Thalyn awoke to the kind of silence that felt unnatural in a city. The chamber was large by slum standards, its long walls once adorned with delicate plaster filigree now blistered and peeling like a corpse’s skin. Shadows clung to the corners with feral persistence, cut only by cold light leaking through a few dust-choked lamps high on the walls. A mural stretched across the ceiling, colors bled into each other until the scene was unrecognizable, some forgotten paradise rendered in decay.
She pushed herself upright on the thin cot, the Elder-enhanced muscles in her back pulling tight. The smell was different now, less rot, more faint ozone from the relic that had scrubbed the air clean. She swung her legs over the edge and padded to the door.
The main hall was transformed. The moss-choked rubble and rusted junk they’d inherited had been cleared, revealing a space large enough to move in, floor tiles cracked. At its center, a tattered settee held Elara, languid as royalty stripped of its throne, one leg draped over the other as though she’d been born to recline on decaying furniture. The Nyxara healer’s violet eyes were half-lidded, gaze wandering between the ceiling’s mold blooms and Jaxon.
The commander stood opposite her, bulk looming, cybernetic fingers scraping at a particularly stubborn wall patch as though daring it to argue with him.
“We go find your thalorite customer,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of a man accustomed to being obeyed on battlefields. “Thalyn and Korr search for possible relic markets. We set up a neural group link but use it only when absolutely necessary. Questions?”
“Just one,” Elara murmured. “Do we get breakfast first, or do we starve nobly for efficiency’s sake?”
Jaxon just gave her a flat look.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfCiGndIqhA
Thalyn dropped down onto the settee beside Elara and dug into her ration pouch, tearing into a nutrient bar that tasted faintly of compressed regret. She was halfway through when Arvie’s voice whispered bright through her mind.
“Hey, mistress. Something weird’s happening. I’m… changing. Remembering? No, more like learning. Elder language, maybe. I can actually talk to the relics now. Like, full-on conversation. We should test this.”
Thalyn stilled, ration bar halfway to her mouth. Surprise flickered across her face, unguarded.
Elara’s brows lifted. “What is it?”
Jaxon had caught the shift in her posture. “Ka’el?”
Thalyn swallowed and lowered the bar. “Arvie says she’s starting to… understand the relics. Communicate with them.” She looked at Jaxon. “I want to test it.”
Jaxon didn’t hesitate. “Fine. We’ll wake Korr.”
Elara’s serene demeanor cracked, a flicker of sharp excitement in her eyes. “This could open doors. And walls. And whatever else those relics decide to surprise us with.”
A few moments later, Korr shuffled in, hair sticking up at angles no physics could explain, eyes bleary and rimmed red. He blinked at the gathered group, then at Thalyn. “You’re serious?”
“Serious enough to wake you,” Jaxon said.
Korr muttered something about sacrilege and dragged his pack forward. He dropped into Elara’s vacated spot and began excavating his collection of relics with the reverence of a diviner at an altar. The first was a small sphere wrapped in dark cloth.
The instant he unwrapped it, the relic shivered to life. Metallic wings sprouted from its surface, insectoid and fine-edged, unfurling with a faint harmonic chime. It darted upward in a burst of motion, looped the hall once, then landed neatly in Thalyn’s lap before collapsing back into its inert spherical form again.
Her fingers closed around it, and the house unfolded in her mind in glowing lines, a perfect three-dimensional map. Colored markers pulsed at certain points: green for the crew’s positions, amber for structural weaknesses, blue for…
“Your bedroll,” Arvie said dryly. “Apparently, that’s critical intel.”
Thalyn’s mouth twitched. “It just gave me a full map of the house. Everyone. Everything.”
Korr’s eyes bulged. “In the ruins, it was dormant!”
“Not anymore.” She tucked the sphere carefully into her satchel.
Korr hesitated only a moment before handing her another relic: a small, rounded cube, cold and heavy, glowing glyphs etched across its surface.
Thalyn focused, willing it to wake. Nothing.
“This one’s… different,” Arvie said slowly. “It’s waiting. For what, I don’t know. But it’s strong, mistress. Dangerous strong. Do not sell it. Keep it close.”
Thalyn slipped it beside the sphere, her expression hardening. “This one’s not ready. But it feels… dangerous.”
Korr’s lips thinned. “I hate dangerous.”
At that moment, Jaxon stepped to the front door. “Open it.”
The lock’s interface flared into her awareness. Arvie sliced through it in a heartbeat.
“Child’s play,” Arvie murmured, smug.
Jaxon and Elara slipped out, the door sealing behind them.
Thalyn turned to Korr, who was already digging for another relic. He produced a thin bone ring this time, the embedded gem glowing faintly as it shifted through colors.
She slipped it onto her finger.
“Stealth,” Arvie purred. “Like a cloaking veil. I like it. Makes you forgettable. Well, more forgettable than usual.”
Korr was squinting. “I have to force myself to look at you. My eyes want to slide away.”
Thalyn arched a brow. “Let’s test it.” She slipped the ring off, circled behind him, then eased it back on as she ghosted toward the far wall.
“Korr,” she said.
He nearly jumped out of his skin. “By the void!”
Thalyn smirked. “I’m definitely keeping this one.”
“Figures,” he grumbled, still pale.
She reached into her satchel and pulled out the sphere. “Arvie, tell me everything about this one.”
“Everything’s a tall order, mistress,” Arvie said, a rare focus in her voice. After a pause: “First, fear aura. Still running hot. Second, it amplifies memory sessions. Probably the reason you’ve been able to reach backward. Third… yes, it’s feeding me. Language, or memory maybe. I think it’s accelerating my evolution, for lack of a better term. There’s more, but it’s dormant. Waiting.”
Each word raised Thalyn’s brows a little higher.
“This thing has layers,” she said quietly. “It’s affecting everything.”
Korr’s gaze was riveted.
On a sudden impulse, she lifted the cube in one hand and the sphere in the other. Power surged through her veins, sharp and cold, like the echo of a storm.
She looked at Korr. “Warn Echo again. About Solastis. Tell him to save who he can and get out.”
Korr nodded, already mouthing the words of the warning as though rehearsing a prayer.
“Arvie, another session.”
“You got it, boss.”
This time, she didn’t feel the transition at all.
ns216.73.216.139da2
and then Add to home screen.