"Whatever you're planning, count me out, Monke'igh,"
Chi'vak replied, uninterested.
—
"Aw, come on, Chi'vak," he said, pivoting on his knees and planting himself in front of them both.
"Remember the good old days? The three of us riding a Vraskariin, screaming for mercy."
He spread his hand wide, eyes alight.
"And those moments when we all ran from it—strategically, of course."
Ruk'tan's glare never softened.
If anything, it sharpened.
Unimpressed.
—
Kochav sighed,
then cleared his throat with exaggerated solemnity.
"I was thinking," he said, glancing back over his shoulder,
"it'd be nice if we eat it together—but if you're out…"
He shrugged and started to walk away.
"That makes me sad, you know," he added lightly,
a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth as he let the words linger.
—
Chi'vak crossed his arms, mandibles clicking once in thought.
"You ask us to shape ourselves," he said carefully,
"but there is no certainty the Vraskariin will answer us.
No Kindred has ever consumed it—"
—
"Because no one has killed it," Kochav cut in smoothly,
his voice lowering into something conspiratorial again.
He tilted his head, gaze flicking between them—measuring.
—
"What you're asking," Ruk'tan replied, finally looking up,
"is beyond you. This is our lives. Our future."
—
"You helped me kill it," Kochav said quietly.
"I'm just offering a worthy feast—to show my gratitude."
He leaned closer,
just enough for the implication to settle in.
The smile on his lips widened a fraction—dangerous.
Pleased.
"So," he said softly,
"would you like to be the first?"
A pause.
"Your choice," he added at last.
"Your future is yours."
—
At the burnt tree,
the air was the opposite of the Underwoods.
Embers and ash still fell from the dead giant like grey snow, drifting endlessly from its hollowed crown.
The dust hung thick—so dense it stung the lungs, drew blood from the nose, and turned every breath into a violent, rasping cough.
The barely living bark shuddered, then parted, granting passage to the one-handed psyker.
Cough—! Cough!
Kochav staggered through, seized by a violent fit.
He spat into his palm; a small pool of blood gathered there before he shook it away, smearing red into the grey dust.
Before him,
beastmen moved with hurried purpose.
Horned figures crisscrossed the clearing, muscles straining beneath matted fur.
Some hauled Vraskariin scales—broad, iridescent plates that caught what little light pierced the ash, their surfaces still faintly humming with residual charge.
Most worked directly at the corpse itself, carving great chunks from the dead apex predator, muscle and scale stripped with practiced efficiency.
At the center of his vision stood two figures—
the Inquisitor and the Sister of Silence.
Kochav walked uphill toward them, cutting through the crowd as if it parted for him by right.
"So," Helsin said at last, gesturing toward the heap of Vraskariin scales piled behind him, their surfaces catching dull, electric light,
"how are we supposed to use these materials?"
—
Kochav didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he glanced around—the coughing beastmen, the bloodied hands, the ash-choked air that burned with every breath.
"Yeah," he said, voice tightening,
"before that—how are we keeping these people alive long enough to fight?"
He looked back at Helsin, eyes sharp.
"The air alone is killing us."
—
"Bear with it… I suppose," Helsin answered, though even he sounded unconvinced.
—
Kochav snapped his head toward him.
"No. Can't do," he said, raising his voice—cutting through the coughing, the ash, the crackle of embers in the air.
"This is a workplace hazard."
—
Helsin pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled.
"You grew up on a death world," he said flatly.
"Desert and dust were your backyard."
—
Kochav swept his arm toward the choking workers—the drifting cinders, the beastmen doubled over, the blood spat dark against the grey soil.
"I'm not working," he said, voice steady now, iron-hard with decision,
"until we find a solution."
—
The ash kept falling.
And for the first time since they had arrived, the work slowed—not because of enemy fire or fear—
—but because Kochav refused to move.
"Fine, damn it," Helsin sighed, finally giving in.
"We'll make makeshift respirators.
Or ask the Aeldari to heal the tree."
—
Kochav didn't answer.
He stared into the choking air for a long moment—at the ash drifting like grey snow,
the beastmen coughing blood into their palms, the embers clinging to breath itself.
Then he rasped.
"Oh. Right."
He raised his hand.
FWOOM.
Psychic force detonated outward.
The air screamed.
Ash, dust, cinders—everything that wasn't anchored to the earth was torn away in a violent radial surge.
