Altina had never felt like it belonged. Even before the towers cracked and the roads grew over, before the power rationing and the silence in the upper wings, the place had always hummed wrong. Too symmetrical and high-functioning. It felt more like a city built for processes, not for people.

  Inelius stepped down from the transport and took a deep breath. The air was humid, metallic, and touched faintly with coolant discharge from the vent stacks that still clung to the cliffside. The jungle hadn’t reclaimed this place yet, but it wanted to. Roots crept into the drainage channels. Dust pooled in corners where the air-scrubbers had long since failed. It was only the hard shell of alloyed concrete that kept the wilds out.

  Behind him, the others filed out in silence. Soren moved cautiously, shoulders still hunched as if expecting a fight. Tamiyo observed everything with wide, alert eyes. She seemed to be scanning the structures for something but Inelius couldn’t determine who or what. Raine popped up next to him, buzzing slightly like she had enjoyed her ride up front with Violet.

  Elias offered a low whistle as he turned in place, taking it all in.

  “This whole place used to be a research station?” Elias asked. “Looks like it’s seen better days.”

  “Yeah,” Inelius answered after a long moment. “I think Altina has been around longer than most cities or settlements across Nox, I’m not completely sure how long, though.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s older than Berilinsk,” Aurania said as she approached. The drive, or something else perhaps, seemed to have calmed her nerves a bit. Three trucks had left Berilinsk in a convoy several hours ago. Riza and Amalia had led the way, Inelius had ridden in the middle truck with Tamiyo, Soren, and Elias while Violet drove and Raine kept her company.

  Aurania and Veolo brought up the rear. Both the lead and tail trucks had their beds half-full of gear in case they ended up stranded unexpectedly. All of the lacravida had donned armor plating before they left, but most of their outfits still allowed plenty of room for airflow.

  All except Riza.

  Her armor was heavier than the rest and no skin showed between the plates. Thick and heavy, the black plating gave her an even more intimidating presence than she normally had. She was also damn near seven feet tall in that suit. But the scariest part was her helmet. Riza had long, jackrabbit-like ears, and the helmet’s plating for them almost made it look like she had horns. That, combined with the massive weapon she carried and the red glow of her helmet's eyes…

  Inelius understood why people whispered she was a demon.

  Soren was staring around at the structures slowly. His brow was furrowed and he looked like he was piecing together an old puzzle he had completed long ago. “It is,” He answered Aurania's statement like it had been some sort of question.

  She immediately shot a look over to him to see what he was on about.

  “Something on your mind Soren?” Elias asked.

  Soren kept scanning the skyline for a few more seconds, then checked the translator tablet. “Nox was not always inhabitable,” Soren finally said. “It was terraformed. I remember. At least, I remember pieces of it. Not everything is clear.”

  Aurania narrowed her eyes, more exasperated than angry. Her expression read like she was just tired of dealing with his bullshit. “Hey,” she barked at him in a flat tone, snapping her fingers twice. “You wanna maybe get some of our questions answered before you start digging up even more mysteries? You’re giving me an even bigger headache than I already had.”

  Soren looked at her for a moment, his expression half-defiant, half-contemplative. He opened his mouth like he might say something.

  Aurania made an exaggerated ‘let’s go’ motion to him. Then, almost as an afterthought, she turned and said, “Veolo, stay and watch the trucks.”

  Soren finally stopped pondering and just said, “Okay” before walking the direction Aurania was telling him to.

  “What the—?” Inelius muttered to himself under his breath. Something about that interaction he just watched was weird.

  “What was that?” Elias said.

  Inelius didn’t realize he had spoken loud enough for anyone else to hear. “Uh, nothing. Let’s go.”

  Violet took point as the group moved into the main concourse, boots and hooves echoing in the tall, ancient halls. Light panels buzzed weakly overhead, some flickering, some dead. The deeper they walked, the more the jungle smell faded, replaced by something colder. Metal, rust, and blood.

  Amalia skipped and hummed alongside Elias as they moved deeper into the compound. The concourse branched into smaller corridors, most of them dim, but a few still carried the faint hum of power. Here and there, cables ran along the ceiling in exposed bundles, anchored by makeshift clamps. Someone had kept this place running.

