I didn’t feel myself move.

  I felt the universe snap.

  My stomach turned inside out. My bones screamed. It was like being pulled through a collapsing star—light bending the wrong way, sound folding in on itself, gravity twisting sideways before vanishing completely.

  There was no corridor. No deck. No ship.

  Just pressure—colorless, burning. Like I’d been shoved between atoms and ground up by raw distance.

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t scream.

  Gravity hit—hard.

  For a second, I thought I was staring at the ceiling.

  Then it rushed up at me.

  Not the ceiling… The floor.

  I was upside down. Falling.

  Twenty feet.

  Fuck! fuck!

  Ten.

  Fu—

  Then—splat.

  I hit the ground face-first.

  Hard.

  Something cracked deep in my skull. My jaw snapped sideways. Vision blurred. Heat flooded the back of my eyes like someone lit a flare inside my head.

  I must’ve blacked out—just for a breath—because when I blinked, the world was spinning and my bones were screaming.

  I think I felt my skull shift—bone scraping bone as it tried to settle back into place. My brain felt scrambled. My teeth were… wrong. Too many of them. Too sharp.

  I was stunned. Dazed. But under it all, the hunger roared—the taste of blood on my tongue did nothing to sate it.

  “Keep breathing,” I whispered, barely audible.

  My jaw jerked back into place with a sickening pop. Broken teeth pushed out between my lips, sharper new ones already punching through raw gumline.

  Everything was spinning.

  The floor under me was cold. Metal. Grooved. The air tasted wrong—too clean. Recycled oxygen laced with ozone and something… burned.

  Light sliced across the smoke above me, flickering too bright, cutting through the haze like a scalpel.

  I blinked slowly. My legs refused to move. My neck felt wrong.

  Valicar’s HUD was down. Just static in my skull.

  Then it hit—sharp and deep. A grinding tug at the base of my skull like metal threading itself through shattered bone. My vertebrae shifted with a sickening crunch, spine locking back into place one jagged piece at a time. Pain flared white-hot, radiating down my shoulders, blinding.

  My jaw clenched. Breath hitched.

  But my arms stayed dead.

  Arms—still cuffed. Wrists numb. The crystal restraints throbbed faintly, not just binding, but severing nerve contact entirely. No sensation below the elbows.

  My legs had regrown enough to twitch, but not stand. Stomach half-exposed, armor twitching where too few nanites struggled to close the gaps. Collarbone still open.

  I wanted to stand. Wanted to tear my cuffs free and burn it all down.

  But my body wasn’t there yet.

  Balance was nonexistent.

  It took everything I had just to lift my head.

  The room—if you could call it that—was carnage.

  Not just red.

  Black. Green. Purple. Blue.

  Every kind of blood I’d ever seen—and some I hadn’t—spattered the walls in streaks and sprays. The floor slick with it. Broken limbs, some still twitching, others steaming or turned to ash. A few were just… gone. Vaporized.

  Pools of mercury-slick armor—Coalition tech—melted and shimmered around the corpses like dying shadows. Some still twitched. Still alive in places.

  Something glowed red-hot on the far wall. A gash torn through the plating like someone had taken a goddamn plasma sword to the hull.

  And the hunger—

  God, it hit like a blade.

  Every cell in my body was starving. I’d burned too much—muscle, skin, spine, teeth. I was hollow. Barely held together.

  I didn’t think. Just moved.

  Wriggling like some pathetic worm across the floor, twitching, ribs grinding under my skin. My feet—bare, blood-slick—scraped against the deck. Talons had pushed through my toes without me noticing, curling and dragging slow screeches through the metal as I clawed forward.

  I could only push with my right leg. Just that. One foot and whatever strength I had left in my shoulders.

  Each inch was agony.

  I dragged myself toward the closest corpse—a deerlike biped, throat half-severed, still leaking heat. Fresh.

  No hands. Just jaws.

  I drove my face into its neck and bit. Hot fur split against my teeth. Blood hit my tongue—thick, copper-bright, laced with something sweet and wrong. I ground my ribs against the deck, twisted my weight, and sank my teeth deeper.

  Something gave way—soft and grainy.

  Brain.

  It hit like a drug.

  Phoenix surged through me, cold and ecstatic, whispering through the cracks in my skull.

  Good little Phoenix. Consume. Claim your birthright.

  Light flared behind my eyes. The floor vanished. A world burned.

  Twin moons. Forests alight. Screams rising like steam. I saw it—its homeworld, gold and green, swallowed in fire. Hive swarms raining from orbit like black snow. The creature had fought—monsters, it had fought—through decades and planets, trenches soaked in blood, comrades screaming as they dissolved into infected drones.

  And now I was chewing through its skull.

  Tears pricked the corners of my eyes—but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Phoenix didn’t let me.

  It’s what you were made for, daughter. Evolution through dominion. Flesh made pure in fire.

  Warm meat flooded my mouth. The alien’s thoughts still flickered—faint now, fading—but I could feel them melt into mine. Rue glyphs. Light-language. Syntax forged in blood and memory.

  It wasn’t just translation.

  It was desecration.

  Then Garin’s voice crawled out of the dark, slick with contempt.

  You fucking monster, he sneered. A cannibal in a girl’s skin. Pretending to mourn while you gnaw through brains like candy.

  You stole my mind. My brilliance. My work. Ripped it out and paraded around like it was your name.

  And now this? You’re devouring strangers—stealing their memories, their language, their entire fucking culture like it’s seasoning. You make a mockery of life itself.

  Nothing’s sacred to you. Not mind, not soul. Just blood and power and hunger. You’re not a girl. You’re a fucking parasite. A whore for knowledge. A whore for meat.

  I gagged—blood slick on my chin. I wanted to stop. But I couldn’t. The taste was too rich. The hunger too loud.

  And Phoenix just purred, low and gleeful:

  Good girl. That one had so much to offer. You tasted its story. Now make it yours.

  It didn’t kill the ache.

  Just blunted it—barely.

  A minute to think. Maybe two.

  I exhaled, blood on my lips, copper coating the roof of my mouth. My head dipped. Breathing ragged. Body still recalibrating.

  Then—my throat sparked. A faint twitch, like static crawling up my spine.

  Phoenix, working in the dark. Flesh, heat, nerve knitting into something new.

  A second throat? What the fuck, I thought—

  Then it hit. That pull. That heat of a familiar weapon at work.

  I dragged my head up—and froze.

  There.

  Standing in the wreckage like it was nothing.

  Like he’d been waiting for me.

  Lion.

  My breath caught.

  He’s here?

  Confusion hit first—then fear, sharp and reflexive. Was this a trick? A hallucination? My skull was still ringing, nerves half-dead. For a second I almost thought the Hive was playing games again.

  Then anger—hot and sharp. Why now? Why wasn’t he here before I hit the floor?

  But what surprised me most—

  Relief.

  Even after everything—Reid, the pain, the screaming silence—I couldn’t stop the feeling that bubbled up when I saw him.

  I’m not alone.

  He didn’t move. Just stood there—massive, gold-plated, half-lit in the flicker of burning armor. The crater around his feet still steamed. One of the insectoid corpses had been crushed so completely it looked two-dimensional—smeared across the deck like a cautionary tale.

  His golden visor turned to me, slow and silent.

  And for a second—I saw myself.

  Reflected in the curve of his helm. Warped. Shimmering. Blood-slick.

  God.

  What did I look like to anyone else?

