- The Dagger’s Rest
- The Telling
- The Depth of What Remains
- The Ghost in the Manifest
- Echoes of Light – Eva’s Journal Entry
- Something in the Static
- The Shape of the Mark
- Old Bones, Open Sky
The Dagger’s Rest
The skimmer wheezed to a stop in front of the bar like a dying animal finally granted mercy. One of the back stabilizers hissed, gave out, and the whole thing slumped to the right with a crunch. Lou sat behind the controls, arms crossed and grinning like she’d just won a fight.
Tom was already outside, wiping his hands on a rag, and Eva emerged a moment later from the alleyway, braid tossed over one shoulder, sleeves rolled to her elbows. Together they grabbed the front bar of the skimmer and began pulling it toward the rear lot, where they stored the trash, crates, and machines Lou claimed she’d “fix when the moon’s right.”
The bar sat crookedly between two empty alleys, a rare standalone building in a part of town where everything else leaned into each other like drunk men at last call. Its stonework was dark and pitted, as though it had survived several lives before this one. Half the sign had rusted clean off, but the letters that remained read: The Dagger’s Rest. No one remembered if that was its true name, or just the only one that stuck.
Eva liked the name. She never said why, but when she repainted the outer door, she traced a tiny dagger into the woodgrain near the handle. A resting place for weapons. A pause in the violence. Or maybe a promise.
Inside, the bar was dim, warm, and smelled faintly of citrus peel and old whiskey. Two identical staffers—no one could tell if they were brothers or clones—moved in near silence behind the counter, cleaning glasses and refilling dry goods as if choreographed. No one knew their names. They never offered.
“Back in one piece,” Tom called as the skimmer thudded into the rear yard.
“Barely,” Lou muttered, levering herself out of the driver’s seat and landing on stiff legs. “You’d think a man who builds cities in the clouds could give me a skimmer that doesn’t shit itself every two miles.”
Eva reached out to help with the cargo, but Lou waved her off. “No, no. I got it. Just let me work on her out back. She’s touchy.”
“You should get some rest, Lou,” Eva said, her voice even. “Come back in the morning.”
Lou looked up, one brow raised. “You still mad at me, little dagger?”
Eva didn’t answer. She turned and slipped inside the bar, brushing her fingers over the doorway like she always did.
Sylas had just reached the bottom step when Lou’s arm shot out, a wrench dangling from her hand like bait. “Not so fast, heartbreak. You’re helping.”
He opened his mouth to protest—maybe something about needing a drink or checking on the freight—but was cut off by a low growl. Od had slipped through the open door like smoke and padded across the lot, fur shimmering like blurred ink. The creature flopped down beside Lou and fixed Sylas with narrowed, glowing eyes.
“I didn’t do anything,” Sylas muttered.
Od blinked slowly, unimpressed.
Lou tossed the wrench at him with surprising accuracy. “You did something. Probably breathed too loud.”
“I was being polite,” he said, catching it. “Didn’t want to interrupt your skimmer funeral.”
Lou grinned. “Good. Now dig in.”
As they lifted the engine panel, Od huffed and thumped his tail against the dirt, watching Sylas like he was a fly that hadn’t been swatted yet.
“You ever blink?” Sylas muttered. “Or is it just all judgment, all the time?”
Od bared his teeth in what might have been a smile. Or a warning.
“Y’know,” Sylas said, turning a bolt with far too much force, “I’ve met assassins with better bedside manners.”
Od leaned forward and let out a low, growling chuff. The sound echoed in Sylas’s ribcage like a distant thundercrack. Lou let out a sharp bark of a laugh.
“He likes you,” she said. “That’s how he flirts.”
Sylas narrowed his eyes at the shadow-dog. “Let’s hope he’s not my type.”
The skimmer groaned as Sylas yanked at a metal plate, and something clanked loose near the stabilizer.
Lou sighed. “Well, shit. That wasn’t supposed to come off.”
“Wasn’t me,” Sylas said immediately.
Od, with a smug blink, turned and trotted off—vanishing into the dark like he had better things to do.
—
The door clicked shut behind her, soft but final.
Eva moved through the narrow hallway between the freight room and the back of the bar, her boots soundless against the packed earth floor. Inside, the air was warm and close, smelling of woodsmoke, old citrus, and something sweet baking—someone must have lit the hearth oven again.
The twins nodded as she passed, still cleaning glasses, still mirroring each other like some old joke the universe forgot to finish. One of them—maybe both—gave a slight smile, the kind that asked no questions.
