Kian's POV
"Nyra!"
The metal door screamed as it tore off its hinges and flew into the wall. The impact echoed down the hallway, loud enough to wake the dead.
Or the guards.
Or the entire planet.
I didn't care.
She was all I saw.
Nyra was still half-slumped in the chair, straps hanging from her wrists, wires dangling from her temples. Her hair was messy, her lip split, her eyes glassy from sedatives.
But she was alive.
I stumbled into the room, lungs burning, veins blazing.
"Hey," I said, because my brain was fried, and apparently that's what it thought was a good first word. "You look terrible."
Her mouth twitched.
"You… shouldn't be here," she rasped.
I barked a laugh that sounded a little too close to a sob.
"Yeah, well, I am," I said. "You'll have to deduct points from my mission report later."
I reached for her.
The moment my fingers brushed her wrist, something shifted.
The blue light under my skin flared brighter, racing up my arm. For a heartbeat, it flowed into her too, lighting faint, ghostly patterns beneath her skin—different from mine. Not star-lines, but symbols. Sigils. Old and sharp.
Her eyes widened, clearing for a second as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over her exhausted mind.
"Kian," she whispered. "You're… loud."
I blinked. "Sorry?"
"Astra," she said hoarsely. "It's roaring inside you."
As if summoned, the voice in my head purred.
She can hear us. Interesting.
I flinched.
"Can you stand?" I asked quickly, ignoring the voice. "We have to go, now. Before more of them—"
As if the building itself wanted to prove me right, the alarm in the hallway jumped to a higher, angrier pitch.
INTRUDER IN LOWER SECTOR. ALL UNITS RESPOND.
Boots pounded closer.
Nyra tried to push herself up. Her legs trembled.
The moment she put weight on them, they buckled.
I grabbed her before she hit the floor, catching most of her weight.
She made a frustrated sound. "They sedated me. Twice."
"You tried to escape, didn't you?" I said.
"Of course I did," she muttered. "What do you take me for? Furniture?"
Despite everything, I smiled.
Then the first guard filled the doorway.
"Hands where I can see them!" he shouted, rifle leveled at my chest.
Nyra shoved weakly at me. "Get behind me."
"Yeah, that's not happening," I said.
Three more guards crowded behind the first, guns up, faces tense. Their uniforms weren't official military, but they moved like they'd had serious training.
My heart hammered.
The blue glow spread from my arms to my chest, my neck, throbbing under my skin.
Easy, the voice said soothingly. They are insects. Step on them.
"No," I hissed under my breath.
One of the guards clearly misread who I was talking to.
"You want to be a hero, kid?" he snapped. "Last warning. Down on your knees. Hands on your head."
"Kian," Nyra whispered. Her fingers dug into my shirt weakly. "Don't overuse it. You don't know what it'll do to you."
I didn't know what would happen if I didn't use it.
I straightened, keeping my body between her and the guns.
"You kidnapped my friend," I said, voice shaking. "You tried to drug me. You strapped her to a chair and shocked her."
I felt my anger rise, thick and heavy.
"And you think I'm the one who should kneel?"
The air around us tightened.
The guards shifted uneasily. One swallowed. The man in front's finger twitched near the trigger.
"Fire," someone behind him whispered.
"Wait—" the front guard started.
Too late.
The moment the first gunshot cracked, something inside me snapped.
Time didn't just slow.
It broke.
The bullets left the barrels in slow-motion streaks of copper and smoke. I could see the spiraling grooves on the metal. I could hear each droplet of Nyra's IV drip hitting the floor where it had spilled.
Kill them, the voice said calmly. They are nothing. Break their guns. Break their bones. Break their—
"No," I said again, teeth grinding.
The bullets hung in the air a meter from my chest.
I raised my hand, fingers trembling.
"I won't… kill them," I said, mostly to myself.
But I couldn't let them hit us.
With a push of panicked will, I shoved.
The bullets jerked sideways midair, whining past us to bury themselves in the ceiling and walls. Plaster dust rained down.
