The kill box outside the Hive Mother’s nest had become a rhythmic, industrial slaughter.

  What began as a desperate scramble for survival had calcified into a mechanical purge. The Protectors lined the canyon rim. Their bodies interlocked to form a wall of scales against the swarm. Above, the Seekers circled like vultures. Their dragons dived in synchronized strafing runs that turned the grey rock to glass.

  Inside the Queen’s chamber, the air was much quieter. In the middle of the area various machines were set up with a group of battered individuals looking at a hole.

  Vex sat propped against Raze’s flank. Her face looked translucent under the harsh, white glare of the portable med-emitters Kaelen had brought down from the ship to help her survive. The DAIR suit had sealed the hole in her stomach. But the nanites ran on emergency power. With the new med emitter it restored power, and actively began to stitch back what it could.

  She refused to look at the perimeter. She stared only at the dark, gaping maw of the facility entrance.

  “Check the time,” Vex whispered. Her voice sounded thin. It was a jagged scrape of sound against the silence.

  “I checked it thirty seconds ago,” Tora snapped. She sat nearby with her arm in a sling. She used her good hand to load fresh power cells into a pistol. Her fingers shook. The plastic casing rattled against the magazine. “He is fine. Riven is more stubborn than any of us. He is probably downloading the entire library while he is down there.”

  “The comms are dead,” Vex argued. She shifted her weight. Pain spiked through her abdomen, white and hot. Raze let out a low rumble. He curved his neck around to nudge her gently back against his scales. “Why are the comms dead? They worked before.”

  “Probably just interference,” Brick grunted from his position near the tunnel. The large man stood guard with his Lance deployed. But his eyes kept flicking to the darkness. “The rock is thick. And the dead Queens are throwing up psychic static.”

  Vex looked at Astrix.

  The black dragon was unraveling.

  Astrix was not injured physically. Not like Raze or Viper. But she vibrated with a frequency that made Vex’s teeth ache. She paced back and forth in front of the blast doors. Her claws gouged deep furrows into the resin floor. Every few seconds, she stopped. Her head snapped toward the tunnel as if she heard a sound no one else could.

  Then she let out a sound like a high, keening whine that sounded like twisting metal.

  Noxin, Phillean’s partner, stood in her path. He did not block her aggressively, he was also waiting for his Lancer. But he was also a silent wall of muscle keeping her from bolting into the dark.

  He is coming, Astrix projected.

  Her mental voice spilled out over the open squad channel. It felt raw. Fractured. It did not sound like the cool, collected dragon Vex knew. It sounded like a child lost in a supermarket.

  I can feel him. He is... he is quiet. But he is coming.

  “See?” Tora forced a smile. It looked more like a grimace. “Even the dragon says he is coming. Riven is probably dragging a server rack behind him. That is why he is slow.”

  Vex wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe that the scrawny kid from Paranthax who had ridden a Tank and surfed a dragon was simply taking his time. She wanted to believe he would walk out of that tunnel, covered in slime, and make some dry, sarcastic comment about how much he hated stairs.

  She gripped Raze’s scales. Raze?

  I do not know, Little Spark, Raze replied. His mental voice, usually a roaring fire, burned like dim embers. The Resonance is... quiet. I cannot sense him. But I never could.

  Minutes stretched into hours. The gunfire from the perimeter became background noise. The only thing that mattered was the tunnel. The darkness seemed to breathe. It inhaled the hope from the room and exhaled cold dread.

  Then, a sound echoed from the dark.

  Footsteps.

  They were not the frantic, scrambling steps of a man running for his life. They were heavy. Rhythmic. Slow.

  Astrix froze. Her head lowered. Her silver eyes dilated until they became black pools. She let out a breath that rattled in her chest.

  Riven.

  Vex pulled herself up. She ignored the tearing pain in her abdomen. She ignored Kaelo’s warning shout. She stumbled forward. She leaned on Raze for support.

  “I told you,” Vex let out a breathy laugh. Tears pricked her eyes. “I told you he would make it. That idiot.”

  Two figures emerged from the shadows.

  First came Captain Kaelen. The True Drakeon walked with his head bowed. His armor was covered in grey dust. He looked up at all of them with a firm, steady gaze. But the trembling of his hands, and whipping of his tail betrayed his portrayed calm.

  Behind him came Sergeant Phillean.

  The Sergeant did not walk with his usual swagger. He trudged. And he carried a burden in his arms.

  It was not a server rack.

