The woman then raised one hand, her movements calm, almost casual.
From her palm, violet eidra shimmered to life—thin tendrils of light that coiled around her arm like serpents before crawling to the tips of her fingers.
With a single, sharp
*snap!
the energy discharged.
The device binding Rox's wrists cracked instantly, splitting into pieces before dissolving entirely into drifting dust.
The violet particles devoured it, leaving no trace behind.
Rox flexed her wrists the moment she was free, shaking her hands out as circulation returned.
She rolled her neck with an audible crack and muttered, "Mhm… finally."
But before she could say more, the woman raised her hands again—both this time.
Her long fingers spread wide, deliberate, her gaze steady and unflinching.
"Ten years," she said, her voice cool but commanding.
Rox froze, blinking once.
"What?"
"Ten years," the woman repeated, her tone heavier now, eyes locked into Rox's.
"You will serve my expedition group for ten years."
Rox's helmet hid her expression, but her voice rang sharp with outrage.
"Are you craz—!" she snapped, her words cutting short when the woman's tone surged like a blade.
"You will serve under my command," she pressed on, overriding Rox without hesitation.
"And after those ten years, if your performance proves adequate… I will give you something even you can't carve out for yourself."
Rox's jaw tightened.
"And what's that supposed to be?"
The woman stepped closer, her shadow falling over Rox as her violet eidra shimmered faintly, painting her sharp features in an unearthly glow.
"A recommendation to the admiral of the Red Fleet. And with it—protection. The kind of protection that even the Corvus empire will think twice about violating."
She then continued, her tone sharp but steady.
"Do that, and your so-called freedom will remain untouched. No empire will track you, no warden will find you, and not a single whisper of your name will cross the stars. You'll travel in silence, unseen, unbound."
Rox paused at those words, letting them settle like heavy stones in her mind.
Freedom—true freedom—was the one thing she had been chasing since she fled the empire.
But there was always a price.
Always chains waiting to replace the old ones.
With a slow exhale, she lifted her hands in mock surrender, her voice laced with dry humor.
"Ugh, fine… I suppose ten years isn't that long for a Corvi."
A thin smirk played on the woman's lips.
She tilted her head slightly, and in the shadowed light her emerald eyes glimmered unnaturally, glowing faint and cold.
"Oh really? Then perhaps I should increase it… let's say fifty years?"
Rox arched a brow, her tone cutting like a blade as she shot back.
"If I managed to escape the empire itself, do you truly think I wouldn't try escaping yours?"
The woman didn't flinch.
She leaned forward slightly, her voice slow, deliberate, dripping with certainty.
"I know you would. That much is clear."
She let her words hang for a breath, then her tone hardened into iron.
"But understand this—compared to the empire, you will never escape my grasp. Not now, not ever. Trust my words."
The silence that followed was heavy, the air thick with tension.
For once, Rox didn't reply immediately.
The woman's gaze never wavered, her emerald eyes boring into Rox with a silent warning, sharp enough to cut.
"So what now? Fifty years?" Rox asked, irritation threading her voice, though she couldn't quite mask the hint of weariness underneath.
The woman turned without replying immediately.
She bent down,
*creak!
opened a reinforced container beneath the table, and rummaged until her hand emerged holding a scroll.
Its surface shimmered faintly, runic scriptures glowing with soft yet ominous pulses of eidra.
The aura it gave off pressed faintly against Rox's skin, like static crawling across her nerves.
"No," the woman said at last, her tone flat but final.
"Ten years."
"Hah," Rox barked with dry sarcasm, her lips curling into a mocking half-smile.
"You have a way of telling jokes."
Her eyes, however, betrayed something else—wariness—as they flicked toward the glowing artifact in the woman's hand.
The oathmaker scroll.
Rox recognized it instantly.
Its intricate runes slithered like living things across its frame, binding power humming through every etched line.
She knew exactly what it did.
Oathmakers weren't written contracts, nor simple blood pacts—they were eidra-forged covenants, agreements etched directly into the soul.
Anyone who broke their side of the oath would feel their eidra unravel, torn apart from within, leaving only ash and silence behind.
The danger went both ways.
Whoever enforced the pact was just as bound as the one swearing to it.
Which meant—for most—oathmakers were not to be taken lightly.
But this was different for Rox.
Her jaw tightened, a flicker of bitterness crossing her features beneath the helmet's shadow.
She couldn't sign it.
Not because she was unwilling, but because she was unable.
She was eidrivkan.
Born without eidra.
To the empire, to her kin, it made her less than whole—soulless, broken.
The insult had been spat at her for as long as she could remember.
Eidrivkan.
A creature with no soul.
And yet here she stood—an ace pilot, an exile, a survivor.
The irony cut deep.
Rox's gaze hardened as she looked at the woman, her voice low but steady.
"Unfortunately, I cannot partake in this thing since I lack eid—"
"You lack eidra," the woman cut in sharply, her interruption quick and merciless, her emerald eyes glinting as if she'd been waiting for Rox to say it.
"An eidrivkan. A woman who has no soul… So I have heard."
Rox froze, caught off guard.
Her head tilted slightly, confusion mixing with suspicion.
"Wait—you already know?" she asked, her tone edging toward disbelief.
"Of course."
The woman spoke with certainty.
"I keep records of valuable assets from across multiple empires. Information worth keeping, worth selling… to the right buyer."
Her gaze swept over Rox like a predator sizing up prey.
"And you are no exception."
"Okay…? So much for privacy, I guess," Rox muttered, rubbing her fingers against her helmet's temple as if to ease a headache.
The weariness in her voice clashed with the sharp tension crawling along the room's air.
The woman's hand lowered to the scroll.
As her fingers brushed the surface, the parchment stirred to life.
Violet eidra shimmered faintly, then bled outward into a mist that writhed and curled like smoke.
With a whispering creak, the scroll unfurled itself on the table, glowing runic inscriptions spreading across its surface like veins of fire.
"While the oathmaker is the most demanding of contracts," the woman said, her voice cool, measured,
"this is a lesser form. A softer bond. Still binding… but more beneficial for the contractor."
Rox narrowed her eyes at the shifting runes, suspicion threading her curiosity.
"So… what does it exactly do?" she asked, her voice carrying both intrigue and caution.
The woman's lips curved into something cold, almost triumphant.
"It merely brands you," she replied, her tone deliberate.
"No matter where you go, even in the most secluded corners of the void, even if you try to vanish into forgotten systems… my mind will know exactly where to find you."