  Half-dressed in torn power armor, most of it scorched and barely clinging. My right side was intact—mostly. But the left?

  Exposed. Vulnerable. Raw.

  My leg was bare all the way to the hip, skin smeared in drying blood and alien ichor. My foot was raw, barefoot, toes curled tight against the deck like claws. My left arm was completely unarmored—just pale, smooth flesh from fresh regeneration. The collarbone above it still gleamed wet where nanites hadn’t finished hardening. My stomach was uncovered—armor split and cracked open across my midsection, ribs visible through scorched plating like something mid-molt.

  I didn’t look human.

  I looked like something that crawled up out of a grave and hadn’t decided if it wanted to go back in.

  And around me—carnage.

  Blood soaked the floor. Every color in the rainbow—fluids I couldn’t name. Shattered crystal people, burning fungal colonies, molusc-like limbs twitching among the debris. Limbs lay twisted, severed, still spasming in the dim haze. Some bodies were melted into slag fused with their silver armor. Others were pulp. A few were just… ash.

  Dozens of them, mangled together—indistinguishable from where one puddle ended and the next pile of rubble began.

  I hadn’t been out more than a few seconds. Maybe less.

  And I’d missed the whole thing.

  And he’d already killed them all.

  Lion had done this.

  He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t hold back. Didn’t think.

  I might look like the monster—barefoot, half-armored, soaked in blood, someone’s throat still fresh on my tongue.

  But he was the one they should’ve feared.

  To anyone else, I’d be a threat.

  To him?

  He’d never raise his weapon against me. Wouldn’t even consider it.

  And somehow, that made it worse.

  Lion didn’t care about right or wrong. He didn’t mourn the ones he killed. He didn’t weigh their lives.

  He was a soldier. A monster.

  My monster.

  And I was the only thing that mattered.

  He just looked at me.

  Not like I was dangerous.

  Not like I was broken.

  But like I was his.

  His charge.

  And nothing else in the universe mattered.

  He turned slightly. Just enough to glance toward what was left of the doors.

  More were coming.

  I could see it in how he stood.

  Like a predator who hadn’t finished eating.

  Gold armor scalded with reactor heat. Hammer dragging behind him in a trail of melted deck plate and sparks.

  He wasn’t even breathing hard.

  My voice scraped out, rough. “Lion... more are coming. Get these cuffs off me. Please.”

  He didn’t turn.

  Didn’t even look at me.

  He was talking to someone else.

  “Understood, Majesty,” he said quietly.

  Then he paused—head tilting just slightly, like he was listening to a voice only he could hear.

  His stance shifted. Something about him… softened. Just a little.

  “My decision hasn’t changed,” he said. Then, quieter still—almost like it wasn’t meant for me at all:

  “Goodbye for now, Father.”

  Wait—what?

  He moved toward the door, heavy boots hitting the floor like war drums. Behind it, the thudding of more feet—dozens—closing in fast.

  I shifted, dragging my legs beneath me as best I could, blood-slick and barely balanced.

  “Wait,” I rasped, the words scraping out raw. “Lion—uncuff me before they get here. I can help.”

  He didn’t look back.

  Didn’t even slow down.

  Just reached down, grabbed one of the nearby corpses—a tall, birdlike thing with too-long limbs and iridescent feathers soaked in purple-red blood—and tossed it toward me like it was nothing.

  It hit the floor with a wet, boneless thump. One wing twitched. Its beak clicked once.

  “Eat. Regain your strength. Valicar can use what you don’t,” he said. “Your suit needs nanites, and you need food. That’ll do.”

  I hated that he was right. Hated that I needed this just to stand.

  Then he paused, glanced over his shoulder, and his voice dropped—half a laugh, low and dry.

  “I will return shortly. Sit tight.”

  And then he was gone—already moving before the door finished hissing open. No, not moving. Charging. He ripped the alien hatch clean off its hinges and hurled it like a discus down the corridor.

  I caught a glimpse as he vanished—

  One of the rock-bodied aliens rushed him.

  Lion shattered it into gravel mid-sprint.

  Another—some kind of gelatinous crawler—he pinned to the far wall with a single swing, turning it to pulp.

  His hammer spun, glowing hotter by the second.

  And then he roared.

  A battle cry that shook the deck.

  Through the smoke. Into the screams.

  His silhouette lit the hallway like a second sunrise.

  I blinked at the corpse beside me.

  “Yeah. Sit tight,” I muttered. “Like I was about to go anywhere.”

  The hunger growled low in my gut, curling behind my ribs like smoke. The heat from the meal hadn’t dulled it. If anything, it made it worse.

  And then the whispers started to stir.

  Yes… eat, you fucking monster.

  Garin’s voice came first—sneering, bitter, exactly the way he’d said it in life… right before I tore his throat out.

  But I’d killed so many today.

  Even if they weren’t human, they still died for something they believed in. And even now, Lion was still out there—rampaging through the ship like a war-god unleashed.

  Then came my father’s voice.

  Feast, little Phoenix. Absorb their DNA. Make it yours. Gain their strength. Evolve.

  Show them humanity’s might—that the stars are ours to inherit.

  God help me, I hated how much of me agreed with that.

  The part that liked the taste. The part that liked being feared.

  My thoughts drifted as I ate.

  They’ll think I’m a monster if they see me like this—eating their comrades.

  I need to talk to them. Or get back to Jericho. I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do.

  Dad wanted me to let them take me… to buy him time...

  His voice had been calm. Icy. The kind of cold that seeped through glass and steel.

  I’d heard it in labs. In nightmares.

  Always watching. Always waiting.

  Then Knight—soft, cold, clinical.

  That’s it, my darling. That’s what I made you for. To consume. To become. You’re not a child. You’re a mother with teeth. Look at you. Our greatest mistake… or our only hope. Depends on who survives the slaughter.

  I force the voices away. Knight’s probably relieved I’m gone.

  What about the crew? What would Jericho tell them?

  I swallowed another bite. Bitter. Hot. It tasted like guilt.

  And then—it came.

  Not Orion. Not the flicker I’d felt across deep space.

  Closer.

  Now.

  The Devil.

  I didn’t hear it. I felt it. A presence. Rot and ruin coiled around my spine.

  We are near, Queen-Mother. You feel it too. The blood calls. The path converges. You will not resist much longer. We will be one soon.

  I clenched my jaw. Shut my eyes. Stop. Shut up. But it didn’t matter.

  The whispers weren’t talking.

  They were staking ground—and I barely held them back.

  I needed my shield online. Needed Valicar to cut the signal, filter it, do something—but it was still rebooting, half-dead. Its nanites crawled over me like silver ants, harvesting armor from the dead, melting it down to patch the gaps in my ribs and legs.

  Not fast enough.

  The deck groaned beneath me—a deep hum rising in pitch.

  It was foreign… but familiar. Undeniably familiar.

  A warp core. FTL spin-up. The sound hummed through my jaw, scraping my teeth like a memory.

  The tether was pulling.

  We were close to jumping.

  If I didn’t speak to the aliens before Lion finished what he started, there might not be another chance.

  My legs worked. Barely. I pushed up—barefoot, armor in shards, body shaking.

  The birdlike corpse was gone. Picked clean. Two hundred pounds of feathers, muscle, and radiant heat—digested in minutes. I didn’t want to think about how much I weighed now… or how many pounds I’d burned just staying alive.

  Phoenix didn’t care.

  It knew where to send every cell—rebuilding bone, muscle, skin—faster than digestion should allow.

  And the taste?