  Vex stopped. Her heart slammed against her ribs. A frantic, terrified bird.

  Phillean stepped into the light of the chamber. He carried a body. The DAIR suit hung in tatters. Shredded black ribbons fluttered in the draft. One leg clearly fractured and twisted. The head lolled back. The faceplate of the helmet was shattered and gone.

  Riven’s face was pale. Not the pale of fear, or the pale of shock. It was the grey, waxy pale of meat left in the cold. His eyes were closed. His mouth hung slightly open.

  Blood. Dark, dried, and copious coated his chest like a bib.

  “No,” Vex whispered.

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  The word fell out of her mouth like a stone.

  Phillean stopped in the center of the squad. He did not speak. He did not have to. He slowly, gently, lowered the body onto the resin floor.

  As the body settled, a sound cut through the silence.

  Thwump. Hiss.

  It came from Riven’s chest armor.

  Thwump. Hiss.

  “He’s alive!” Tora shouted. She scrambled forward. “I hear the suit! It’s still working!”

  Kaelo rushed forward. He dropped to his knees beside Riven. He placed his hands on the chest plate. His face twisted in concentration. He looked at the readout on Riven’s collar.

  The medic froze. He looked up at Phillean. His eyes were wide and haunted.

  “It’s the failsafe,” Kaelo whispered. “The suit... it detected cardiac arrest. It’s forcing the heart to beat. It’s… just shocking the muscles.”

  Thwump. Hiss.

  Riven’s chest jerked upward with the electrical discharge. Then it collapsed. It was not the smooth rise and fall of breath. It was the violent twitch of meat being shocked by a battery.

  “Turn it off,” Phillean said softly.

  “But the rhythm—” Vex started. She stumbled closer.

  “He is gone, Vex,” Phillean’s voice cracked. “The machine is just pumping blood through a corpse.”

  The silence that followed was louder than the battle outside. It was a vacuum. It sucked the air out of the room.

  Tora dropped her pistol. It clattered on the stone. Brick lowered his Lance. His face crumbled into a mask of grief. Kaelo put a hand over his mouth. He turned away.

  But Vex could not look away. She stared at the unmoving chest. She watched it jerk artificially.

  Thwump. Hiss.

  Then, Astrix moved.

  She stalked forward. She pushed Noxin aside with a violence that sent the larger dragon stumbling. She approached the body. She lowered her massive head until her snout was inches from Riven’s face.

  She nudged him.

  Riven, she projected. Her voice was small. Confused. Wake up.

  The body rocked with the nudge. Limp and heavy. The suit shocked him again. His arm twitched.

  See? You are moving, Astrix said. Her thoughts were frantic. Get up. We have to go.

  She nudged him again. Harder this time. Riven’s head flopped to the side. Lifeless.

  Stop playing, Astrix growled. The confusion bled into panic. This is not funny. Your heart rate is... I cannot find it. Why does it feel fake? Riven, where are you hiding it?

  “Astrix,” Kaelen said softly. He stepped toward her. “Let him go.”

  Astrix snapped her head up. She bared her teeth. A guttural snarl ripped from her throat.

  LIAR!

  The psychic scream hit them all like a physical wave. Vex fell to her knees. She clutched her head. Tora cussed. The med emitter lights shattered. They plunged into the flickering gloom of the emergency strobes.

  HE IS NOT GONE! HE IS RIGHT HERE! HE IS JUST QUIET!

  Astrix slammed her claws into the ground. She shattered the stone. She turned back to Riven. Desperate now. She began to lick the blood from his face. Her rough tongue scraped against his skin.

  Please, she whimpered. The anger dissolved into a raw, open wound. Please, Riven. You promised. You said we were partners. You said you would not leave me like Aether. YOU PROMISED!

  Vex crawled forward. She did not know what she was doing. She knew only that she had to be there. She reached out and touched Riven’s hand.

  It was cold.

  The reality of it hit her then. The absolute, final coldness of it. The boy who had joked with her in the mess hall. The boy who had held her hair back while she puked after their night of drinking. The boy who had looked at her with those quiet, intense eyes and promised to watch her six.

  He was not invisible anymore. He was gone.

  A sob tore from her throat. Raw and ugly. She curled over his hand. She pressed her forehead against his armored knuckles.

  Above her, Astrix threw her head back.

  The dragon opened her mouth. A sound came out that had no equal in the known universe. It was not a roar of fire. It was a scream of pure, unadulterated loss. It was the sound of a soul ripping in half.