Eva appreciated that.
She crossed to the back counter, where crates from the skimmer had been set earlier in the day, and began unloading them. Dried herbs, oil tins, rice sacks. It wasn’t just food—she’d asked Lou to find specific ingredients. Things she couldn’t grow on the rooftop anymore. Things for rituals she didn’t name out loud.
As she worked, her fingers moved automatically, but her mind didn’t follow.
She could still feel Sylas’s presence like a prickle between her shoulder blades. Not his footsteps, not his voice—just the knowing that he was nearby. It made her bones itch. It made her breath shorter than she liked.
He hadn’t said a word since they returned. Maybe he was giving her space.
Maybe he was waiting for her to break first.
She sliced open a bag of salt and poured it into a tall jar, packing it tight, sealing it with a carved wooden lid. Then she reached for the bundle wrapped in cloth at the bottom of the crate. Her fingers hesitated. She knew what was inside—dark glass bottles, filled with amber liquid, labeled in her own hand.
Memory tinctures.
She’d sent Lou for them weeks ago, before any of this had unraveled. Before Callaia. Before the train. Before Sylas had walked through her door with that same mouth and a stranger’s name.
She unwrapped one bottle and held it to the light. The liquid shimmered faintly, catching the amber glow of the lantern above her head.
Od would be back soon. She could feel him, too—like a tether stretching and twitching through her ribs. If he’d gone to Sylas, it was on purpose.
“I don’t want to hate you,” she whispered. “But I can’t afford to love you.”
She didn’t say it for Sylas.
She said it for herself.
The bottle clinked softly as she set it down.
The Telling
The freight room was dim, the overhead light flickering every few breaths like it couldn’t decide whether to hold on or let go. The air was thick with the scent of old herbs and engine grease, warm metal and ash.
Tom sat at the counter with his journal open, a blank page waiting. He wasn’t writing—just holding the pen between his fingers like he was trying to remember what it felt like to think.
Eva stepped in, silent as dusk.
Od followed behind her, his movements liquid, more shadow than dog. He didn’t lie down right away. Just stood beside her, eyes glowing faintly in the half-light.
Tom looked up. “You need something?”
She didn’t answer. Not right away. She crossed the room to the shelf, pulled down a small jar of violet petals and silverroot, and set it on the table between them.
“For memory,” she said.
Tom’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Yours or mine?”
Eva didn’t blink. “Ours.”
He set the pen down.
She didn’t sit, just rested her hands on the back of the chair in front of her, her knuckles pale from the grip. The silence stretched long enough to let the grief back in. She didn’t fight it—just let it pass like a tide pulling at her heels.
“I need your help,” she said at last. The words landed softly, but they carried weight. “Not for the bar. Not for tonight.”
Tom straightened a little, his eyes sharpening. He didn’t speak.
“There’s something… underneath,” Eva continued. “A system. Built into the trade routes, the rails, the ports. Old. Older than you’d think.”
She wasn’t looking at him now. She spoke like she was speaking into memory.
“They don’t carry goods,” she said. “Not always.”
Tom’s voice was quiet. “What do they carry?”
Eva hesitated. Then, almost too softly to hear: “Girls.”
Od made a low sound beside her, a noise not quite a growl. It passed through the floorboards like thunder on the other side of the sky.
“They call it the Trade,” she said. “It’s not new. It’s old. Hidden. And it takes from people who can’t afford to lose anything else.”
She stepped back and finally met his eyes.
“They took Callaia.”
Tom didn’t flinch. He already knew. He’d known the moment Sylas came back alone.
“I think she remembered more than she should have,” Eva said. “Somehow. Even through what they gave her. Even through everything they did to make her forget.”
Tom’s hands folded together. He didn’t speak, not yet.
“She wasn’t the first,” Eva added. “And she won’t be the last. Not unless we stop it.”
Tom watched her carefully, the way he always did when he was working something out in his head. “You think it’s bigger than this planet.”
“I know it is,” Eva said. “They used to send our healer clans off-world. Said it was to protect us while they mined. But then they didn’t bring us back. The last camp was poisoned by the Mourna. After that, the planet went dark.”
She paused. “And the girls started disappearing.”
Tom was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “How long have you known?”
Eva shook her head. “Too long.”
He reached for the jar, turning it slowly in his hands. “You think I can help.”
“I think you already have,” she said. “You see things others don’t. You remember what people forget. I don’t need a fighter, Tom. I need someone who listens between the words.”