  Still perfect. Still alive. Still meant for me.

  I hated how much I craved it.

  But for now, it was enough. Barely.

  We were seconds from the jump.

  No going back now.

  Each breath dragged through broken ribs—slow, raw, unwilling.

  I didn’t want to do this.

  But I had to.

  Just for a second. Just enough to see.

  Accepting the Hive in wasn’t like hearing the whispers. Once I opened the door, it would take more than will to pull myself free.

  So I made a choice.

  I would set Valicar’s shields like an alarm clock—ready to slam shut before the Hive swallowed me whole.

  “I need data. But I need my shield first,” I hissed, bitter and low. “I need Valicar back online.”

  Then I did something reckless.

  But I didn’t have a choice.

  With my hands still cuffed behind my back, I couldn’t reach the manual override. No panel. No code. No whispered command would help me now.

  So I used the only method left.

  I threw myself backward—slammed my spine into the antimatter containment node embedded in my back.

  Hard.

  Pain exploded through my ribs, sharp and deep, loud enough to rattle the floor. Red light flashed across my vision as internal fields surged to life—Valicar’s emergency subroutines kicking in, recognizing the signal.

  One of my last failsafes. A brute-force neural sync override, hardwired into Valicar. Triggered only by direct spinal trauma against my own live core.

  Desperate. Dangerous. Final-option shit.

  But it worked.

  Something sparked behind my eyes.

  And then—

  “Emergency override confirmed.”

  “Reinitializing core systems.”

  The voice was faint. Glitched.

  But it was there.

  Alive.

  Valicar was waking up.

  “Core reboot complete. Neural sync stabilizing.”

  “Good,” I whispered. “Now listen—prep the shield.”

  “Specify configuration.”

  “Quantum isolation,” I hissed. “Ten-second delay. Then seal it. I just need to see.”

  “Warning: deliberate signal exposure may compromise neural integrity.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  I braced myself.

  Let go.

  And opened the door in my mind I spent every day trying to keep shut.

  The Hive didn’t scream.

  It surged.

  A tide of thought crashed into me—colorless fire pouring through every nerve. Neural pulses. Warp-bleed. Burning echoes of something too big to grasp. Everything moved too fast.

  Too much.

  But I held on.

  Show me.

  The view snapped open inside my skull, like I’d grown a thousand eyes.

  And I saw.

  The outside of the ship.

  The battle still raging between the Hive, the Coalition—and Jericho.

  The slaughter was absolute.

  Fifty-seven ships had come for me.

  Only one remained.

  The one Lion and I had been teleported to. It was running now, barely kept aloft by the sacrifice of the others—those who’d held the line so it could escape with its captive.

  The rest?

  Devoured. Splintered. Assimilated.

  The Hive was finishing its feast.

  I saw what was left of the Coalition: carbon-based aliens still alive, still blinking, their mouths sealed with flesh, limbs fused into walls—absorbed into the ships as living computers.

  The lucky ones—silicon-based, immune to infection—were granted swift deaths. Clean. Final.

  And at the center of it all, I saw my home. My monster.

  Jericho.

  Fighting like a god.

  Its solar beam carved through fleets like a star’s wrath. Railguns shattered kilometer-long hulls. Laser arrays flared like storms across the void. Shield after shield rose—then died—under the onslaught.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  The Hive burned by the dozen.

  And came by the hundred.

  Ships shaped like organs. Like lungs. Like tumors. Vein-webbed and plated. Screaming in silence. Crawling through space with intent.

  Look at it, my father's voice whispered through the chaos—silk over steel, threading through the cracks in my concentration. Look at Jericho’s might, little Phoenix. Look at what you were meant to rule.

  I gritted my teeth, forcing the voice down—but another slid in, colder, sharper.

  Knight.

  All this death because you refused, she murmured, almost gently. You could have ended it. Given birth to your daughters. Little queen-nodes. But you made the Hive make its own... and they always come out wrong.

  Their words bled into the vision, soaking the edges of the tide I was barely holding at bay.

  And she was right.

  Fuck you for being right, Knight.

  The Hive was fractured without a true queen. It kept trying to patch itself together—forcing queen-nodes out of raw biomass, hunger, desperation. And every time, it failed. Factions like the Devil and Orion were born from those failures. Not new Hives. Not evolution. Aberrations.

  They weren’t alien. Not originally. They were both human warships—sent centuries ahead by Julian, before Jericho ever left. Vanguard vessels meant to soften the galaxy before humanity arrived. Advanced even for their time.

  Orion had adapted. It had grown cunning. A strategist. It had shown me the dream—the golden light, the distant pulse of unity. It wanted me to choose it.

  But the Devil? It didn’t offer choice. Only domination.

  The Devil was one of the worst. A rot that didn’t just infect—it claimed. Warping everything it touched into hollowed-out echoes.

  And then—through the tide of wrongness, a voice broke through.

  Orion. Soft. Urgent.

  Run fast, Queen-Mother.

  It wasn’t a warning. It was a plea.

  If I joined Orion, maybe I’d still be me. But the Devil? How much of me would survive that?

  I clenched my fists, breathing hard.

  And then—I saw it.

  The Devil.

  It didn’t move. It didn’t need to.

  It hovered—watching. Waiting. Massive and rotting, built from the bones of dead stars. A cathedral of ruin. The darkest splinter of the Hive, the one that didn’t bargain—but claimed.

  Now I could see the upgrades. New tech. Xeno tech—stolen from slaughtered colonies and scavenged warships. Its hull was pitted with growths, spires of silver and bone twisting through black alloy.

  It was close. Too close.

  Smaller Hive craft had been pursuing us for minutes—but the last Coalition ships, dying around us, bought just enough time. They gave everything.

  I felt it before I saw it—that voice.

  We see you, Queen-Mother.

  You are close.

  Do not run.

  Do not resist.

  We will be one soon.

  The last Coalition ship—the one carrying me—lurched as the jump activated.

  We made it.

  But just barely.

  Blood beaded at the corners of my eyes.

  “Shield activation in three… two…”

  I didn’t look away.

  Inside its ship, something watched me back.

  A single red eye, burning through the void.

  “…one.”

  A sharp snap hit the back of my skull—like pressure collapsing inward.

  The Hive vanished.

  The link severed.

  The voice died.

  And I was alone again.

  Breathing hard. Cold. Shaking.

  “Quantum isolation active. Neural contamination minimal.”

  I swallowed down the burn in my throat.

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  Then pushed myself upright.

  Time to find Lion.

  I staggered forward, bare feet sinking into something wet and warm. The floor wasn’t just slick—it was soft in places, spongy, coated in layers of blood, ash, and half-melted flesh. Every step peeled up a sticky sound, and something acidic in the mess burned against the raw skin of my soles.

  The cuffs behind my back bit into my wrists, cold and numbing. Hair clung to my face, tangled and wet, and I couldn’t brush it away.

  The hall ahead looked like a war crime.

  Scorch marks clawed up the walls in jagged streaks. Chunks of metal still glowed where plasma and rail fire had torn through. The air reeked—blood, ozone, cooked flesh—too many species burning at once to tell apart.

  I limped on, leaving smears of gore behind me. Armor clung to half of me in scorched shards, the rest stripped raw. Bodies slumped in twisted heaps—Rue, reptilians, plantoids, molluscs—some shattered, some melted, some still twitching like they hadn't realized they were dead yet.

  My legs trembled with every step, half-healed tendons pulling against open wounds.

  I was tired.