  Inelius saw various technicians or other residents of Altina here and there as they walked. There were quite a few d’moria, but he noticed a sparse mix of lacravida, humans, and lazarco were around as well. A pair of engineers stood atop a maintenance scaffold near an old relay tower, working in silence. They both wore data-visors that flickered faintly as they adjusted some kind of calibration lens aimed toward the mountains.

  Further down, two younger researchers passed in the opposite direction, one carrying a field scanner tucked against her hip, the other gesturing animatedly about something involving geothermal sinks. Two guards stood watch on a scaffold above the west corridor, eyes following the group a little too closely. The red eyes of Riza’s helmet landed on them and they both suddenly found somewhere else to be.

  “Place isn’t dead,” Elias muttered, nodding toward the scattered activity. “Just... quiet.”

  “Is it supposed to feel so eerie?” Raine asked. “I feel like we’re walking through the remnants of some old dead god.”

  Inelius grunted. “Definitely feels too quiet for what it used to be, that’s for sure. But there are still plenty of people here. Altina has a wealth of data related not only to our planet, but to our local star cluster. And it has plenty of equipment that has been built up and used by various parties throughout the centuries.”

  They were almost to the central dome now. Unlike the rest of Altina, it looked maintained. Power was still steady, outer walls were reinforced, and there was no overgrowth on the entryway.

  “That’s where we’re headed,” Inelius said to Tamiyo and Raine. “This section was retrofitted a few years back.”

  As they approached, an old hydraulic entryway hissed open. Inside, the air grew cooler, cleaner, white lighting panels hummed overhead, and the hallway branched into a cluster of labs and data rooms.

  Two Lacravida were waiting at the end of the corridor. Both were maybe six and a half feet tall, muscled and curvy with snow-white hair. They looked like they might be related somehow. One had long luscious hair mostly tied into a large braid down her back, and she wore several flowy crimson garments. The other’s hair was cut short, similar to Amalia’s, and wore light robes and jewelry that contained various hues of teal. A third figure, a human woman, sat cross-legged beside a flickering console, inputting commands with a tight focus. They stood as the group approached, and the shorter-haired lacravida lit up with joy, running towards them.

  “Auntie Aura!” she yelled out. She jumped at Aurania, wrapping her arms around her neck in a big hug.

  Aurania didn’t even change stride. She kept walking with the girl hanging off of her and warmly said, “Hello Rinavera.”

  As they crossed through the door at the end of the corridor, Aurania grabbed Rinavera by the waist and lifted the girl off her. She held her straight out and dropped her like a cat and Rinavera landed just as gracefully. She stepped aside lightly, brushing imaginary dust from her robes.

  The other lacravida watched with a calmer expression from near the console, her arms loosely crossed. She inclined her head respectfully but said nothing yet.

  Aurania came to a stop beside the door and turned back to the group. “For those who don’t know, these are my nieces, daughters of Chieftess Samara. The one still vibrating is Rinavera.”

  Rinavera gave a playful wave to the group, then turned a quick twirl as if to accent her own introduction.

  “And the quiet one,” Aurania continued, “is Rinara. She’s the one actually in charge around here.”

  Rinara arched an eyebrow at that but didn’t contradict it.

  “And you are?” Inelius asked, looking toward the human.

  “Lena,” Rinara said, finally speaking. Her voice was low, sharp-edged but not unkind. “She handles system integrity. Keeps this place from falling apart.”

  “Yo,” Lena gave a lazy two-finger salute from her spot by the console without even looking up.

  Aurania turned back toward the door. “We’ve already taken too long getting here. Let’s get inside.”

  Rinara keyed open the lab entrance, revealing a circular room with several active terminals, holographic projectors, and a large display table at the center that sat recessed into the floor. Soft blue lights ran along the seams of the walls. Everything felt clean and maintained.

  Inelius stepped through, scanning the room as the others filed in. Riza posted near the entrance and Violet flanked the side wall. Amalia had already claimed a stool and was spinning it idly with one hoof. Tamiyo hovered near a console, reading silently, and Soren drifted closer to the central table, eyes narrowed.

  Raine slid up next to Inelius and leaned against the wall with him. “Hey you,” she said with a smile.

