Location: Skyfortress Aegis – Upper Command Deck
The lights flickered once, twice, before plunging the deck into a dim, amber glow.
Aeris didn't flinch. She'd been here before—moments before a siege—when the air thickened, and even breathing felt like a risk.
Lucien moved to her side without being called.
"You feel that?" he murmured.
She nodded. "They've already breached the outer defenses."
"They shouldn't have been able to—"
"They weren't supposed to be alive, Lucien," she cut him off, her voice low, almost trembling. "And yet here they are."
---
A metallic screech tore through the hall.
The sound wasn't of steel bending—it was older, more primal. Like something clawing its way into reality itself.
Lucien's hand brushed against hers—brief, almost accidental.
Except Aeris knew him too well. Lucien didn't do accidental.
"You stay behind me," he ordered.
"You don't give me orders," she replied.
"I'm not giving you orders. I'm making a promise."
---
The first shadow emerged from the fractured glass—its shape shifting, liquid, refusing to be fully seen. Where it touched the floor, frost spread like veins, crawling toward them.
Aeris stepped forward.
"You don't belong here."
The shadow froze, then rippled, its voice a low, ancient whisper:
"Neither do you… Queen Without a Throne."
---
Location: Aegis Lower Decks – Simultaneously
Automated defenses roared to life, but one by one, the cannons fell silent—each overtaken by tendrils of black code that spread like wildfire through the fortress' systems.
In the security feeds, dozens of shadows slithered through corridors, ignoring soldiers, ignoring resistance.
They had a single destination.
---
Location: Upper Command Deck
Lucien realized it at the same time Aeris did.
"They're not after the Aegis," he said slowly.
"They're after me."
---
The shadow's form shifted into something disturbingly human—eyes like burning voids, a smile too wide to be anything but a threat.
"We remember the day you were made," it said. "The throne was never yours. It was ours… until your mother stole it."
Aeris' jaw tightened. "Then maybe you should be speaking to her."
The shadow tilted its head, mockingly. "We are."
---
For the briefest second, the air shimmered—and her mother's voice poured from the shadow like venom.
"Aeris, they're offering what I never could. You were meant to ascend, not burn. Don't fight them."
Aeris' stomach clenched. The voice wasn't just familiar—it was intimate. The kind of voice that could twist truth into something seductive.
---
Lucien stepped closer to her, his hand brushing against the small of her back—steadying her, grounding her.
"You're not listening to that," he murmured.
"It's not just her," Aeris whispered back. "It's all of them. And they want me whole."
Lucien's grip tightened. "Then they'll have to take you through me."
---
The shadow lunged.
Lucien was faster, intercepting it mid-strike, his blade flaring with a pulse of white fire. The impact shook the deck, scattering shards of glass and frost.
Aeris moved beside him, her own weapon drawn—a sleek, silver arc-blade that caught the dim light like liquid moonlight.
They fought in unison, their movements almost too perfect to be unplanned—like two halves of the same will.
---
The shadow finally recoiled, its form splintering into smoke.
"You cannot kill what is coded into the world," it hissed. "We will take you, Aeris. When we do, there will be no throne—only Ascendancy."
With that, it dissolved into nothing.
---
Silence.
The fortress' systems hummed back to life, but the damage was done.
Aeris turned to Lucien, her breathing uneven.
"They won't stop," she said.
"No," he agreed. "But neither will we."
For a moment, the war faded, the weight lifted, and all she saw was him—the one person who refused to abandon her no matter how deep into the abyss she fell.
His voice was quiet, but unshakable.
"They can call you their heir. They can call you their queen. But you're mine."
And in the fragile stillness before the next attack, she let herself believe it.
---