He looked down at the page in his journal. Then up at her.
“I’ve heard whispers,” he admitted. “Boarding houses that don’t exist. Manifests that don’t match. I thought they were rumors.”
“They’re not.”
“And Seren?” he asked softly.
Eva’s breath caught. The grief in her chest pulled tight, sharper than anything she’d let show.
“I read Sylas’s letter,” she said, almost a whisper. “She’s home now.”
Od shifted closer, his tail brushing against her leg like a quiet reminder: you’re still here.
Tom didn’t push. Just nodded. Then, without ceremony, he said, “Tell me what to look for.”
The Depth of What Remains
A low rumble echoed in the distance—thunder, soft and lingering, the kind that rolled through the sky long after the rain had come and gone. Storms in Pelnar never arrived all at once. They moved in pulses—a sudden downpour, then quiet, then another burst. It could last for hours. The heavy door scraped against the stone as one of the old journeymen stepped out into the street. He raised a lazy hand toward Lou in farewell, leaving behind the sour tang of stale beer and worn-out stories.
The dust storm had passed, but its mark lingered. Fine grit clung to windows and rooftops, a film over everything. Mud thickened in the cracks between cobblestones, and the gutters still carried a slow trickle of cloudy water. Inside The Dagger’s Rest, the air was thick with heat and the scent of metal—warm, post-rain silence filling the cracks between the floorboards.
Maps and manifests were spread across the common room table, corners weighted down with mugs and knives. The lantern burned low. Most of the bar staff had gone to bed or found excuses to leave. What remained was the core.
Eva sat near the edge of the table, spine straight, eyes unreadable. Od lay curled beneath her chair like a coiled shadow, though his tail occasionally thumped against the wood—an impatient pulse. His eyes stayed fixed on Sylas.
Tom stood behind a stack of freight logs, flipping slowly through pages worn soft with use. “This one here,” he said, tapping a manifest. “It’s labeled as medical waste, but the route doesn’t make sense. Five stops in the outer rim, none of them marked for disposal. Just looped travel.”
Sylas leaned in. “No pickups. No drop-offs?”
Tom shook his head. “None that are recorded. The ports don’t even show traffic for the days it passed through.”
Eva spoke, her voice even. “Ghost towns.”
Tom nodded. “Exactly.”
“They’re not moving cargo,” Sylas said, brows furrowing. “They’re moving names. Ownership. This isn’t logistics—it’s laundering.”
The air in the room shifted.
Eva turned toward him. “And how would you know that?”
Sylas didn’t blink. “Because I’ve worked with people who do worse.”
Her expression didn’t change, but the sharpness in her voice cut like glass. “You say that like it gives you insight. But you’re just repeating the strategies of monsters like you weren’t raised by one.”
Od lifted his head, slow and tense. A growl rumbled beneath the table.
Eva stood.
No one stopped her.
She pushed the back door open and stepped out into the alley. The air outside was heavy with petrichor—stone and dust and earth, still damp from the recent storm. A few drops of rain clung to the edge of the roof above her, gathering before falling like tiny heartbeats into the mud below.
She tilted her head back.
The first drop landed on the bridge of her nose.
The second traced the curve of her cheekbone.
For a moment, Eva just stood there, letting it come—slow and cold, trailing down her warm skin. The rain didn’t fall in sheets, just here and there. A reminder. A quiet tapping from the sky.
Her breath slowed.
Each drop was a tether. Each drop a thread pulling her back into her body.
She remembered Callaia’s voice, full of strange songs and half-forgotten dreams. She remembered the weight of Seren’s name in Sylas’s letter. And for just a moment, she imagined what it would feel like to let grief take her completely.
But it didn’t. Not yet.
She exhaled once—long, low, and quiet.
And when she stepped back inside, she was soaked through and stone still.
Od rose to meet her as she entered. He didn’t make a sound.
Sylas looked up from the map. His face unreadable.
Eva returned to the table, eyes fixed on the paper. She didn’t speak yet.
Sylas’s voice, when it came, was quiet.
“You were the only thing I ever wanted to protect. And I couldn’t even do that.”
That stopped the room.
Even Od, with a low huff, backed off by a fraction.
Eva looked at him like she didn’t believe him. Or maybe she did—and that was worse.
Lou, who’d been leaning back in her chair like a cat on a fence, finally spoke. “Do either of you want to keep your teeth, or shall I step out and let him choose?”
Sylas said nothing.
Lou reached under the table and thunked down a dusty bottle. “Alright. Enough confessions. One of you drink before I get sentimental.”