  “Hey yourself,” he said warmly.

  Rinara walked up to the central console. “Mom told us that you guys were en route, she told us to have the planetary data ready, which we do, but…” she trailed off for a moment, typing a couple keystrokes into her computer. “It’s not good. And there’s something else I think we need to address first.” She looked up from her screen before continuing.

  “About an hour before your convoy crossed the outer perimeter, our field sensors started going haywire. Strange gravitational flux. Nothing natural. We thought someone was testing weapons or something in the canyon. Then we realized whatever it was... was moving toward us.” She gave Soren a look, noticing him staring at the translator tablet in his hand.

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  Rinara looked at her aunt and asked, “Can he not understand me?”

  Aurania slowly raised her hand up to her face and massaged her temples. “No,” she said. “It’s fine, just continue please.”

  “Very well,” Rinara responded. She looked over at her sister and said, “Rinavera?”

  The bubbly girl was whispering with Amalia about something and giggling. Judging just on personality, the two girls could be twins. “Hmm?” Rinavera perked up. “Oh right, got it!” She tapped a sequence into the console, and a scanning ring on the floor lit up, humming quietly.

  “Let’s start with your anomaly,” Rinara said, nodding towards Soren. “If that’s alright.”

  Soren raised his eyes from the translator and looked at Tamiyo, who gave him the smallest of nods.

  “Okay,” he responded. “Do whatever you need.”

  Rinara furrowed her brow at Soren’s strange old words and looked at Aurania, but decided not to question any further.

  Soren walked over to the scanning ring and waited while Rinara and Lena began typing away at their consoles.

  Rinavera, meanwhile, had moved away from her computer and looked like she was sneaking up on Violet from behind. Her counterpart Amalia was also sneaking up on her sister. The two were plotting something. When they were both an arm’s length away from Violet, they each reached out a hand towards Violet’s twin ponytails. Giggling silently, they began to lightly tug at a couple hairs, trying to mess with Violet without abruptly yanking on her hair.

  Violet swatted their hands away without turning. “You’re both children.”

  They ran away giggling as if Violet was chasing after them. They landed back at Rinavera’s computer and she got back to work while Amalia bent at the hips and planted her head square atop Rinavera’s, watching as she worked.

  The hum deepened as the scanner powered up. Then flared. Every light in the room flickered for a moment and the floor buzzed. The holo-table groaned before leveling out, bathing Soren in a pale blue light as the projection built around him. The projection showed his skeleton, muscle, neural map, heartbeat. Normal diagnostics.

  “Wow,” Elias said. “None of my scans were able to get a read on him, this setup is impressive.”

  “Yeah…” Rinara said as she studied the console. “It doesn’t normally react like that when we scan someone.” She frowned. “Vitals are solid. But the tissue mapping is throwing noise. Weird density shifts, especially in his spine and upper chest. Nothing dangerous, just… off.”

  Lena squinted at her screen. “Hey, Rinara. Come look at this. I'm getting ambient data.”

  Rinara stepped over. Lena pointed to something flashing at the bottom of her terminal. “This shouldn't be active,” Lena said. “That sensor loop is tied to Aether Dust, this scanner isn’t even tuned for that.”

  Tamiyo spoke up in an innocent tone. “Well that makes sense. I found him by tracking Aether Dust. Once I got my ship right next to him, the scanner almost burned out from how hot it was running.” Then her face looked like she realized something, and she asked Soren directly. “Did you activate a scanner in the cockpit of my ship when you woke up?”

  Soren looked down at her and nodded. “Yeah, I wasn’t sure what it did but it exploded as soon as I tried turning it on.”

  Tamiyo glanced over at Inelius for a moment.

  “I wonder…” Rinara muttered to herself. Her eyes narrowed and she turned to another console, typing in a series of commands.

  “What are you doing?” Inelius asked.

  “I’m reorienting a couple of the planetary Aether Dust sensor relays. They’re usually aimed at the upper stratosphere to track things like the Mandachor Abyss, but, well… I’m going to point a few of them at this room instead.”

  A moment passed. The lights flickered once, then stabilized.

  “Rinavera,” Rinara said, “kill the biometric overlay.”