  Tired of bleeding.

  Tired of walking.

  Tired of still being alive.

  The further I went, the worse it got.

  Corpses were everywhere.

  Rue mostly, their bioluminescent chests dim and cracked open. Some mammalian, their fur scorched to the bone. A few fungal colony types—their bodies collapsed from within, decomposing in heaps. Plantoids, their bark-skin split wide. Even crystalline avians lay shattered—wings broken like stained glass underfoot. Rock-bodied soldiers looked like statues that had exploded.

  And insectoids.

  God, there were so many insectoids. Twisted shells split wide. Limbs torn from sockets. Their bodies folded and peeled like paper—ripped apart by something that didn’t stop until nothing inside could move again.

  Molluscs too. Their soft bodies had melted into the deck, pooled like oil and jelly.

  One twitched as I passed. Just once. Not sure if it was nerves, or if it hadn’t figured out it was dead yet.

  I didn’t stop.

  Didn’t speak.

  Just followed the trail. Scorch marks. Melted consoles. Doors torn off their hinges. Burned footprints stamped into blood.

  It led to a chamber ahead—larger, darker. A bridge. Or what was left of one.

  And there, at the center of it all—

  Lion.

  He was kneeling, hunched over a body with his gauntlet buried deep in its throat like he was fishing for its soul—or checking if it had one.

  He looked up when I stepped into the light.

  His golden helm tilted.

  Unblinking.

  “You are not where I left you,” he rumbled.

  I snorted, dragging myself up the stairs. “I wasn’t going to stay on the floor forever.”

  He rose in one smooth motion—like gravity gave him back reluctantly.

  His hammer scraped behind him, sizzling sparks as it dragged across the deck. The sound was sharp, metallic, and somehow gleeful.

  The few survivors—flinched at the sound. Hands up. Weapons discarded. Blood on all of them. Different shapes, different species, but the same look in their eyes.

  They weren’t afraid of me.

  Their eyes were locked on him.

  “Stand down, Lion,” I said, as steady as I could manage.

  “They still breathe,” he said—voice lazy, amused.

  “They surrendered.”

  A low laugh rippled out of him—guttural, cruel, not from hatred but from utter certainty.

  “They're xeno scum, Highness. Soft-shell bugs playing soldier. I’ve scraped better foes off my boots.”

  He tilted his head, gold visor catching flickers of flame and broken starlight.

  “You think surrender matters? If I stepped on them hard enough, they’d still pop.”

  Another step forward—slow, deliberate, like a lion deciding whether to maul or mock.

  “They’re not warriors. They’re not worth my fucking hammer. But if even one twitches—”

  His grip tightened. The weapon hissed like it wanted to be swung.

  “I’ll turn the rest of them into fertilizer.”

  He chuckled again. Not mad. Not furious. Just… delighted.

  “Come on. You know I love a good execution.”

  He shrugged, like this was nothing more than a chore he didn’t mind doing.

  “Humanity doesn’t need them. Never did. If they live, it’s because you said so—not because they earned it.”

  The Rue and others watched us, sixteen of them crouched behind a fractured bulkhead—three more already dead, their bioluminescence dimming into silence. The rest—a mix of crusted reptilians, a humanoid, two translucent molluscoids, and a few crystal-plated avians—remained still, silent.

  But it was the Rue that held my focus.

  A fusion of flesh and purpose—spliced DNA sculpted into armor, insectoid limbs merged with warm-blooded torsos, mandibles jutting from softly furred jaws, eye-clusters embedded into crests of living chitin and bone. Their bodies pulsed faintly beneath engineered exosuits—grown, not worn—woven from muscle, resin, and hardened flesh. No metal. No circuitry. Just life, shaped into war.

  They didn’t blink. Their chests shimmered—nervous pulses of green and gold, flickering like held breath.

  But it wasn’t just their bodies that spoke.

  The air above them shifted.

  Golden glyphs—thin and angular, shaped like star-fire and circuitry—shimmered between us, blooming midair in arcs of suspended light. Language made manifest. Not written. Not spoken. Projected. Alive.

  We were definitely on the bridge. I’d already guessed it, but the shape of the chamber confirmed it—tiered decks sloping down into a command pit, surrounded by flickering consoles that pulsed like living coral or blinked with hard-coded interfaces built for claws and gloves alike. Some tech breathed, some clicked, some hummed like bones under pressure. Obsidian rails. Suspended walkways. A place meant to steer wars—now just barely surviving one.

  Valicar’s HUD scrolled flickering translations over my vision, parsing glyphs, ambient heat, and chemical light—but they lagged behind. I was already translating faster than it could.

  Not through logic. Through instinct.

  Phoenix had taken more than flesh from the creatures I devoured. It stole language. Meaning.

  I didn’t learn their words. I absorbed them—buzz-click syllables etched into marrow, light-tongue burned into my throat like instinct.

  I’d called it a deer. A stupid, lazy label. Just something my brain grabbed onto—a memory of a species long dead on Earth. Fragile. Hunted. Peaceful.

  But it hadn’t been prey. It had fought to its last breath.

  The horns weren’t antlers. They were weapons.

  I could still feel it now—that new gland twitching in my throat, not fully formed yet but pulsing like it was waiting for permission to speak. I knew what it was. Whether the creature had been born with the gene or had it spliced into its genome didn’t matter. Phoenix had copied it. Stored it. And now I was growing the gland myself—organically. Permanently. It was mine now. Part of me.

  I didn’t earn it. I stole it. And part of me is glad I did. God, that’s why it felt so natural. Because it wasn’t mine. But Phoenix made it mine. Because I ripped it out of something that had lived, and loved, and screamed while its world burned.

  Lion had crushed him. Split him open like meat. And I—I ate what was left. Didn’t even ask if it had a name. Just food. Just biomass.

  But he did have a name. One I only understood after—after the gland took root, after the memories started bleeding into mine. I couldn’t pronounce it in English. But I knew what it meant.

  Little Runner.

  He was a father. A soldier born from misfortune. A veteran of twenty years from a peaceful people driven to war.

  A weapon sent on a suicide mission to capture the Queen-Node—me.

  His species was dying, scattered across the void. His children were starving on some dustball world no one remembered.

  He dreamed of reclaiming his home.

  He wanted revenge.

  He wanted peace.

  He wanted me captured—so his kids might live long enough to see a sky that belonged to them.

  And now he was just part of me.

  A flicker in my throat.

  A name I could barely remember.

  He was brave.

  He was broken.

  He was delicious.

  I hesitated for a breath. My pulse thundered in my ears.

  You have to do this, Sol, I told myself, breathing slow through the copper stink.

  I opened my mouth—and spoke in both voice and light.

  Harsh, stuttering sounds tore out of my throat—mixed with flickers that weren’t quite bioluminescence, but something deeper. Like runes carved in fire. Like memory bleeding out.

  Valicar’s neural link thrummed against my skull, syncing thought to heat and motion—projecting glyphs through its HUD. But this time, something else joined in.

  My throat burned—then bloomed. A second voice pulsed outward—deeper than sound, not metal, not digital. For the first time, I felt it project alongside the suit. The glyphs burned cleaner, sharper. The Rue flinched.

  Valicar kept translating. But mine—mine were more accurate.

  Like I wasn’t speaking. Like I remembered.

  Muscle memory in an organ I didn’t have yesterday.

  My mouth moved before my mind caught up.

  “Why chase me across half a galaxy?” I asked. “How did you know what I am… to the Hive?”