  It echoed off the walls of the hive. It vibrated through the floor. It carried out of the tunnel and into the canyon. It silenced the guns. It silenced the swarm. It silenced the world.

  And in the center of the chamber, surrounded by his first true family, Riven Holt lay still.

  ---

  Existence was not black.

  That was the first realization. There was no darkness here. There was no light. There was simply... movement.

  There was a flow.

  It was infinite. A current that stretched from the beginning of time to the end of entropy. But not in a single direction. It came from every direction and flowed in every way all at once. It roared with the force of a collapsing star, yet it was silent. Like an ocean of data, of soul, of memory.

  Something drifted within it. A speck of consciousness. A void in the stream.

  It floated. It did not have a name. It did not have a body. It had no lungs to burn, no legs to ache, no heart to beat. It was simply a witness.

  It felt the current rushing past. It felt the warmth of a billion lives brushing against its edges. A star burning in a distant nebula. A beetle dying in the mud. A child laughing on a world made of glass.

  It was the Resonance.

  The consciousness did not know the word, but it knew the feeling. It was the breath of the universe. The source. The return.

  And it was taking him.

  The current grabbed the void. It swept it downstream. It was gentle, but absolute. It felt like falling asleep after a lifetime of labor. It felt like letting go of a heavy weight.

  Rest, the river whispered. You are done.

  The consciousness did not fight. Why would it? There was no pain here. No fear. No cold. The struggle was over. It let the current carry it. It felt good to stop moving. To stop fighting. To just be.

  But the it did not dissolve.

  The other lights in the river melted into the stream. They became part of the whole. But this speck remained solid. The current rushed over it, but it could not break it down. It was a stone in the water.

  It drifted. It watched. It forgot.

  Then, the river shuddered.

  A ripple tore through the infinite calm. It came from... below. From the dense, heavy world of matter. It was a jagged, violent rip in the fabric of the peace.

  RIVEN!

  The sound hit the void like a physical blow.

  The consciousness recoiled. It vibrated.

  Riven?

  The word meant nothing. It was just a noise. A collection of frequencies. But it stuck. It snagged on the edges of the void. It refused to wash away.

  Riven.

  The consciousness tried to push it away. It wanted to go back to the drifting. Back to the silence.

  YOU PROMISED!

  The second ripple was stronger. It was not just a sound. It was a feeling.

  A hook.

  A sharp, hot pain manifested in a chest that did not exist.

  Promised?

  The void slowed. It turned against the current. The peace began to fracture. Images flickered in the static.

  Silver eyes. A black scale. A laugh in a mess hall. A hand holding back hair.

  LIAR!

  The scream tore through the Resonance. It was absolute agony. It was the sound of a soul breaking.

  The void shuddered. The name... it wasn’t just a noise. It was… him?

  Riven.

  I am Riven.

  The realization was a shock of cold water. Memory flooded back, sharp and jagged. The facility. The stairs. The blood. The mission.

  Astrix.

  Vex.

  They are waiting.

  Riven looked downstream. The peace was still there. The oblivion was waiting. It was easy. It was safe. He could just let go, and the pain would never touch him again.

  Then he looked upstream.

  He saw a line. A thin, fragile thread of obsidian light, pulsing in the light. It stretched from his nonexistent chest, up through the floor of the universe. Up into the pain.

  Come back, the line whispered.

  Riven tried to move.

  The river roared in protest. It slammed into him. It tried to push him down. It tried to wash him away. The weight of the entire universe crashed against him.

  Go back, the river commanded. It is over.

  “No,” Riven whispered into the roar of eternity.

  He planted feet made of will against the flow of god.

  He took a step.

  The current burned. It stripped away the peace. It replaced the warmth with the cold, hard agony of existence. Pain filled every spot on Riven’s body. Every step upstream was a war. Every inch was a battle against the flow of the universe.

  He reached out. He grabbed the obsidian line with hands made of smoke.

  He pulled.

  Thwump.

  A sensation. Distant. Muted. Like a drum beating in another room.

  Thwump.

  It was artificial. Electric. Painful.

  Riven grit his teeth. He dug his fingers into the fabric of the light. He hauled himself up, hand over hand, fighting the current that wanted to drown him. He focused on the beat.

  Thwump.

  He felt the heat first. Then the smell of blood. Then the crushing weight of his own body.

  Thwump.

  “Not yet,” Riven snarled.

  He wrapped the line around his wrist. He braced himself.

  And he moved forward.