Chapter 7: The Obsidian Citadel

POV: Neoma

Consciousness returned in fragments.

First, the vibration.

It wasn't the jagged, uneven rattle of a Dregs crawler. This was a deep, chest-compressing thrum. Precision engineering. A hum so low it bypassed my ears and settled directly in the fluid of my spine. My teeth ached with it.

Second, the heat.

The air in the transport bay was sweltering. It shouldn't have been. Sky Anchors were military-grade, climate-controlled. But the heat wasn't coming from the vents. It was radiating from the bodies around me.

I forced my eyes open. My eyelids felt like sandpaper. The sedative had turned my blood to sludge, making every movement a monumental effort.

I wasn't bound with ropes. I was magnetized.

I was strapped into a metal jump seat, my wrists and ankles clamped by heavy iron cuffs that stuck fast to the wall behind me. The gravity-dampeners in the cuffs made my limbs feel impossibly heavy, like I was moving through wet concrete.

I blinked, trying to clear the blur from my vision.

Then I saw them.

The transport bay was small—too small for the monsters occupying it.

Three of them.

To my left sat the Tactician, Wolfy Vance. He was the only one who didn't look like he took up the entire room. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, typing on a holographic datapad. His posture was liquid, relaxed. He didn't look at me, but I saw his nostril flare slightly. He was cataloging my breathing rate.

Directly across from me sat the giant. Viggo.

He was terrifying.

Without the shadows of the subway tunnel to hide him, his sheer mass was overwhelming. He had to hunch forward to keep his head from grazing the ceiling. His armor was stripped off, revealing a torso that was a landscape of muscle and old scars. The wound on his stomach—the one I had purged—was a fresh, angry pink line.

He wasn't looking at his hands. He was staring at me.

His eyes were gold. Unblinking. Dilated so wide the iris was a thin ring of fire around the black pupil. He looked like a wolf watching a rabbit twitch.

"She is awake," Viggo rumbled.

The sound vibrated the floor plating under my boots.

"Heart rate elevated," Vance murmured, not looking up. "One-twenty. Cortisol spike detected."

Viggo leaned forward. The movement was sudden, predatory.

My breath hitched. I tried to press myself back into the seat, but the magnetic cuffs held me fast. He brought his face inches from mine. I could feel the heat radiating off his skin—a furnace blast. He smelled of dried blood, rain, and raw, musk-heavy aggression.

He inhaled. A long, deep pull of air.

He frowned.

"Still nothing," he growled, frustration leaking into his voice. "How can she exist and not smell like existence?"

"Back down, Uruk."

The command came from my right. It wasn't shouted. It was spoken with the quiet, absolute weight of a landslide.

I turned my head. My neck muscles protested, stiff and sore.

Commander Barzil Ashfang sat in the command chair. He had removed his helmet. His face was hard, carved from granite, with a jawline that could cut glass and scars that spoke of a century of violence. His hair was black, cropped short, military standard.

But his eyes... his eyes were intelligent.

He wasn't looking at me with Viggo's hunger or Vance's clinical detachment. He was assessing me as a threat. A weapon.

"She is a Null," Barzil said. His voice was gravel grinding on steel. "Nulls have no scent signature."

"Nulls smell like dust," Viggo argued, not moving away from my face. "They smell like sickness. Like decay. She smells like the space between stars."

Viggo reached out. His hand was massive, callused, the size of a shovel. One finger extended toward my cheek.

I flinched.

I couldn't help it. My body betrayed me. A tremor ran through my shoulders. I expected a strike. I expected pain.

Viggo froze. His finger hovered an inch from my skin. He looked at my flinch, then at my eyes. Something flickered in his gaze—confusion?

"Do not touch the prisoner," Barzil ordered.

"I want to see if she is cold," Viggo grunted. "When she touched me... the fire stopped."

"We are on approach to the Citadel," Vance interrupted, snapping his datapad shut. "Docking in T-minus two minutes. I suggest we sedate her again. If she panics in the hangar, the gravity-lock might crush her ribcage."

Barzil stood up.

The cabin suddenly felt very, very small.

He walked over to me. He moved differently than Viggo. Viggo was an avalanche; Barzil was a glacier. Inevitable. Crushing.

He stopped in front of me, blocking out the light. He placed a hand on the wall next to my head, leaning in.

"You purged silver," Barzil said softly. It wasn't a question.

I stared up at him. My heart hammered against my ribs—thud, thud, thud—painful and erratic. I wanted to spit at him. I wanted to scream. But my throat was dry as ash.

"I did what I had to," I rasped.

"You used Void magic," Barzil corrected. His golden eyes bored into mine. "Magic that has been extinct for three hundred years. You understand what this means, scavenger?"

"It means you're going to kill me," I whispered.

Barzil tilted his head. A dark, humorless smile touched his lips.

"If only it were that simple," he murmured.

The transport lurched. A sudden drop in altitude that made my stomach float into my throat.

"Docking clamps engaged," the pilot's voice crackled over the intercom.

Barzil pulled back. The loss of his body heat left me shivering.

"Wolfy," Barzil commanded.

Vance stood up, the silver injector already in his hand.

"No," I gasped, struggling against the cuffs. The metal bit into my wrists. "Not again. Don't—"

"It is a mercy," Vance said, his voice devoid of empathy. "The atmospheric transition to the Citadel can cause seizures in the malnourished."

He didn't hesitate. He jammed the needle into my neck.

The cold rushed in. Faster this time. Heavier.

My head fell back against the seat. The last thing I saw was Viggo watching me, his golden eyes burning in the dim red light of the transport bay, filled with a hunger that had nothing to do with food.

Then, the darkness took me.