The shockwave flattened beastmen to one knee, sent loose debris skittering across the clearing, and stripped the air bare in a heartbeat.
Silence followed.
Clean.
Breathable.
Empty.
Kochav lowered his hand, blinking once.
The grey cloud vanished—gone—hurled hundreds of meters away like it had offended him personally.
Helsin stared at the now-breathable clearing.
Then at Kochav.
Then back at the clearing.
"…After all that talk," the Inquisitor said flatly,
"you could have just done that?"
—
Kochav just shrugged.
"Still a workplace hazard."
"But let's get back to why we're here, yes?" He said,
even though he was the one to delayed this.
Kochav raised his hand.
Five scales answered the motion, tearing free and rising into the air above him.
He snapped his hand downward.
They slammed into the earth in a straight line, embedding themselves deep into stone and soil.
Lightning coiled around his fingers.
He thrust his hand forward.
Shhkk!
The bolt struck the first scale—and stayed there, trapped for a heartbeat, the surface flaring with violent blue light, sparks clawing across it like a caged storm.
Then the energy leapt.
One scale to the next.
Then the next.
Until all five burned with contained fury, arcs of electricity bridging between them—
a crackling wall of lightning suspended in the open air.
—
"These scales," his fingers flexed—and the scales obeyed, shuddering in the air,
"they're conductive."
He paused, eyes narrowing.
"More precisely—they're ferromagnetic."
Kochav pushed one scale toward another.
The moment they drew too close, the current between them flared violently.
The space between the plates screamed.
A blinding arc snapped outward—
and the two scales were hurled apart in opposite directions, slamming into the ground with explosive force.
Sparks rained down, the lightning wall buckling before stabilizing once more.
—
Helsin glanced at Mira.
She only shrugged in response.
He turned back to Kochav.
"So. The dead zone."
—
"Yes. The dead zone is electromagnetic," Kochav replied.
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"We can turn their playing field into ours."
"Why don't I just show you the results, instead of theorizing?"
Kochav said, already lifting his hand.
A dozen Vraskariin scales rose from the ground, rotating slowly as if caught in an unseen current.
With a flick of his fingers, they shot downward—burying themselves into the soil in a wide circle.
The earth hissed where they struck.
Then lightning coiled around his arm.
He thrust his hand forward.
The bolt slammed into the nearest scale.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
—
Then the scale flared—violent blue—sparks crawling across its surface like living veins.
The charge leapt to the next scale, then the next, racing the circumference of the circle in a crackling chain.
The air tightened.
Hair lifted.
Static crawled across skin.
The ground hummed beneath their feet.
An invisible pressure settled over the circle, heavy and wrong.
Kochav reached into his jacket and produced a battered auspex scanner.
He tossed it into the circle.
The moment it crossed the boundary, the auspex screamed—runes collapsing into static as sparks burst from its casing.
SZKKK—
The machine seized, warped, and died mid-air, clattering uselessly against the stone as smoke curled from its seams.
Silence followed.
Kochav looked back at them.
"A small EM field," he said.
"Same principle as the Spire."
Then he pulled another scale free from the pile and tossed it into the circle.
—
The result was immediate.
The scale never touched the ground.
It caught—suspended midair, trembling as invisible forces bit into it.
Blue-white sparks crawled along its edges, snapping outward like teeth searching for purchase.
The air around it warped, dust lifting and spiraling as if gravity itself had stuttered.
The scale drifted—slow, deliberate—then began to spin, endlessly, repelled and held at once by the charged ring.
It hovered in violent equilibrium.
Like a compass in a storm.
—
"Movement?" Mira signed quickly, hands raised, palms rolling upward.
Kochav didn't answer.
Instead, he jumped—landing squarely on the scale.
His hair rose, crackling with sparks, gravity seemingly forgotten.
The scale wobbled beneath him, unstable, protesting the imbalance.
Then he slammed his fist into it.
Sparks exploded outward, bright and violent—
like a hammer striking steel.
The field screamed.
The scale bucked beneath him, sparks lashing outward as the air itself seemed to fracture.
Kochav bent his knees instinctively, teeth clenched—not in fear, but concentration.
Then the scale slid sideways.
Smooth.
Controlled.
A whisper of motion carried him several meters across the clearing.
He smirked and rolled his hand.