  One of the Rue stood—taller than the rest. Older. Cracks webbed across the crown of his skull like lightning scars. His armor—grown, not forged—shifted as he breathed, mist hissing from cooling vents along his spine.

  His glow dimmed. Amber. Worn with time.

  Three glyphs spiraled out—slow, deliberate—before locking into place. Then they flared brighter.

  I didn’t read them. I felt them.

  Root-grammar slid into place in my head like something remembered, not learned.

  Not effort. Just instinct.

  [We followed your quantum echo through the void. / You haven’t merged yet. / But the Hive hears you.]

  [Your blood hums with its pattern. / Your thoughts leave wakes. / It remembers you.]

  [We came to stop the merging. / To stop you. / Before it’s too late.]

  I stiffened. “That’s your mission? Not to kill me—just stop the connection?”

  [The Hive is nothing before God. / But it is your kind’s curse. / A wound you hurled into the stars.]

  [He made it. / Fed it. / Then let it run wild. Not even he controls it now.]

  [We buried worlds to halt its spread. / But his shadow endured.]

  I didn’t answer.

  Behind me, I heard Lion shift. No words—just weight. Waiting.

  The Rue’s glow dimmed again—lower now, but steady.

  [You called off your executioner. / The golden heretic.]

  [He tore through our command deck. / We hid—not from cowardice, but because we want to live. / We’ll die for our families, if we must. / But we do not wish to die needlessly.]

  [Now you stand among us. / Speaking peace. / Why?]

  I let out a breath. Slow. “I’m here for answers. Murder just happens when I run out of questions.”

  [Then let us speak. / And listen. / And choose with care. Even if you kill us—there may not be another chance.]

  I didn’t say what I was really thinking.

  I’ll kill to live. I always have. Doesn’t mean I like it.

  But they didn’t need that part.

  Behind the Rue, a new glow kindled—cool gold.

  Another figure stepped forward. Humanoid. Different from the others. Deliberate.

  They unclasped their helmet. Lifted it clear.

  And I froze.

  Human.

  Not Rue. Not mammalian. Not molluscoid.

  Human—dark-skinned, black-haired, scarred like old tech. His skin was deeper-toned than mine, sun-forged somewhere long ago—Mediterranean, maybe Middle Eastern. Earth blood. Old blood.

  Black eyes, short clean-cut hair, thin circuitry scars running down his throat and wrists—biotech spliced into worn flesh.

  He looked at me like I should already know.

  “I was born in the stars,” the man said. “But my ancestors weren’t.”

  He spoke in English.

  “What the fuck.”

  That stopped me. The Rue didn’t move, but something in their posture shifted—like they understood him too. Valicar’s HUD lit up: translation match confirmed. They’d been fighting humans long enough to learn our language.

  “What are you, their pet?” I snapped. The man flinched. I turned to the reptile. “And what the hell are you even talking about?”

  “They took us a long time ago,” he said. “Back when Earth was still crawling out of the mud. We were pets at first—trophies. But some of us adapted. Learned their systems. Their politics. We climbed. We earned rank. Rights. Names.”

  Behind me, something metal groaned.

  Lion stepped forward—slow at first, then with purpose—his hammer rising off the ground like it weighed nothing. His gold visor locked on the man like it could burn holes straight through bone.

  Somewhere among the aliens, I caught the hiss of a word—half-prayer, half-warning:

  “He bears a cursed sun.”

  Lion’s voice followed, low and deadly. “Human? You dare call yourself one of us?”

  The man nodded—cautious, but he didn’t back down.

  Lion’s voice was colder than vacuum. “You kneel to xeno filth and call that adaptation?”

  The survivor didn’t answer—but he stood his ground.

  Lion didn’t like that.

  “You’re not kin. You’re not even meat. You’re a dog who learned to speak.”

  The hammer’s head tilted—just slightly, just enough.

  “Do they whistle and you fetch?” Lion rumbled, closing the gap. “Maybe clap when you beg?”

  Hammer haft creaked in his grip. “Even rogue AIs know their maker. What’s your excuse?”

  I turned my head slightly. “Lion.”

  He didn’t stop. His voice deepened, low and hard.

  “I’m sure my father knew about your kind. He had to. And still—he never told me.” His voice cracked, just a little. “Maybe he had a reason. He always does. But that doesn’t change what you are. You’re not one of us.”

  I stepped between them—slow, deliberate.

  “Lion,” I repeated, firmer this time.

  He paused.

  Just long enough for the air to go razor-tight—like the whole room was waiting to see who would move first.

  Then he stepped back.

  Barely.

  Only because I asked.

  Only because it was me.

  The human let out a slow breath. His shoulders stayed square, even with fear in his eyes. I could hear the pulse hammering in his chest—but he held his ground.

  Respect. Or maybe just plain stubbornness.

  Lion shifted slightly, never taking his eyes off him—like a sword still halfway drawn.

  The human went on, voice steady.

  “For generations, we served among the stars. Not many. A few thousand scattered across systems. We lost Earth. But we remembered.”

  He nodded toward the Rue.

  “A few centuries ago, they noticed something. Traders—those who skirted the edge of your solar system—began to vanish. Their last signals came from a dying blue world. A world we once called home.”

  His voice lowered.

  “Everyone who followed them died. Except one.”

  He tapped his chest.

  “One of us.”

  “One human was sent back to Earth. To infiltrate. To learn. She was the last agent we ever sent that deep. We didn’t expect much—your species looked fractured. Hostile. Isolated. But she saw something. Something buried. Something waking.”

  His jaw tightened.

  “She warned us. Briefly. Just a handful of transmissions. About Jericho. About the Hive. About him. But we dismissed it—chalked it up to madness. We ignored her.”

  A pause.

  A spy. My head spun. Who?

  “Who is the spy?” I asked instinctively.

  [We will die before we reveal that,] a Rue interrupted, their glow flaring cold.

  I looked at Lion.

  He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

  But his hand tightened around the hammer—just slightly. A twitch so small anyone else would’ve missed it.

  But I didn’t.

  For him to even flinch—

  He knew.

  Of course he knew.

  [Please listen to your kin, Sol Voss,] the Rue added.

  But there was no time to process it. The next glyphs were already blooming in the air, sharp and gold. And the human was moving on.

  Lion was reading them too.

  I could’ve made him talk. Could’ve forced it.

  But it didn’t matter now. Not really.

  I had no way to tell Dad.

  And I was sure—deep down—he already knew.

  Whatever AI pulsed through his armor—likely some fragment of Jericho—it could decode the Rue’s language just like Valicar. He wasn’t missing a word of this.

  He knew exactly what we were talking about.

  “As I was saying… she went silent. Centuries passed. We assumed she was dead.”

  He looked at me, then at Lion. Then back again.

  “But everything changed when the colonies started to go dark. One by one. Silent. Hollow. The rumors were there—whispers of something spreading—but no one listened. Not until it was too late. Not until it was on our doorstep.”

  He exhaled.

  “And then your ship left. Jericho. And finally—we heard from our spy. Just once, before she vanished again for decades. But it was enough. The myth was already growing. Julian Voss. And now… even the Council whispers your name.”

  Another pause.

  “But not before she told us what you were.”

  I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My blood had gone still.

  The Rue’s glow behind the human sharpened.

  [You are the last key. / The final queen-mother. / If even one thread of its will touches yours— / the war ends.]

  A pause.

  [Not in peace. / Not in unity. / In silence. / In extinction.]