  Rinavera hesitated, then tapped a control key. The blue human-shaped scan of Soren dissolved. And then, from the darkness, a new image appeared.

  A dull, milky-white silhouette formed. It glowed softly around the edges in the shape of Soren’s body, backlit by a pale white fire.

  Inelius heard Raine mutter, “Woah,” next to him quietly.

  Rinavera stared at the screen. “I turned it off.”

  “That’s not the bio-scan,” Rinara said, her eyes wide. “That’s the Aether Dust scanner.” She paused, then spoke quietly but firmer. “It looks like his entire body is made of it. Or maybe infused with it.”

  Tamiyo stepped forward slowly, staring at the image. “Why isn’t it overloading? Like my ship’s sensor?”

  “Maybe he’s calm now?” Lena offered. “Maybe he’s learning to control it.”

  “What happens if he’s not calm?” Aurania said.

  No one responded. Inelius looked around the room for a moment. He felt like the tone had shifted.

  Elias tilted his head. “Hey Amalia. Remember when he broke out of the chains?”

  Amalia brightened. “Oh yeah! He was like a glow stick! He started pulling on the chains and his hair and eyes got all bright. Then CRACK! Poof! And he was up off the table.”

  Standing in the scanner, Soren had been trying to keep still, so he wasn’t actively monitoring the translator tablet. He hadn’t been able to follow the conversation except when Tamiyo spoke to him. But Inelius noticed that something about the tallest woman in the room caught Soren’s attention, even before she moved or made a noise.

  Aurania took a step forward, eyes on Soren. “So he needs a push.”

  Soren looked at Tamiyo. “What’s happening?”

  Her mouth opened but no words came.

  Aurania stepped up to Soren before he could turn and she kicked the back of his knee, driving him down to the floor.

  He dropped with a surprised grunt. Aurania moved in close, behind his shoulder, and caught his right wrist. Her other hand slammed down on the back of his elbow, palm-first, locking it straight. The pressure was surgical; painful, but controlled.

  “What are you doing?” Elias started forward.

  “Don’t,” Tamiyo said to Aurania, starting to reach towards them.

  “Quiet girl!” Aurania hissed.

  Soren grit his teeth. His breath hitched as the pressure grew.

  “I need to know exactly what he is and what he’s capable of,” Aurania said. “Let’s see what happens when he stops pretending to be harmless.”

  Soren’s hands clenched. The scanner image pulsed, white light flashing along Soren’s silhouette, then it began to dim. Threads of brightness faded, dissolving back into a dull outline. The hum under the floor quieted. The tension in the room frayed.

  “What happened?” Rinara asked, already leaning over the terminal.

  “He was spiking,” Lena said. “Now he’s not. Did the relay fail?”

  Soren’s voice came through the quiet, strained and low.

  “Please stop.”

  He was still on his knees, teeth clenched, muscles pulled taut against the joint lock.

  Aurania hadn’t eased up an inch. She stared straight at him, her voice cold but calm. “Samara said to do whatever tests were needed to figure out what you are.”

  Soren’s eyes flicked toward her, something behind them flashing, a mixture of pain and panic. “I don’t want to accidentally hurt anyone again.” His voice cracked like he was on the verge of tears.

  Aurania didn’t blink. She shouted a command, a word Inelius didn’t even recognize.

  “Volkara.”

  Inelius barely had time to process the word before a black blur shot past the edge of his vision. Riza moved like a shadow, no words, no hesitation. She slammed into Tamiyo from the side, knocking her clean off her feet. It was surgical, almost soft, just enough force to put her down without breaking anything.

  Then the cannon in her hands was leveled at Tamiyo’s head from three paces away.

  “What—” Inelius started to say.

  “Tamiyo!” Raine cried out, trying to run towards them.

  Inelius shot two arms out and held her back. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he couldn’t let Raine get in the middle of it.

  “Let me go, Inelius!” she squirmed.

  He held tight. Looking up, he saw Violet was in front of him. She wasn’t aiming at them, but it was clear she intended to prevent anyone from interfering. “Stay calm,” she said quietly.

  Lena yelped and dove behind the nearest console.

  The air in the lab seemed to stand still.