Tom picked it up, sniffed it, and winced. “Is this fuel?”
“Probably. Clears the throat.”
He poured himself a splash and took a sip, then coughed loud enough to rattle the maps. Lou looked smug. Od let out a chuff that might have been amusement.
The room softened for a breath.
Eva leaned forward at last and pointed to a circle on the map. Her voice came quieter than before.
“There’s a name here. It shouldn’t be. The port’s been closed since before the dust storms started last year.” Her finger traced the symbol she’d painted over it—something like a flame curled inward. “But I saw it. In the fire. In the smoke. When Callaia…”
She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to.
Tom leaned over, reading the name in silence.
Sylas stayed still, watching her carefully.
Od curled back beneath the table, his tail still now, eyes half-lidded but never unaware.
Outside, the rain returned—sudden and brief. A soft tapping against the windows. It passed in less than a minute, leaving only the sound of dripping rooftops and shifting weight.
Lou drained her glass and sighed. “Well. Looks like tomorrow just got interesting.”
The Ghost in the Manifest
Eva didn’t speak, but the room pulsed with her frustration.
It was in the way she leaned too far over the table, elbows locked, hands flat like she could press the freight logs into revealing what they were hiding. Like she could force meaning out of maps gone soft at the creases. Like she could will the universe to give her one clear direction and not another dead end wrapped in ash.
The table was a mess of ghost ports and supply codes.
She hadn’t moved in minutes, but Sylas could feel her tension like heat off iron. Od was coiled beneath her chair, tail twitching now and then in silent warning. Watching. Waiting.
Lou poured something into her cup and leaned back without comment. Tom tapped the edge of a manifest with the tip of his pen and offered a half-hearted, “Maybe it’s a corrupted loop,” but even he didn’t believe it.
Sylas stayed still.
He had no desire to interrupt what was happening. Moments like this were delicate—charged. What Eva wanted was clarity, control. But what she needed was movement. A thread to pull.
If he offered it too soon, she’d retreat.
So he’d let her think it was hers.
He stepped forward slowly and touched the corner of the nearest page.
“May I?”
She didn’t answer. Just shifted enough for him to lift the paper without brushing her hand.
The seal stamped along the margin was faded. Almost nothing now. The ink had bled and dried under a lantern that burned too hot.
But Sylas knew what he was looking for.
–
“This mark,” he said softly, running his thumb along the curve of the seal, “was part of a Zaineko shell brand. One of the last ones they used before the lawsuits. This version only appeared on shipments that were meant to vanish.”
Tom looked up. “It’s a freight company?”
“Technically. Public-facing? No. It’s a ghost company. A laundering front. They used seals like this to log fake transport activity—ports that don’t exist. Routes that never happened.”
Eva’s eyes flicked toward him. “Disappear where?”
Sylas didn’t answer.
Instead, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small comms disc—etched metal, old and silent. Still functional. He drew a symbol across its surface, and the glyph pulsed to life. A soft glow spilled over the maps like water in the dark.
Tom raised an eyebrow. “Vintage.”
“Untraceable,” Sylas replied.
–
The comm activated.
A flickering shimmer took shape above the disc—a woman perched cross-legged on a narrow steel gantry, lit from behind by sparks and engine light. She wore a faded tactical mech-suit, one glove on, the other hand flipping a plasma cutter back and forth like a habit. Her hair was pinned up in a mess of practical twists, a candy stick clamped between her teeth.
One eye glowed faintly with a soft calibration ring.
The other narrowed.
“Sylas.”
The word dropped flat, like a challenge.
“You’re not dead. That’s annoying.”
“You still talk in compliments,” he replied.
“What broke?”
“Nothing yet.”
He held up the manifest.
“Ah,” she said, shifting her weight. “Zaineko ghost sigil. Haven’t seen that one since the blockade cleanups. How nostalgic.”
“It’s on a loop route,” he said. “No pickups, no drop-offs. Ghost ports. The logs don’t line up with actual traffic.”
“Because the traffic never existed.” Her voice turned focused. “They’re laundering names. Transferring ownership. Probably people, not goods.”
She leaned forward, tossing the candy stick to the floor off-screen.
“You chasing the Trade again?”
He didn’t answer.
“Is it for you, or is this about her?”
A pause.
Her fingers snapped once. Three projection panels spun to life behind her—movement overlays, hacked traffic logs, and a heat-mapped orbital chart. She barely looked.