  Another Rue stepped forward—smaller, younger. Their pulse shimmered like soft silver, the rhythm faltering like a stuttered breath.

  [The Hive will stop fighting itself. / All splinters. / All queens. / All minds. / One will. / One god.]

  [It is chaos now. You would end that.]

  [You would make it whole.]

  I didn’t need translation for the next glyph.

  [And if that happens… the Elders wake.]

  I swallowed. “And if they wake?”

  The elder’s light flared—sun-white, sharp-edged.

  [Then everything ends. / Not just the Hive. / Not just us. / All of us.]

  The human among them—still helmetless, still watching me—added, “There are factions among the council that see you as a singularity event. A convergence. If you merge with the Hive, it won’t matter what species you came from. You’ll be its core.”

  He glanced toward Lion again. “You already travel with the golden heretic. Do you think they’ll believe you won’t finish what Julian started?”

  My stomach clenched. “Then why take me?” I asked. “Why not just kill me? Why risk all this?”

  The Rue elder stepped forward again, his glow dimming to a deep, mournful amber. Glyphs flared around his head—measured, deliberate, like a verdict already passed.

  [We know what you are. / Not a queen. / Not a ruler. / You are the Queen Node.]

  [If you die—there is no way to stop the Hive. / Only the Elders remain after that.]

  [You are the unifying core. / The final link. / The last voice of reason that might reach it.]

  [With you, we could study it. / Track it. / Manipulate it. / Maybe even craft a cure.]

  [But if you merge— / The splinters will stop fighting. / It will unify.]

  [And then it will turn outward. / And we will all die— / if you will it.]

  [And if that happens— / The Elders will wake.]

  I didn’t need Valicar’s translation—though it still lit up in the corner of my vision, casting glyphs into words in case I’d forgotten how to listen.

  I hadn’t.

  [ Our mission was simple / Give the galaxy more time.]

  [To stall the Hive… and you no matter the cost.]

  Then a flare burned red with a white-hot core—searing in the air.

  [But the Devil was coming.]

  The Rue’s glow darkened. No longer amber. Now smoke. Now warning.

  [When your signal vanished— / We assumed they had reached you. / Or would soon.]

  [We didn’t know about your quantum shield. / Only that the Hive would answer your silence.]

  [We debated. / Some urged patience. / Others demanded we act.]

  [In the end— / We chose intervention.]

  [But even we didn’t anticipate the cost. / One human ship. / The Jericho.]

  Movement stirred at the edge of the bridge.

  Another figure—tall, reptilian—stepped forward. Plates of jade-colored armor clung to his body, steaming from half-melted wounds. He looked like he’d barely survived whatever Lion had done to him.

  His voice hit like a wet burst of static—chopped and layered, breaking across three frequencies.

  “Wwwhhrrrkk—followed you… thhkkk through the bleed,” he rasped.

  His voice cracked, garbled—half-delirious. Whatever painkillers they’d pumped into him weren’t enough.

  He tried another word in English, choked on it, then gave up.

  With a low, wet click, he switched back to his native tongue—hissing and snapping, the sounds layered across multiple frequencies like broken static.

  Valicar translated automatically—text flickering across my HUD like a helpful ghost:

  We tracked your signal across quantum space. When it vanished, we knew the Hive would move. We followed. Blind. Desperate.

  Now that your shield is active again, it must stay that way. Not just for your survival—for ours.

  Understand this: merging with the Hive is not ascension. It is torment.

  I watched my children turn. Bitten during a breach. Their eyes went hollow. Their voices stopped. When they moved again, they weren’t mine.

  I killed them. I had to.

  One bit my leg during the retreat. I severed it at the joint. Burned the wound shut myself.

  The leg you see now was grown in a vat. An organic replacement. It works. But it doesn’t forget.

  Every test confirms it—Phoenix preserves awareness even under full infection. Victims remain conscious.

  They feel everything. They remember everything.

  They scream inside their own bodies. Trapped. Functional. Obedient. Forever.

  I didn’t need to look at the translation.

  I already understood.

  Every word.

  But I did anyway.

  I shivered.

  If Orion or the Devil took me… how much of me would still be me? Would I even know the difference?

  I swallowed hard and nodded. “That’s… fucking horrifying.

  So my father’s a myth to you, too?”

  The elder Rue’s glow dimmed—deepening to a mournful indigo. Glyphs unfurled around him, casting sharp-edged shadows across the deck.

  [We did not know him.]

  [Not until it was too late—as your kin warned.]

  [By the time we understood what Julian Voss truly was…]

  [He was already speaking through our systems.]

  [Your world was forgotten. / Your species… pets.]

  [Children watched you in our zoos.]

  I didn’t flinch.

  [But he rose. / He built. / He reached into forbidden voids.]

  [He crafted weapons of logic and hunger. / Technologies all civilized species swore never to create.]

  [And then he spoke—of human dominion. / That we should give up our gods.]

  [That he was real. / That he was proof.]

  [For several galactic cycles now… he has spoken to us.]

  [Mocking. / Daring us to challenge him.]

  [We thought it was arrogance. / Now we fear it was bait.]

  [We came here prepared for war. / But with the golden heretic at your side…]

  [We wonder if this was always a trap.]

  Something cold twisted in my chest.

  Of course he’s been speaking to them. Not to negotiate. Not even to conquer.

  To scare the shit out of them.

  He did it on Earth, too. Built a myth so big that his enemies folded before the first shot.

  Reputation over firepower. Fear over force.

  He didn’t just want their surrender. He wanted them to kneel.

  A younger Rue stepped forward—his glow trembling.

  [Three cycles ago… / Jericho destroyed our refugee fleet.]

  [We were armored. Armed. Not helpless. / Still—slaughtered.]

  [In the wreckage— / A signal.]

  [A voice we hadn’t heard in decades.]

  [She spoke only once. / Warned us of a new threat—something unlike the Hive’s chaos.]

  [A guide. / A mind. / An heir.]

  [His daughter. / You.]

  [Then—silence.]

  Lion laughed.

  Low, cold—mechanical at the edges.

  The kind of laugh that left the air thinner when it passed.

  Julian’s laugh.

  Even Lion looked briefly thrown by it. A flicker of something—recognition, maybe discomfort. Then it passed.

  “So he had a use for that traitor after all,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else, “but he’s been talking to aliens behind even my back.”

  He didn’t sound angry.

  Just… resigned.

  My jaw clenched at the admission.

  He knew.

  He always knew.

  And I didn’t.

  He lifted his hammer—slow, reverent.

  “But he’s not wrong.”

  He looked at me. Not like I was a threat.

  Like I was inevitable.

  “He always said we were made to rule.”

  Then, with certainty:

  “And we will.”

  The human stepped forward. His gaze shifted between Lion… and me.

  “Laugh all you want, monster,” he said quietly. “But the bounty went live after his broadcasts hit the galactic feeds. Even the Council had to address it. Three full cycles ago. A trillion credits—on you. Jericho. Voss.”

  He exhaled—like the number still tasted like ash.

  “But it didn’t matter. No one dared go near the Hive—unless they were suicidal, stupid, or greedy—and as we push toward the front its swarms will only thicken, filling the dark with new growth while every bounty?hunter in a seven?sector radius comes sniffing after that trillion?credit prize on your head and the golden heretic at your side.”

  His gaze shifted to me.

  “Most just wanted you alive.”

  Then he turned to Lion.