  Elias raised both hands in a placating gesture, tension tight through his shoulders. “What the hell was that?” he muttered, voice low. He didn’t move to stop them or dive for cover. But his eyes were fixed on Riza. Whatever that word Aurania had spoken meant… it had flipped a switch even he hadn’t expected.

  Elias almost took a step forward, but then Amalia was in front of him. She wasn’t grinning anymore, and her normal playful posture had disappeared, replaced by an eerily calm discipline. She blocked Elias the same way Violet had to Inelius.

  Neither Rinara nor Rinavera moved. They looked tense, but it looked like they knew their aunt better than to act against her.

  “What do you think you’re doing?!” Soren said. The glow was rising again.

  Raine raged again behind Inelius’ arms, “Get the fuck away from her!” She almost slipped out from behind him.

  Aurania pressed down harder.

  Soren’s breath hitched and his body trembled in the hold.

  Then he shouted. “STOP!”

  The word hit like a shockwave.

  It wasn’t just sound, it had physical weight. A blast of pressure shot through the air, like bass too deep to hear. Every console rattled. Cables groaned. The floor itself gave a low, vibrating hum as if something beneath it had just shifted in fear.

  Aurania held firm but the pressure changed, and her grip stopped being enough. Something pushed back like gravity flipping inside out, and suddenly it was like she was trying to hold a storm by the wrist.

  The faint white hologram of his Aether scan flared for a moment, then detonated. Light burst outward in a flash so bright it flooded the entire room in searing white. The scan whined like it was screaming and then died in a show of sparks. Every screen flatlined into static or blacked out entirely, and the lights in the room began to flicker.

  Then Soren lit up.

  His hair flared white and moved as if buffeted by some unseen cosmic wind. His eyes burned like stars inside his skull. The light around them bent outward, space itself distorting into a faint ripple, a soft sphere forming around the two of them as they rose an inch, then two, off the floor.

  She held onto him but he began bending his arm. Not sharply or violently, but steadily, with impossible strength, as if Aurania’s lock was something made of twine.

  Then his head turned and he looked at Riza with a face of cold focused rage. With Aurania still hanging from his right arm, he raised his left palm toward the cannon.

  Elias screamed, “No!”

  An aura of soft white fire shot through the air, slamming into the massive gun and partially catching Riza as she jumped back at the last second.

  The weapon flew across the room as if pulled by a god and slammed into the far wall with a sound of tortured metal. It bounced to the floor, smoking slightly, one of the side vents half-caved in.

  Riza was still standing, but her right arm had all the armor ripped off below the elbow.

  Her helmet was torn in half.

  Her one visible eye was locked on the ethereal being hovering a few feet away. As much as Inelius had heard of Riza’s legend, there was no mistaking the look in her eye:

  Blood rage mixed with fear.

  She stood wide-eyed clutching her wrist, a trickle of blood running down from her left eyebrow and waiting to see if she’d live through the next few moments.

  Inelius realized he was holding his breath.

  No one spoke. No one moved.

  Soren hovered there, arm half-bent in Aurania’s now useless hold. Her arms were flexed, she hovered slightly behind him as if they weren’t floating several inches above the floor.

  He looked to his arm where she held him, his expression a mix of anger and confusion. Then, slowly, the glow in his eyes began to fade. The white fire in his hair dimmed. The ripple in the air bent back in on itself like it was exhaling.

  And they touched back down to the ground.

  Aurania let go of him, and as silence settled around the room, they both sank to their knees.

  The lab was different now. Metal floor panels beneath him had warped subtly outward, concave rings in the shape of the sphere that had surrounded him. The edge of a console was curled back like taffy. Vents had buckled inward, as if something enormous had pressed out against them and vanished.

  Tamiyo was already sitting up, eyes on Soren. The impact from Riza hadn’t gone unnoticed, but whatever instinct she had to react to it had been overridden by deeper concern. Raine, Violet, Amalia—all of them watched the center of the room with bated breath.

  Soren looked around the room and saw the warped damage, the way reality had bent around him. He looked at each of them, seeing all of their faces reacting to what he was. He looked to Tamiyo, his eyes searching to find himself an anchor point.

  Then he looked at Aurania, sitting a few feet behind him. With fear and concern shaking his voice, he asked, “Did I hurt you?”