—
"So," Helsin muttered, watching the drifting scale,
"we need psykers."
Then his lips curled upward, slow and knowing.
"The Aeldari is going to hate this."
—
A few hours later—
Shadowgaze and Rouar emerged from the burnt tree,
roots parting behind them with a low, living creak.
The air outside was charged.
Before them stretched a wide clearing, now crowded with bodies—beastmen, felinids, kroots—gathered in a rough ring around a circular structure driven into the earth.
Vraskariin scales.
Dozens of them, half-buried in the soil, arranged in a perfect circle.
Faint arcs of blue-white electricity crawled between their edges, humming low enough to be felt in the bones.
The grass within the ring lay flattened and blackened, twitching as if caught in a storm it could not escape.
At the center of it all—
Kochav.
He rode a single scale, suspended a meter above the ground, boots planted wide as the surface beneath him wobbled and shuddered.
His dark hair stood on end, strands crackling faintly with static, his expression split between focus and reckless delight.
The scale lurched.
He corrected instantly—knees bending, fist slamming down into the ferromagnetic plate.
Sparks burst outward like struck steel, and the hovering disc snapped back into alignment, sliding sideways in a smooth, controlled arc.
The watching crowd recoiled as one.
—
Shadowgaze stopped at the edge of the clearing, her ranger long rifle slung across her back, eyes narrowing as she took in the scene.
Rouar's ears flattened slightly, fur prickling as the field whispered against his senses.
"You're going to ride that across the dead zone?" Shadowgaze asked, stepping closer, arms crossing over her chest.
—
"Correction," Kochav said.
The hovering scale steadied as he brought it to a halt before her, boots grinding faint sparks from its surface.
"Us."
He tapped the edge of the scale beneath his feet.
"Only you and I can control this."
—
Shadowgaze extended her hand.
Green lightning crawled along her fingers, her pupils igniting with an emerald glow.
ZSKK!
A lance of energy leapt from her palm and vaporized the scale beneath Kochav's feet in an instant—metal screaming, then collapsing into drifting ash.
Kochav dropped lightly to the ground, unfazed.
Shadowgaze asked coolly.
"How are we supposed to keep it intact across a vast distance?"
—
"You mean," Kochav shot back, lips curling into a grin,
"in the holy Terran unit of ten kilometers?"
Behind him,
multiple Vraskariin scales rose into the air,
rotating into alignment at a precise forty-five degrees—silent sentinels suspended in defiance of the charged field.
Despite the electromagnetic pressure screaming through the clearing,
they no longer recoiled.
They answered him.
—
"If they stand vertical," Kochav said, pointing toward the scales driven into the earth—the ones screaming with chained lightning—
"They become the field."
—
He drew one scale free from the hovering array and flattened it with a flick of his fingers.
It shuddered, vibrating violently, and he stepped onto it as it fought to throw him free.
"If they're flat," he continued evenly,
"They fight it."
—
Then his gaze lifted.
He gestured upward, toward the angled scales holding steady in the air—neither drifting nor conducting, calm amid the storm.
"The in-between," he said quietly.
"They are null."
—
Shadowgaze ground her teeth, a faint smirk finally breaking through her discipline.
"So," she said slowly, voice edged with challenge,
"you want me to charge straight into the dead zone with you—"
She hooked a finger under one of the hovering scales, wrenching it free with a sharp crackle of energy.
"—while hauling a small arsenal of these things as backup?"
Her eyes flicked up to Kochav, bright and dangerous.
"You reckless Monke'igh."
She stepped into the field beside him, the air hissing around her armor as the scale steadied beneath her control.
"I'm in."
—
Back inside the Underwoods,
everyone gathered again for the debriefing.
Kochav looked more disheveled than usual, dust and scorch marks clinging to his jacket,
while Shadowgaze calmly wiped a thin line of blood from beneath her nose.
Helsin broke the silence.
"Report?"
—
Rouar answered without hesitation, arms crossed.
"The scales react to the Spire based on orientation."
"Vertical," he continued, "and they generate a localized dead zone of their own."
"Horizontal, and they are pulled toward the Spire.
If actively channeled in that state, they destabilize and vaporize."
His ears twitched once before he finished.
"Forty-five degrees is the equilibrium. No reaction. No strain."
—
"But any vertical or horizontal too close—"
Mira signed rapidly, her hands snapping together—
then tearing apart in a sharp, violent motion.