“You’re lucky I love puzzles,” she muttered. “Send me a better scan of that seal. I’ll run a trace. Give me twenty.”
She hesitated. And then:
“Tell me you’ll at least let me see your face soon.”
“If I can.”
“You better. I wore eyeliner for this call.”
He ended the link.
–
Silence returned, sharp and immediate.
Lou let out a low whistle. “She seems like a damn delight.”
Sylas folded the manifest and slid it back onto the pile. “She is. Most days.”
Eva studied him carefully. “Do you trust her?”
He met her gaze.
“She doesn’t lie. She doesn’t need to. Paige finds truth like other people breathe.”
That answer didn’t satisfy Eva—but she didn’t press. Not yet.
Outside, rain whispered against the window. A brief warning. A second breath.
Od exhaled under the table, his glowing eyes dimming as he settled.
Sylas sat back in his chair and closed his eyes for half a second. Just long enough to feel the shift in the room.
Now they had a direction.
And it was already beginning to move.
Echoes of Light – Eva’s Journal Entry
Full Moon of Ash – Season of Wind
I dreamed of the Mourna again.
But this time, it didn’t take people.
It took the land.
—
I was small—no more than seven, I think. The wind in Haven was warm that day. It always was in the Season of Wind. The grass hummed with insect songs and light. I sat at the edge of the shallow pool beneath the arching moonblossom trees, bare feet buried in cool moss, a piece of fruit sticky in my hands. The kind that stains your fingers violet for days.
The water shimmered.
I remember that part clearly. It shimmered—not with reflection, but with breath. Like it was alive and waiting for me to notice.
Then the color changed.
From blue to black.
From light to ink.
The surface thickened, stopped moving. And then the veins came—dark lines reaching out from the center of the pool, curling like roots in every direction, across the moss, into the trees, beneath the stone paths we used to race across. Everything it touched withered. Everything it touched turned to ash and silence.
The sky cracked.
Not with thunder. With stillness.
No sound. No wind. Just a pause in the world.
I turned to run—but Sylas was already standing at the edge of the water, watching the blackness crawl toward him. Only, it wasn’t the Sylas I know now. It was the boy from before. The one with sand-colored hair and a blood-stained shirt, the one who used to sit with Seren in the hallway after nightfall.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t cry.
He just watched me like he already knew what would happen next.
The Mourna took him without sound.
It reached up—not like a hand, but like a memory—and wrapped around his throat and pulled him down. There was no splash. No ripple.
Just silence.
And then he was gone.
—
I screamed.
I turned to call the Oracle, but the trees were burning—no, not burning. They were melting. Their bark turned to black glass. Their leaves to soot.
So I did what I always did when the world broke.
I ran.
I opened the threadline between worlds with shaking hands and pushed through the veil, gasping. I landed hard in the alley behind the bar in Pelnar, the smell of dust and blood still fresh in the stone.
But it followed.
The Mourna came through after me, pouring like ink through the cracks of time. It didn’t howl. It didn’t threaten. It simply arrived, and the air went cold around it.
The rain turned to tar. The buildings to rust. The people I loved—the ones I still have—crumbled into shadows at my feet. Lou disappeared beneath the weight of it. Tom’s voice broke into static. Od turned to smoke, and I couldn’t catch him.
Even Callaia… even she…
I called out to her, but her face was wrong. Eyes too big. Lips too red. Like a painting done by someone who had only ever heard of children, but had never seen one.
She reached for me.
And then she scattered like ash in a storm.
—
I ran again.
I ran through the dead forest. I ran through the corridors of the brothel, where the doors never opened and the stairs never ended. I ran through the holding cells of orbital docks where girls with Elari eyes waited to be numbered and named.
I ran until my lungs were blood.
But it was always there.
Behind me. Beneath me. Inside me.
The Mourna.
Not chasing.
Just watching.
As if it knew the truth long before I ever dared to speak it.
—
Eventually, I stopped.
Not because I was brave.
But because I was tired.
I turned to face the Mourna. My body shaking, my hands open. It came forward—not fast. Not loud. Just steady. Like water spilling over stone.
It touched me.
Not gently.
But not cruelly either.
Just… completely.
And I fell.
—
There was no ground to catch me. Only water.
Cold. Endless.
Not the thick black of the Mourna now, but clear and bitter. The kind of cold that steals breath. I sank with eyes open. My lungs filled with silence.
I didn’t fight it.
I let it take me.
I fell and fell until I couldn’t remember my name.
And then—
I rose.
