Location: Skyfortress Aegis – Reactor Spine
The lower decks shook with the sound of the Aegis's wounded heart. Metal screamed in protest, steam hissed through ruptured pipes, and the dull, rhythmic thrum of the reactor bled through the floor like a pulse too fast to be human.
Lucien kept Aeris close, his back pressed to hers as they navigated the narrow maintenance causeway. The shadows hadn't stopped chasing — they'd only grown hungrier.
"They're trying to herd us," Lucien said, voice sharp over the roar of machinery.
"Into what?" Aeris asked.
"Either a trap," he said, scanning the shadows ahead, "or somewhere worse."
She almost asked what could be worse than this, but she already knew. Her skin prickled with that same invisible pull, the crown the voice kept whispering about tightening like unseen fingers around her skull.
"Lucien," she said, low and urgent, "they're… calling again."
He didn't look back, just reached behind him until his fingers brushed hers. "Ignore it."
"It's not that simple."
"Then I'll make it simple."
Before she could ask how, he stopped abruptly, pulled her forward into the shadow of a massive coolant pipe, and pinned her there — one arm braced against the wall, the other gripping her waist.
Her breath caught. "What are you—"
He cut her off, his forehead pressing to hers, voice a dangerous growl. "You focus on me. Only me."
The words weren't just protective — they were a command.
Her lips parted, heat curling through her chest despite the freezing air around them. The pull of the voices dulled under the weight of his nearness, the steady rhythm of his breath, the sharp scent of gunpowder and steel.
"Better," he murmured. "I can feel you here again."
A low, echoing clang reverberated through the deck. The shadows surged around the coolant pipe, their shapes less human now, more like wraiths stitched together from smoke and memory.
Lucien's body shifted just enough to shield her from the first attack. His rifle barked twice, sending a ripple through the nearest shade, but it didn't vanish — it screamed, a sound like metal tearing, and split into two smaller shapes.
"They're adapting," Aeris said.
"So do we."
He passed her his sidearm without looking, trusting her completely. She took it, her hands steady even though her heart wasn't.
The fight blurred into motion — gunfire cracking in the red gloom, shadows lunging from every direction. Aeris kept moving, her shots precise, but every time one shade dissolved into smoke, another seemed to claw its way out of the walls.
Then one of them slipped past her defenses.
A cold hand closed around her wrist, yanking her toward the railing. The world tilted, and in the smoke's shifting face she saw a vision — not her mother this time, but herself, crowned in black flame, standing alone in an empty throne room.
Her breath hitched.
Lucien's voice cut through it like fire. "Aeris!"
The hand vanished in a burst of light — his knife buried deep into the shadow's form. He yanked her back against him, his arm around her waist like a chain.
"Stay with me," he said, low and fierce, his lips brushing her temple. "You're not meant to stand alone."
Something inside her broke and rebuilt all at once. "Then don't leave me the chance to."
"I won't."
The shadows closed in again, but now they fought differently — not just to survive, but to hold.
And as the Aegis's reactor roared beneath them, Aeris realized this wasn't just a battle for the ship. It was a battle for who she would be when the smoke finally cleared.