"Boom."
—
"Yeah—yeah. Just don't think too much of this," Kochav shrugged.
"We'll make a way for everyone to cross safely—almost."
That last word lingered.
Silence followed.
"A—and that's not all, okay?" Kochav added,
the confidence cracking just enough to let urgency bleed through.
—
Several heads turned.
He rubbed the back of his neck,
eyes flicking briefly toward the deeper roots of the Underwoods.
"Don't count on them just yet."
Shadowgaze said and nodded once, slow and deliberate.
—
"Alright," Helsin said at last, straightening as he moved toward the exit.
"We'll relocate the equipment to the tunnel."
He paused at the threshold, one hand resting against the living bark.
"Just prepare yourselves."
The Underwoods stirred softly around them, roots shifting, spirit-stones humming in uneasy harmony—as if the world itself understood what was about to be asked of it.
The seats emptied one by one until only Kochav remained.
—
He rose and walked away, retracing a familiar path—the same one he took every time.
The one that always led him to Bergelmir.
"By the Throne," he muttered, shaking his head as he stepped closer,
"you're doing nothing but collecting dust in here."
Bergelmir did not stir.
His visor remained dark, his massive form unchanged—more monument than man.
—
Knock. Knock.
Kochav turned.
Mira stood at the entrance, her gaze already drifting past him to the Grey Knight.
She came to his side and looked up at Bergelmir's silent helm.
"And he called me lazy," she signed.
—
"Well," Kochav scoffed,
"you were sleeping almost as much as he is now."
—
"Conserving energy," she corrected, brows raised, arms resting on her hips.
—
"Whatever," Kochav replied.
He lowered himself to the floor,
settling with his back against the wooden frame that supported Bergelmir's unmoving form.
After a moment, he spoke again, quieter.
"How long have you two known each other?"
—
Mira raised her hands and began counting on her fingers.
Two hands weren't enough.
She crouched, gently caught Kochav's hand, and finished the count there.
"Twelve."
She released him.
—
"Twelve years?" Kochav rasped, glancing sideways at her.
A faint smirk tugged at his mouth.
"So… does that make you an old lady, then?"
—
"Old lady?!"
She lifted both hands sharply, waving the accusation away with exaggerated offense.
Then she settled beside him, movements quieter now, and signed again.
"Luna," she said.
"Most of my childhood."
A brief pause.
"The Black Ships—when I was teenager."
"I met him there."
She tapped the wooden frame behind them—once, deliberate.
Her gaze unfocused.
—
For a moment,
she was no longer in the Underwoods.
She remembered cold metal corridors and antiseptic air.
The constant pressure behind the eyes.
Rows of children and adolescents lined in silence—some shaking, some staring straight ahead, some already hollowed out by what they were becoming.
She remembered the absence around herself—the way others flinched without knowing why.
And she remembered that day.
Skipping a drill.
Slipping away between shifts.
Hiding in a storage compartment wedged between conduit stacks and sealed crates.
It was warm there.
Barely.
She had curled in on herself, helmet clutched to her chest,
promising she would rest for only a moment.
Sleep took her anyway.
When she woke, she wasn't alone.
A towering figure stood at the threshold of the compartment—silver and grey, immobile as a statue.
His armor bore fresh scoring, and the faint ozone tang of the warp clung to him.
He exhaled once.
Then stepped forward.
She remembered the sudden grip at her collar, the effortless lift as her feet left the deck.
She thrashed instinctively—clawing at ceramite, fingers scrabbling uselessly against the immovable gauntlet.
Her breath hitched, eyes wide with terror,
every lesson drilled into her screaming the same word.
Death.
But he did not strike.
He merely looked at her—expression hidden, presence overwhelming.
A scoff escaped him, low and dismissive.
"If you do not wish to be found," he said evenly, voice like stone dragged across steel,
"then hide where your presence can be concealed."
Then he tossed her away—unceremoniously—outside the compartment.
She stumbled back against the bulkhead as he turned away, already gone, already unconcerned.
Her hands trembled long after.
But she was alive.
—
"I take it you didn't stop skipping class?" Kochav asked, narrowing his eyes.
—
She smirked, unapologetic.
"Of course not."
She signed again, quicker now, almost amused.
"Instead of hiding far away, I hid under the training hall."
"The others' presence concealed mine—like a raven among crows."
