Thalyn Ka’el remained in the ancient throne as it returned to its upright state, her breath shallow from the weight of her experience.
Across the chamber, Korr Draven and Dr. Elara Voss leaned over a strange artifact, their voices like sharp blades cutting through the quiet. Korr, in his worn suit, turned the device over in his hands, his eyes bright with an almost feverish intensity. “It’s a scanner,” he muttered, as he ran his fingers along its edges, feeling for hidden seams, a scavenger with a prize. “It diagnoses something… but what?”
Elara, her pale blue face a mask of calm, watched him with a slight smile, her fingers tapping lightly against her thigh. “We’ll figure it out,” she said softly. The earlier scans had been a mess—a jumble of data, unreadable even to Korr’s keen eyes.
Thalyn pushed herself up from the throne, wincing as the familiar ache pulsed through her legs, her muscles tight and unyielding. She moved closer, drawn by the hum of the device in Korr’s hands, the low drone filling the space between them. Korr glanced up, eyes flicking over her face as if searching for answers in her expression. “Thalyn, let me try this on you,” he said, holding the scanner out, his fingers twitching, eager.
She hesitated, her gaze locked on the dark screen, then nodded. "Go ahead," she said, her voice steady but tinged with unease. The scanner clicked, a thin line of light tracing her form.
“Something’s different,” Korr’s brow furrowed, his focus narrowing to a point, his mind lost inside the machine. “Your scan… it’s not like ours.” He turned away, muttering to himself, already lost in thought, leaving Thalyn to glance around the place.
Elara’s gaze followed her, a question hidden in their depths. Thalyn felt the weight of her gaze. “Where’s the commander?” she asked.
"Outside," Elara replied, her tone gentle. "Drilling the cliffs."
Thalyn nodded, her thoughts drifting back to the throne, to the cascade of memories that Arvie had poured into her mind. “Arvie filled me in after I woke up,” she said, her voice cutting through the stillness. Korr looked up, drawn by the sound.
“Top-tier upgrades, it seems,” she continued, her tone matter-of-fact. “Faster healing, heightened senses, adapting to that damn fog out there. But she couldn’t pin down my race. Said I didn’t match anything in her database.”
Elara’s brow arched, a flicker of curiosity in her eyes. “Not in her database? That’s… Interesting.”
Thalyn shrugged. “Very,” she replied. “Arvie’s wired into my skull. She can control droids, hack systems, but she needs Neurolink repairs to be at full strength. And there’s a diary in my head, recording everything since I woke up, full sensory playback.” Her lips twitched, a brief smile. “Like me now,” she added, her voice softening.
Before Elara could speak, commander Jaxon Hurst strode in, a metal box clutched in his cybernetic arm. He set it on a nearby shelf beside other mineral samples and ripped off his mask. “I’m taking a nap,” he muttered, his voice frayed. He exchanged a few clipped words with Korr before retreating to the makeshift restroom.
Thalyn watched him go, a flicker of something unreadable crossing her face. She turned to Elara. “I saw him,” she murmured, the words barely escaping her lips. “In the mirror. Tall, lean. Hair like smoke caught in twilight.”
She paused, the memory clawing at her. “His face—sharp, calculating. Skin with a kind of glow to it. But the eyes… green like mine, but deeper, like they could see through you, see everything.” Her voice dropped lower, almost a whisper. “Nothing like the Ezollaid.”
Korr’s head jerked up, his face suddenly animated. “I might’ve heard of a race like that,” he said. “Tall, ethereal, revered by the divines. Druvvak, they’re called. Almost mythical, barely more than a rumor.”
Elara’s violet lips curled into a thoughtful smile. “A race so rare, yet treasured by the divines. There’s a kind of poetry to that, isn’t there?”
Korr’s eyes flickered. “If Echo was truly Druvvak… it changes everything. What was he doing there?”
A chill crept over Thalyn’s skin. She glanced back at the throne, its metal frame still gleaming with an otherworldly light. “Only one way to find out,” she muttered, stepping forward. She eased herself into the throne’s embrace, felt its cold touch spread across her back. The crown hovered nearby, waiting. With a deep breath, she set it on her head, the cold metal pressing into her temples.
As the chamber dissolved into darkness, Arvie’s voice slipped into her thoughts, light and teasing. “Be ready,” it whispered, a laugh lingering at the edges. “To be captured, interrogated, maybe abducted.”
Thalyn closed her eyes as the world began to fall away, the present slipping like water through her fingers. She felt the pull of the past, its grip tightening as it began to come alive again. With a final breath, she let herself go.495Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnOxdIjUH2j