—
The surface broke above me like glass, and I reached it.
Only it wasn’t my hand that broke through.
It was wings.
Dozens of them.
Hundreds.
I wasn’t Eva anymore.
I was motion. I was breath. I was wingbeats and darkness and flight. I scattered into a thousand pieces—into moths the color of bruised midnight, soft and shining and utterly silent. We lifted from the surface of the water and into the moonlight.
And still, the Mourna did not follow.
It only watched.
Like it had been waiting for me to stop resisting.
To understand what it really was.
Not death.
Not hunger.
But a guide.
A wound with purpose.
—
I woke with tears in my mouth and salt on my skin.
The dream is fading now, but the meaning stays. The Mourna doesn’t come to destroy me.
It comes to show me where the rot begins.
And if I can follow it to the root…
I will find what was taken.
I will find what they buried.
And when I do—
I won’t run.
I’ll open my hands.
And let it all burn.
—Eva
Something in the Static
The fading light dappled the floor through muddied windows, casting fractured gold across the table’s cluttered surface. The freight logs sat untouched now—no more than ghosts on paper.
Sylas shifted in his seat. He could feel the tension bleeding off him in waves. His shoulders were tight. Jaw sore from clenching. Paige was quick. Thorough, too. But waiting had a cost. The silence in the room pressed against his thoughts like static.
He ran a thumb along the edge of the comm disc.
“That Paige is a cyborg, ain’t she?” Lou broke the silence, voice casual but cutting. “I saw it. I never trusted those folks. Shifty, if you ask me.”
Sylas blinked. Looked up. “She was human first.”
He let the words sit there, then added, “She still is. What’s left of her.”
“That’s not the part I doubt,” Lou said. “It’s the part that’s yours I don’t trust.”
Eva was quiet, but her eyes were steady.
“You don’t have to like Paige,” Sylas said. “But you should know—she’s the best I’ve ever known at what she does. And she’s never lied to me.”
“No,” Eva said softly, “but we still have to trust you.”
She didn’t raise her voice. Didn’t have to.
“I don’t share Lou’s opinion of cyborgs, but I do carry her doubt about you. And we can’t afford to lose anything else. Not people. Not time. Not each other.”
She held his gaze like it cost her something.
“I still don’t know which side of this war you’re on. You could be like them. Like your father.”
That one landed.
Hard.
Sylas stood, slow and quiet, and stepped forward.
“You’re right not to trust me,” he said. “Not yet. But if you know anything about me…”
His voice lowered.
“Know that I am nothing like my father.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. Just reached across the table, took the comm disc, and turned toward the door.
“I’m going out. Need to find a stronger signal.”
—
Outside, the air had cooled. The storm left behind only the scent of rain and rust. Sylas leaned against the alley wall, pressing the disc between his fingers. He activated the glyph.
It flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then Paige appeared—like she’d been waiting for the call all along.
“Sylas,” she said, grinning, “you’re not gonna believe this one.”
It had been a long time since he’d seen her smile like that.
She was radiant—still suited in her worn tactical rig, hair a mess, eyes sharp with caffeine and adrenaline. But her tone was light. Lit. Alive.
“Before we get into the ghost train of horrors you sent me,” she said, reaching offscreen, “I need to warn you about something.”
“What now?”
“It’s in the air,” she said, amused. “Should be arriving any moment. Consider it a gift.”
“You sent me something?”
“I’ve been working on it. An experiment. You remember that scout droid I crashed last winter? I reworked the core. Built it for field intelligence.”
She twirled a small remote between her fingers.
“It’s got a two-way comm, full AI integration, eight tentacles loaded with retractable tools, and a very judgmental personality.”
“You built me a snarky octopus.”
“Technically, it hovers. You’ll see. Don’t piss it off.”
Her tone shifted.
“Now. About your manifest.”
—
Screens bloomed like petals around her. Data danced in layers—routes, signatures, heat maps. Her fingers moved fast, slicing through noise and falsified port trails.
“I went deep. Deep enough to lose hours.”
She paused.
“You were right about the live cargo. But here’s the thing—there’s no origin. No port. No signature. The shipping data loops back to a company that doesn’t exist.”
A feed scrolled behind her, all empty headers and coded fragments.
“It’s like they’re pulling people out of thin air.”
Sylas tensed.
“Clones?”
“Maybe. Maybe worse. The manifest is locked down, but there’s one trace marker.”
She tapped a symbol on the screen.
“A single character. K-9. No name. No orbit. No satellite ping. It’s not mapped.”