—
Kochav laughed, a short sound of genuine amusement.
Then his gaze drifted downward, unfocused—no longer here.
"Remember Veridian's Fall?" he asked quietly.
The levity drained from his voice, replaced by something heavier.
Something regretful.
—
"The cloning facility?"
Mira turned around, locking eyes with him.
"What about it?"
—
"I've been thinking…" Kochav sighed, eyes closing, his remaining hand resting on his knee.
"What if we could've saved the clones?"
—
"You said it yourself," Mira signed gently.
"They wanted freedom."
"Death."
"And not all of them were alive. Some were just empty vessels."
—
"Yes… but what if there was a better solution—"
His words cut off as a fist struck his shoulder—not hard, but firm.
—
"It was your choice," she signed.
"Live with it."
"We all carry invisible weight, K."
"Feeling guilty is fine. Just don't let it consume you."
—
"Living," he echoed quietly, brows tightening with silent grief.
"I wonder what my mother would say if she saw me like this."
"A shell of a man she once called her son."
"I don't even remember her face anymore.
I don't remember any of theirs."
His voice broke.
Kochav curled inward, drawing his limbs close,
making himself as small as he felt.
—
Mira stood.
She nudged him once with her foot.
Hard enough to demand attention.
When he looked up, she signed one last time—sharp, uncompromising.
"Did your mother raise a quitter?"
Her expression hardened.
"Or do you want me to knock some more sense into you?"
Kochav straightened slowly but did not answer.
"You are alive. Your enemies are alive."
Mira's hands moved sharply, her gaze unflinching.
"Are you going to wear that pathetic face when we face them?"
She turned and left without waiting for a reply.
—
"Damn it," he whispered to himself.
His thoughts drifted—into imagination, into wondering.
'How would she want me to live?
Would she be proud of me?
Am I worthy to be her son?'
Even if he could not remember her face,
he remembered her.
Maybe she would have said something simple.
'Don't push yourself too hard, Ko.
Don't forget to eat, Ko.'
But they were only imaginings—
a mother's voice, any mother's voice.
His brows tightened. His fist clenched.
Blood seeped between his fingers.
"Whatever the cost," he murmured,
"I will find a way to remember."
"To see her face again."
At last,
he gathered himself and rose to his feet.
The weight did not lessen.
The pain did not fade.
But neither did his conviction.
—
In the main hall,
troops trained relentlessly—moving in practiced formations, some constructing platforms angled at forty-five degrees, others dragging the structures across the floor to test their balance.
Two figures stood watching from afar.
The Autarch.
And the Inquisitor.
"Your warlock," Shadowgaze began.
"He is fragile."
—
"Yes," Helsin replied,
his gaze never leaving the assembled troops.
"His wound is deep. And a part of himself is missing."
—
"So is everyone else," she answered flatly.
—
"Perhaps," he said, stepping forward,
his hands resting against the railing.
"And that is what keeps us from killing one another, no?"
He finally turned to look at her.
"A shared enemy. One that took something from all of us."
His eyes narrowed.
"You never said what they took from you."
—
Shadowgaze scoffed.
"You should know better than to pry, Monke'igh."
"Let just say—"
"They have something that was never meant for their filthy hands."
—
"Everything is set, my lady," Rouar spoke, approaching them.
His footsteps were nearly imperceptible.
He bowed slightly once he finished.
—
"Good," Shadowgaze replied.
She turned toward the troops.
"To the Spire."
—
Within the Spire's walls,
the Ivory Command had stationed fifty—no, seventy thousand Xarcarion voidmen.
The Obsidian Phalanx.
And at its head stood Commissar Reyvis Fitz.
A man born into Xarcarion service by bloodline and expectation alike.
He sat calmly within the command chamber, his gaze fixed upon the drilling display.
"Sixty percent," he muttered.
—
"Commissar! They are back,"
an officer in white reported from a station behind him.
—
Reyvis rose and turned, eyes settling on the auspex display mounted along the wall.
A grin slowly formed.
"Good. Let them," he replied.
He strode toward the balcony, lifting a monocular to his eye.
Ten kilometers out, a force of mismatched species had assembled.
From his vantage, they numbered no more than five or six thousand.
A rabble.
An army of barbarians—
lacking true technology, lacking modern weaponry,
marching toward the end of their own relevance.
He watched them in silence, utterly untroubled.