  “But you? They want you dead, heretic. You and your father are an abomination—an insult to the natural arc of progress. Julian didn’t just break rules—he desecrated them. He pushed a primitive species centuries ahead of where it belonged, handed you tech only the Elders were meant to touch. Singularity cores. God-tier fabricators. Forbidden machines built to shape stars and erase civilizations. That kind of power isn’t earned. It’s locked behind thresholds for a reason.”

  He swept his hand across the ruined bridge—smoke, blood, and shattered bodies.

  “No, heretic. We earned what we have. Nothing was given. Every man and woman on this mission volunteered. These fifty-seven ships weren’t sent to win—they were sent knowing only one might make it back.”

  His voice dropped.

  “Every soul aboard knew they could die. And every single one was ready to, if it meant securing the queen node.”

  He looked around again. Not for effect. Just… heavy with the truth.

  Only one ship left.

  A few hundred survivors.

  Thousands gone.

  The rest—devoured. Assimilated. Forgotten.

  “They chose this. Chose to burn, die in battle, or—worst of all—be absorbed into the Hive. If it meant stopping you from finishing what your father started… every death was earned.”

  He looked at Lion like he wanted to hate him harder than his body could hold.

  Then his eyes came back to me. I felt Lion shift behind me—but he didn’t speak. Just watched. This man was close to death. If I wasn’t here, he’d already be a smear on the deck.

  Finally, Lion chuckled. Low. Contemptuous.

  “Earned?” he said, stepping forward. “You think throwing your lives away is noble? You think sacrifice makes you equal?”

  His voice carried—too loud for the room, for the moment.

  “I was born to conquer. To shatter fleets,” Lion said, voice like steel grinding on steel. “Your gods hide behind a million-year head start—a head start that closes every day my father works. But I’ll drag them screaming into the dirt like the rest.”

  He stepped forward, eyes burning behind the mask.

  “You’ll see. When I kill your so-called gods… you’ll understand the difference between belief and power.”

  The alien ranks stirred—hissing, rumbling, tensing. One of the Rue blinked fast in rage, bioluminescent glands strobing like a strobe warning. Even the molluscs recoiled, limbs twitching in agitation. The human stepped forward, eyes blazing.

  “Blasphemer,” he spat.

  Lion tilted his head, grinning.

  “Correct. For there is only one god… and he is made in the image of one great man.”

  That’s when the human turned to me. His voice was quieter now, but heavier.

  “You have a moral duty,” he said. “Not just to yourself. Not to your crew. To all of us.”

  His gaze swept across the room—Rue, reptilian, mollusc, and man.

  “To every species still breathing.”

  His voice didn’t rise.

  It didn’t need to.

  “Do the right thing, Sol.”

  “For the galaxy before the Divine Elders wake.”

  I swallowed, the weight of it setting in.

  “And what happens if they wake? These people you all seem to think are divine,” I asked.

  The mollusc’s glow flickered uneasily.

  “No one knows,” it admitted. “Sometimes… they reset everything. Every race. Every world. Back to step one. Other times… they intervene. Solve the threat directly.”

  A pause. Then it added, darker now:

  “They’ve been known to exterminate all intelligent life across entire galactic arms. To burn civilizations down to their atoms when balance is lost. They forbade the creation of true AIs after the last war of the minds. Machines like Julian… are exactly why.”

  A Rue’s glow sharpened.

  Above the mollusc’s head, glyphs of molten gold flared into existence, burning the words into the air:

  [And they will again, if the Heretic breaks the balance.]

  Its gaze had just started to shift toward Lion—toward the war-core thrumming on his back—when the human cut in sharply.

  “Our species was supposed to be irrelevant,” he said quietly. “They left us alone. Thought we’d burn out on our own after a few centuries. Primitive. Fragile.”

  He stepped forward, his voice steady now, bitter.

  “We were never meant to be dangerous.”

  He looked at me—then at the Rue.

  “When Julian killed those Rue traders centuries ago… it barely registered. Just another skirmish in a dying system. But then the Hive started to grow—too fast, too smart. That’s when the alarms started.”

  He gestured to Lion.

  “And Julian? He didn’t bother hiding. Once it reached a certain scale, he didn’t need to. He started sending messages. Not to plead. To challenge.”

  His voice dropped, flat and cold.

  “He’s taunting the most feared species in this quadrant of the universe. Maybe beyond.”

  A Rue flinched at that, and the mollusc’s glow dimmed.

  Above them, glyphs of molten gold crackled to life—sharp and mocking.

  [The Divine Elders will destroy the human filth and their Hive abominations.]

  [It is insult enough that they must be bothered to notice.]

  [The Coalition's failure justifies their cleansing.]

  The words burned and flickered out, leaving a bitter haze in the air.

  “They’ve ignored him. Until now.”

  He nodded toward Lion’s reactor.

  “Because now they see what he’s built.”

  His gaze lingered there, like the hum itself unsettled him.

  “Their technology bends the laws of physics. Rewrites reality with a thought. The Elders have erased entire civilizations for less. True artificial intelligence is forbidden. Singularity cores are outlawed. And your father violated all of it—before he even unleashed the Hive. What he’s done isn’t ambition. It’s heresy.”

  He looked me dead in the eye.

  “Your father broke every rule. And gave one to his son.”

  I followed his eyes back to Lion’s back.

  My father’s whisper echoed again in my skull:

  Humanity wasn’t made to survive. We were made to dominate.

  The human’s voice cut through the silence.

  “They’re not afraid of what you are, Sol. They’re afraid of what you’ll finish.”

  He nodded at the Rue—silent now, their lights dim and flickering.

  “They once ruled a quarter of this galactic arm. Built living ships. Grew their fleets from flesh. Rejected machines as impure.”

  He paused.

  “They’re not rulers anymore.”

  He looked at me.

  "Just survivors—whose greatest strengths were turned against them by a madman."

  "And his abominations," another hissed, sneaking a glance at Lion.

  "Mockeries of the divine order. The Elders made their laws to stop things like him."

  Lion turned—slow, deliberate—and stared through his visor.

  The alien swallowed whatever he'd meant to say.

  The silence tightened around us.

  They feared him. They feared Dad. But not me. Not yet. Maybe I could work with that.

  Fine. Let them see me for what I am.

  I dragged a breath through blood-slick teeth and swept my gaze over the survivors—the Rue in breathing armor, the reptilians with scorched plates, the molluscs leaking smoke, the human among them—dark-skinned, Mediterranean or Middle Eastern once, before time twisted his bloodlines.

  Maybe Dad knew. Maybe that’s what broke him—seeing Earth’s blood sold off to aliens like pets and curiosities. And maybe that's why he built me. Not just another queen. The control rod for his Hive. His revenge for the humiliation of his species. The leash he meant to hold when the plague swallowed the galaxy.

  He didn’t want a daughter. He wanted a failsafe—a failsafe for the disasters he would unleash.

  He sent me here. Not Lion. Me. To buy him time. To let him carve out a little more empire before it all collapsed.

  And the worst part? He might just win.

  God only knew what he whispered into Lion’s mind before we jumped. Or how much of him is still rotting inside that armor.

  This was his fault. All of it.

  And still—I loved him. God, how fucking pathetic.

  My jaw ached from clenching it. The cuffs behind me gleamed.

  What now? Let Lion butcher them?

  I looked at the Rue, the molluscs, the reptilians—at the human stiff among them, heart hammering loud enough I could almost taste it.

  There are still humans out here. Beyond Haven. Beyond the Hive. Maybe not pure. Maybe not untouched. But alive.