“Then where the hell is it?”
“Nowhere,” Paige said. “Or everywhere.”
She leaned forward, flicked the symbol toward the comm feed.
“And this? I’ve seen a lot of encoded logos. This one… it’s empty. No corporate trail. No file structure. It shouldn’t exist.”
—
Eva gasped.
It was sharp. Sudden.
Her chair scraped backward. Her hands gripped the edge of the table as her eyes turned white—pure and glowing like moonlight pressed through bone.
Od barked once—then backed away, low and tense.
Eva jerked once, and then stilled. Her whole body slackened into silence.
—
A burned clearing. A camp, charred and hollow.
Bodies. Dozens. Small. Branded. Lasered with the symbol.
A fire raged—not orange, not red, but violet and amaranthine. A color born of pain.
Lou’s silhouette moved in the distance, dragging corpses into piles.
Eva stood at the edge.
Watching.
Unable to scream.
The fire roared.
—
Eva snapped back.
Her breath caught in her throat as her vision faded and her hands began to shake. Her eyes flickered, slowly returning to grey.
“I’ve seen that mark,” she whispered. “Over and over.”
“Where?” Sylas asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know the name. But I remember the bodies.”
Paige’s voice came back, softer now.
“Sylas… whatever this is… it’s not just about moving cargo anymore.”
“No,” Sylas said, watching Eva.
“It never was.”
The Shape of the Mark
The room hadn’t moved.
Eva was still at the table, her fingers locked against the wood as if the vision might come again if she let go. Her eyes were no longer white, but something behind them had gone distant—like whatever she’d seen was still playing behind her gaze.
Od sat beside her now, closer than before. One paw pressed against her boot, eyes fixed on her face. Still. Tense. Quiet.
Lou didn’t speak. Tom didn’t breathe.
Paige had gone silent on the comm, waiting to be dismissed or remembered.
Sylas watched it all from where he stood, the comm disc still warm in his hand. He’d seen Eva wounded before. Seen her bleed, vanish, cast spells that tore holes in the air. But this was different.
She wasn’t broken. She was remembering.
“Where was it?” Tom’s voice was soft, a half-step above a whisper.
Eva blinked once. Her jaw moved before any sound came.
“I don’t know the name,” she said.
Her voice was low and frayed at the edges, as if she were pulling it from somewhere far deeper than her throat.
“It wasn’t a city. Not a port. Just a place. A clearing.”
She looked down at the symbol still hovering faintly on the comm feed.
“I saw it burned into the inside of their arms.”
Sylas stepped closer. Not too close. Just enough to see the way her fingers trembled.
“The girls?” he asked.
Eva nodded once.
“They were stacked,” she whispered. “Like firewood.”
Od let out a sound—not a growl, just a breath full of weight.
Eva closed her eyes.
“I burned it all. Every trace. Even the roots.”
“You used the pink fire?” Lou asked. Her voice wasn’t sharp this time. It was… almost reverent.
“Yes.”
“I thought you said you’d never use it again.”
“I meant to.”
She opened her eyes again, and this time, they were steady.
“I use that flame when I know there’s no one left to save.”
The comm disc flickered again.
Paige’s voice returned, more business now—the tone she used when emotions made her uncomfortable.
“One last thing. Before I go.”
“You’re still here?” Lou muttered.
“Always,” Paige replied, ignoring the sarcasm. “There’s something buried in the K-9 route log. Hidden in a dormant loop—not part of the manifest proper. It’s old, maybe pre-encoded by a different system.”
“What is it?” Sylas asked.
“A jump signature. Coordinates to somewhere deep—fringe orbit, not logged on standard charts. The digital signature’s corrupted, but it repeats every thirty-one days. Like a pulse.”
She paused.
“Whatever’s there, they go back regularly.”
Sylas nodded. “Send it.”
“Already did.”
The comm went dark.
Tom leaned in, scanning the log printout.
“We can get there, but it’s unstable space. Not a clean ride.”
“It never is,” Lou muttered, pouring the last of something dark into her cup.
“We go in,” Sylas said, “we’ll need to plan for two days off-grid. No safe anchor points.”
“We’ll make it work,” Lou said. “Won’t we, sunshine?”
Eva didn’t answer right away.
She rose from the table, slower than usual, and stepped outside without a word.
Sylas followed her. Not immediately. Not fast.
He found her at the edge of the alley where the street met the trail, just past the lanternlight. The sky above was heavy with stars, dust still clinging to the rooftops from the last storm.
