A shape held steady ahead, though everything else rushed by. Vance Kensington watched it from inside the dropship he had taken. Outside, wind tore at the ship's armor, pushing swirls of red-dark cloud across the view. High speed did not shake what hung in the middle of the glass - six wings spread wide. It stayed fixed, like a mark on the sky, matching pace with the dreadnought below. Motion surrounded it, yet it never slipped.
Frozen pain shot through Vance's neck where the mark burned beneath his skin. Ice spread along his spine like roots cracking stone. Not merely watching the shard inside him, the being held on tight - flesh bound to flesh. That connection snapped nerves still, locking his voice away.
A sharp ache crawled through his right foot, worn thin after giving up fifteen years so Axiom could rebuild him. Each jolt from the engine shook his frame, bone scraping bone as if filled with broken shards.
Out past the walls? Elian asked under his breath. Shaking hard down a frozen hallway stood a boy of sixteen, taken long ago from beyond the sectors. His jumpsuit hung loose, streaked with grime, pulled close against ribs too sharp beneath worn fabric.
"That's it," Vance said, moving back from the cold metal door.
A low rumble, like stone giving way under weight, rolled through the ship's deepest levels. Not plasma fire nor shrapnel tore through metal - no blast, no spark. One slender arm lifted, fingers uncurled. From that stillness surged a twist in space itself, folding inward then snapping wide. Metal groaned as if pulled by unseen hands. The left-side engine housing buckled without warning. A silence followed, heavy and wrong.
A sudden jolt threw the enormous airborne stronghold sideways. Metal walls shrieked as pressure twisted them beyond limits. Under Vance's feet, the floor heaved upward - sharp, relentless - a total loss of balance now certain.
A sudden push into the wall kept him from slipping on the tilted floor, wrenching the jagged wire holding his arm together. That tight loop ripped across torn tissue, just like burning metal cutting deeper with every breath. A loud cry almost escaped, but he clenched it shut - blood bloomed inside his mouth when his jaw snapped closed too fast.
A sudden stop came when Axiom's claws bit hard into the worn metal grid. From deep within the ship's gut, the shadow-lynx pulsed - charged by wild currents siphoned during their break from confinement. Noise rolled out of it, low and sharp, aimed at the torn edge of the hull. Power taken fueled its stance, head high, eyes unblinking.
A sudden glow painted everything crimson as backup lights kicked in. Shadows stretched like claws along icy surfaces. Voices crackled through the speakers - shouts, orders, fear in every syllable. The Argent Cartel forgot codes, spoke raw into open channels.
"Hull breach in Sector Four! Gravity stabilizers failing! All hands repel boarders!"
Footsteps thundered through the nearby stairs. Down came a group of Argent fighters, rushing hard across the junction where cells lined the walls, bodies leaning sideways against the slant of the broken deck. Not one looked at the open cages. Clad in thick plating, they pushed forward fast - aiming for the crumbling engine core - their rifles glowing, ready to fire at something beyond knowing.
"We have to move to the escape pods," Vance commanded, forcing his battered body upright against the slanted wall. "Sector Twelve, upper deck. Move."
Footsteps quick behind it, Elian stayed just far enough from the crackling creature - too scared to flee, too aware to close in.
Moving through the broken warship meant fighting both weightless gaps and weakening bodies. Through narrow service tunnels they went, then past locked hatches - Axiom's black current frying each seal open. Cold crept deeper into the ship without pause. Ice built up on metal edges everywhere, proof of something moving fast, unstoppable, tearing across shattered walls. Each step forward followed its path.
At the lip of the main hold, they stopped. Twisted metal blocked the entrance - gravity from the first strike bent the huge doors right out of alignment.
Through the twisted opening he slipped, aiming to cross the vast hold straight toward the pod bays. Into that hollow space Vance moved, drawing his carbon-steel blade from its sheath - just in case patrols still roamed near.
A single enormous containment chamber sat inside the cargo hold. Not one crate of weapons, soldiers, or gear took up space.
Hovering midair, held up by broad magnetic lines, stood an enormous see-through pod. Frost covered everything else on board, yet the smooth surface stayed untouched. Built into its frame, a dense cluster of black-market life-support valves met high-end military stabilizers - rare gear joined without care for origin. This mismatch hinted at something never seen before: cooperation across enemy factions.