  And I saw it—the way they shifted, the way they whispered of the Elders. Not anger. Fear. Worship.

  They think the Elders are gods.

  Maybe they are.

  But somewhere deep down, I remembered something else.

  The Arsenal of the Gods. The weapons Dad built before we left Earth. To crack planets. To silence fleets. To kill even the Hive... even gods. He built them for this.

  Maybe even gods can bleed.

  The Hive was worse. It didn’t want survival. It wanted replication. It wanted queens. It wanted mistakes.

  Dad might be a monster. But he’s the devil I know.

  The Hive is just... wrong.

  I’ll help them. I’ll fight their Council’s wars. I’ll fight the Hive. And maybe—maybe—I’ll buy humanity a little more time.

  I rolled my neck. My jaw cracked.

  And at least—I smirked to myself, blood tugging at the corner of my mouth—at least I won’t have to deal with the real Knight anymore.

  Just the one still rotting in my head.

  Small fucking blessings.

  “Valicar.”

  “Online.”

  “Can you force my arms forward?”

  “Yes. But the damage will be catastrophic.”

  “Do it.”

  “Confirm override—”

  “Do it now.”

  What followed wasn’t magic.

  It was brutal.

  It was regression.

  It was Minotaur—the raw foundation of Valicar. The prototype suit that once tore my body apart every time I wore it. Back then, I wasn’t strong enough to control it. Now I chose to let it break me.

  Because they needed to see.

  “FORCING ARTICULATION.”

  My arms were still bound behind me—numb, nerve-dead from the crystal cuffs.

  But Valicar didn’t care about nerves. Just command.

  My left arm jerked—violently.

  The cuffs yanked taut, crystal chain digging into my right wrist as the suit tried to haul both limbs forward at once.

  There was no give. Only torque.

  Bone cracked, muscle tore.

  I screamed—sharp, feral—as the shoulder dislocated, then ripped free with a wet, splintering pop.

  The cuff stayed locked around my severed wrist; the rest of my left arm dangled for a heartbeat—shredded, blood-slick—before it sloughed off entirely, still shackled to the chain that now bit into my right wrist alone.

  Phoenix flared instantly—new flesh already crawling over the exposed bone.

  I dragged the cuffed right arm forward—awkward, trembling—barely able to lift it in front of me.

  No leverage. No bracing.

  Just raw instinct and hunger.

  I could’ve waited.

  I didn’t.

  I bared my teeth—

  —and bit down. Hard.

  Jaw crushed into the inside of my right elbow—tendons snapping, bone splintering like wet driftwood.

  A savage twist, a jerk—and the second arm tore free.

  Both severed arms—still locked together by the crystal cuffs—hit the deck with a wet, ugly thud.

  New arms surged from the stumps—wet, pale, tendons weaving frantic as Phoenix flooded my bloodstream.

  The hunger howled, thick and sharp behind my ribs, curling through my spine.

  I staggered upright, blood slick beneath my bare feet.

  Still torn. Still bleeding.

  But free.

  And far more dangerous.

  “I wasn’t meant to escape,” I said.

  “No,” Kael answered, steady and low. “You weren’t.”

  My voice carried through the ruined bridge. “Then tell me—what was the real goal?”

  “To deliver you to the Council,” he admitted. “Alive. Contained.”

  “So the grand plan was to parade me in, let the Council poke and grade me like a lab rat.”

  I swept my gaze over the Rue, the molluscoids, the reptilians, then back to the star?born human with those black, galaxy?lit eyes. “That plan assumed I’d stay a prisoner.”

  My voice dropped—sharper now.

  “But that changed.”

  I stepped forward. Slow. Measured.

  “You’ll take me to your Council. You’ll do what you came to do. And I’ll help you fight the Hive.”

  Another step.

  “But understand this—”

  I stopped, letting the blood drip from my fingertips.

  “We will be your guests.”

  My voice cut like glass.

  “Not prisoners. Not weapons. Guests.”

  The bridge held its breath.

  Behind me, Lion shifted—quiet, a mountain moving.

  He didn’t speak right away. Just let the silence stretch.

  Then, finally, with a dry edge of amusement—

  “At least there might be a good fight after.”

  The Rue’s lights flickered in unreadable patterns—fear, confusion, maybe something like reverence.

  I turned, jaw tight, eyes locked on the human again.

  “Where are our quarters?”

  For a second, he just stared—like he couldn’t quite process the question.

  The others froze too—alien faces twisting in fear, tension rippling through their bodies in sharp, confused pulses.

  Behind me, Lion’s laughter continued.

  Low and deep, a rattle through his chest that made the scorched deck vibrate. His massive armor flexed with the sound, gold plates catching the low light.

  I couldn’t see his face under the helm.

  I didn’t need to.

  I knew he was smiling.

  Let them think he was the monster.

  That’s the lie that might save us.

  But really… was it a lie?

  One of the Rue stepped forward—small, scarred, his glow dim and trembling.

  He raised a clawed hand and cast his light into the air. Glyphs shimmered like molten glass.

  [Your kin will guide you to the guest deck reserved for dignitaries.]

  The human flinched at the wording—then nodded. Quiet. Ashamed.

  He didn’t look me in the eye.

  “I’ll take you,” he said softly. Then, after a pause—

  “My name is… Kael’Sarim.”

  The name was almost human.

  Lion shifted beside me, gold armor flexing with menace. He looked ready to crush Kael just for existing.

  But something in me tugged.

  I took a breath. Let the blood settle.

  “I’m Sol Voss. But I’m sure you knew that.”

  I met Kael’s eyes. “So just call me Sol.”

  For the first time, he almost smiled.

  He turned, stepping through the battered doorway.

  Lion and I followed.

  We passed the wreckage in silence—twisted limbs, seared plating, shattered bodies still steaming. My bare feet stuck to the deck in places. The gore went on for meters.

  Lion glanced over at me.

  “You need a bath, Highness,” he said, voice dry.

  I snorted. “You’re one to talk. You look like a horror holo poster.”

  He laughed—low and deep. “Fuel for the nanites.”

  And just like that, the gore coating his armor shimmered—then vanished. Burned away, absorbed, recycled into something cleaner. Brighter. Hungrier.

  “They needed to see it,” he added, voice cooling again. “Those xeno scum… needed to understand who’s in charge now.”

  I gave him a look. “It’s supposed to be me, remember?”

  He chuckled, not missing a step. “Of course it is, Highness.”

  I stopped. Watched him.

  He didn’t. Just kept walking—calm, golden, like nothing in the galaxy could touch him.

  But I knew better.

  The Rue nearly killed him once. He swore never again. And my father rebuilt him—again, and again, and again.

  From the day Lion was born, he belonged to him. Not a son. Not an heir. A weapon in gold. A holy knight forged from blood and loyalty. The first blade of a god still crawling toward divinity.

  Julian didn’t want survival. He wanted conquest. A legacy carved into stars. Proof that humanity wasn’t meant to endure—we were meant to rule.

  And Lion was the prototype. Every scar, every upgrade, every brutal instinct—designed to make the galaxy kneel.

  While I was cobbling together a reactor with scraps of antimatter tech, Julian gave him the Dragon Drive.

  He was the sword.

  But I’m the throne.

  And still—even now—I don’t fully trust him.

  He’ll keep me alive. I believe that much. But everything else?

  He leaves me cuffed, even when I’m bleeding. Follows his own code. Stands over me like a statue, calls me Highness…

  Fucking asshole.