She knelt down and drew the symbol in the dirt with her finger—slow and precise, like muscle memory.
Then she brushed it away with her palm and stood.
Od pressed his side against her leg, silent as ever.
She didn’t look at Sylas, but she spoke.
“If we follow this…”
A pause.
“We won’t come back the same.”
He nodded once.
“We haven’t been the same since Callaia.”
That finally made her turn.
The look she gave him wasn’t trust. But it wasn’t distance, either.
It was something between.
She stepped forward into the street, the dust rising faintly around her boots, and tilted her face toward the stars.
“I’m coming,” she said softly, to no one at all.
Old Bones, Open Sky
“Got something for you.”
Paige’s voice clicked through the comm like it had never left. Sylas looked down at the glyph, already glowing before he touched it. That was new. Either she was eager, or the system was starting to anticipate him.
He wasn’t sure which was worse.
“Tell me it’s not another puzzle,” he muttered.
“Even better,” she said, voice lit with that barely-contained glee she reserved for big reveals. “I found you a bird.”
A series of scans flickered to life—external frames, hull readings, patch diagnostics. A vessel hovered mid-orbit above a decaying drydock ring, its silhouette barely held together by rust and plate welds. The nose was crooked, one engine mount was bruised with carbon scoring, and the landing gear looked like it had been pulled from a scrapyard, which—knowing Paige—was entirely possible.
Sylas blinked once.
“That’s not a bird. That’s a fossil.”
“She’s got bones, I’ll give her that,” Paige replied. “But listen close. No registry in two years. The transponder’s fried—intentionally. No commercial logs. And best of all, no AI core. She’s invisible.”
“she’s a corpse.”
“You’re adorable when you’re cautious,” she said. “She’s flown through two blockades, outmaneuvered a federal skimmer, and once crashed into a canyon wall and kept going.”
Sylas raised an eyebrow.
“You’ve flown her?”
“Built her,” she said. “From a salvage frame and sheer spite.”
The ship waited on Dock 17-B, half-collapsed into the cradle like it had given up pretending to be anything useful. The outer hull was scorched and mismatched, steel patched with copper, copper patched with black resin panels so aged they reflected light like obsidian.
Sylas stepped inside.
The interior smelled like old oil and charged air. Cables looped low over the corridor ceiling. The lights flickered once, then steadied—dim and gold. He moved through the central passage, boots clicking against the floor grates.
Despite the outer decay, it was clean.
Not polished—lived in.
No frills. No finish.
But every system blinked online with quiet efficiency.
“She’s not meant to look pretty,” Paige said through the comm. “She’s meant to disappear.”
He passed the flight deck. One wall bore a faded handprint in old engine dust—framed by a small, worn emblem painted onto a metal plate. A stylized wing, sharp-edged and half-erased.
He didn’t ask. He figured if it meant something, Paige would never tell him.
“Any guesses what’s under her nameplate?” Paige asked.
“Let me guess,” he said. “Nothing.”
“Exactly. Can’t trace a ghost without a name. I’ve already dumped a fuel node at your dock. She’s ready to fly when you are.”
“Coordinates?”
“Sending now,” she replied. “There’s only one route that won’t get flagged. Cold corridor. No comms. No anchor points. No support.”
“So just… gut instinct and bad luck.”
“Something you’ve always had in spades.”
The comm pinged.
A route blinked into his nav pad—one long jump. Off-grid. Illegal. Of course.
“You’ll want to leave by sunrise,” Paige added. “Storms’ll clear the trackers on the south ridge. Makes it easier to disappear.”
“How many people have flown through this route and made it back?”
“Technically? One.”
“You?”
“Define back.”
He leaned against the ship’s internal console, staring down at the silent glyph still glowing in his hand. Paige wasn’t always right.
But she was never wrong when it counted.
“You sure this thing’ll hold?” he asked.
“Better than you think,” she said. “She doesn’t scream when she flies. She purrs. And Sylas—”
He lifted his head.
“Yeah?”
“You’ve got something incoming. Should be arriving any minute now.”
“Another gift?”
“Let’s call it… company.”
“I don’t need company.”
“You’ll like this one. Or hate it. Either way, it’s loyal.”
“You made me a dog?”
“Worse,” she said, smug. “It thinks.”
The comm cut off.
Somewhere in the belly of the station, something landed.
Soft.
Mechanical.
Curious.
Sylas didn’t move.
He just sighed.
“Of course.”
The Weight of Silent Things 