A shape hung in the air, unbound by any rule once thought fixed within the Fracture. Though nothing here obeyed old physics, this thing moved like it never knew them. Its presence bent what little order remained. Where edges should be, there were pulses. Instead of silence, a hum that wasn't sound at all. It didn't belong - yet fit perfectly into the broken logic around it.
A silver glow pulsed through its feathers, each one shaped like a frozen beam of noonday sun. This creature stood untouched by time, an ancient guardian built not of flesh but interlocking rings of silent gold machinery. Not just any relic - it carried the full mark of Aethelgard's lost watchmen, whole and undisturbed.
Frozen stillness gripped Vance's chest. Though the shard had pulsed wildly before, now it dimmed - its hunger gone - as if recognizing the other piece near him. Silence pressed in, thick and strange. Not a sound came from the metal once so loud inside him.
Floating above the chaos, the Argent Cartel didn't merely seize control of the sky to snag a rogue Vanguard dropship. Hidden inside, they'd pulled something far stranger from the Elysian Waves - a breathing deity, now caged.
Out of nowhere, a creature with six wings ripped into the warship - not only hunting Vance's small stolen piece. The whole vessel? That belonged to her now.
Staring at the floating god, Vance felt his thoughts spin out. Back then, half a year bled into hunting the Aethelgard Watcher deep in the Abyssal Stratum - every choice burned away just to seize that legendary core. That creature wasn't company; it was chaos given form, twisting moments and distances like thread. Now, restrained here, wired into Syndicate machines pumping artificial breath, everything he believed about strength inside the Fracture cracked wide open.
There it was." Elian spoke so softly it almost vanished beneath the groaning steel of the dying warship. His eyes locked on the searing brightness shaped like an angelic bird, skin stained a pale yellow by its eerie shine.
"The reason we are falling out of the sky," Vance replied, his voice flat.
A loud rip cut through the air near the back of the cargo hold. Metal sheets meant to protect the ship started pulling away, bending from a powerful outside force. Twisted shards folded into themselves, soft as crushed paper.
Out of the huge tear came broken sky from the Fracture, spilling into the storage room. Then her - Elena Rostova - cold air clinging to every step, breath like ice on metal.
Floating inside the broken ship, her six dark wings moved in sharp, odd motions. From her eyes poured a harsh purple glare, swallowing up the warm gold shine of the resting pod. Alarms screamed around her, yet she paid them no mind - nor the floor that leaned sideways, nor the icy blast rushing through the gap where walls used to be.
A sudden stillness took her eyes straight to the Aethelgard Watcher hanging mid-air. The device floated, silent, at the heart of the space. Light caught its edges like frost on glass. She did not blink. Not one movement gave way. Time seemed thinner there. Her breath slowed without thought. Every line of it held a quiet hum. Space bent slightly around the object. It waited - she could feel that much.
Fangs bared, Axiom crouched close to the floor. Stolen energy sparked through the creature's dark coat as it braced itself - not for escape, but for what lay beneath Vance's skin. That small piece was worth every risk.
Fingers locked around the blade, Vance felt his hands tremble. Stuck in the hold - something ancient asleep, something else stirring. Outrunning the crush of space folding in? Impossible. The pods wouldn't make it. Nothing would.
Out of the corner came Elena's hand, lifting like mist through cold air. Time to open your eyes, she said, soft but sharp against the storm's scream.
A sudden hum rose from her hands, violet light building between her fingers, ready to crack the thickened window - then another sound cut through the hold.
A whisper cut through, quiet but clear. Not some mind-scan echo. Nothing like the raw cry of a soldier from Argent. This came smooth, measured - someone known, speaking across the ship's speakers.
That move? Better think again, said Julian Thorne, his words sliding out calm and polished into the cold cargo bay. Breaking the seal triggers an antimatter fuse - it's wired straight to the Watcher. One crack in the glass, and everything vanishes, including us. Vance jerked his gaze upward, chasing the sound. From hidden speakers above came the voice of a boy he'd seen hooked to machines days before - Thorne's son, the one tied to the Obsidian empire, the same kid who pulled him from the canyons when no one else could.
Fresh on the table wasn't merely a reshuffled layout. Everyone involved had slid their markers into place long before. At that moment, Julian Thorne gripped the t
rigger wired to something far beyond human.