The guards shouted in shock.
"What the—?!"
"Is he—"
"Don't just stand there, take him down!"
They lunged in, too close now for another round of bullets.
Good, the voice purred. I prefer this.
They hit like a wave.
One smashed his rifle into my ribs, knocking the breath out of me. Another drove a fist into my stomach. Pain exploded across my side.
I stumbled, dragging Nyra with me. Her fingers slipped from my shirt.
"Don't touch him!" she snapped, trying to kick one guard's knee out even on unsteady legs.
A rifle butt caught her shoulder. She crashed into the metal chair with a strangled sound.
Something in me howled.
My vision went white around the edges.
I punched the air.
The man who'd hit Nyra went flying as if a truck had rammed him, slamming into the wall hard enough to leave a dent. He dropped, groaning, arm bent at a wrong angle.
Another tried to swing at my head.
I ducked.
His fist cut through the air where my face had been—a slow, clumsy thing in my warped perception. I grabbed his wrist and twisted.
Instead of just flipping him, energy surged through my arm, too much, too wild.
His whole body jerked as if I'd plugged him into a socket. He screamed and collapsed.
I stared down at my hand, chest heaving.
I didn't mean to—
"KIAN, LEFT!" Nyra shouted.
I turned.
The last guard barreled into me like a linebacker.
We crashed to the floor.
Pain detonated in my back. My head cracked against the cold concrete, sparks popping behind my eyes.
The world stuttered.
For a second, the light in my veins dimmed.
The guard took advantage, snarling, driving his elbow down toward my face.
My arm came up too slow.
The blow smashed into my jaw. Pain flared bright. My ears rang.
"Stay down, freak," he snarled, reaching for something at his belt. "We can do this the hard way."
He pulled out a heavy metal baton, the kind that hums with power. Stun rod.
He raised it.
My arms felt like lead when I tried to block.
The rod cracked across my shoulder.
White hot agony tore through my nerves. Every muscle spasmed.
The light inside me reacted violently.
The guard gritted his teeth, forcing the rod down again, this time toward my chest.
I heard Nyra shout my name.
And then—
I heard her scream.
Not my name.
Just raw, ragged pain.
My head snapped toward her.
Two more guards had reached the doorway—new ones, drawn by the noise. One grabbed Nyra from behind, pinning her arms. The other drove a taser into her side and fired.
Her body jerked.
Her face contorted.
"No," I croaked.
The guard on top of me drove the stun rod down.
It cracked into my ribs.
My heart stuttered.
The pain was indescribable. Like someone had poured molten metal into my veins. My back arched, fingers clawing at nothing.
My vision blurred.
"You push too far," the voice in my head said, almost bored. "Your body is still small. Fragile. Human."
The world tilted.
Sound blurred.
But through all of it, Nyra's scream cut through like a knife.
She was supposed to be untouchable. Untouchable and unbreakable and always one step ahead. She wasn't allowed to sound like that.
They're hurting her because of you.
Because you weren't strong enough. Fast enough. Smart enough.
The stun rod pressed down harder, my muscles convulsing. It felt like my bones were humming, about to shatter.
You will die like this, the voice commented. Sloppy. Heavy. Pathetic.
The thought of dying here—on a cold floor, under a stranger's boot—while Nyra was dragged away to be carved open—something in me rejected it.
No.
Not like this.
Not again.
Not ever.
Something cracked.
It wasn't the guard's rod.
It wasn't my ribs.
It was something deeper.
Something that wasn't physical at all.
For a heartbeat, I was nowhere.
No room.
No floor.
No body.
Just a vast dark space, full of stars and long, twisting lines of light connecting them. Those lines pulsed with the same rhythm as my heart.
In the middle of that space stood… a figure.
Not human.
Not exactly.
Tall. Vague. Made of shifting starlight and shadow, its face smooth and unreadable. When it turned toward me, galaxies swirled in the place where its eyes should've been.
"Astra," I whispered, though my lips weren't there.
At last, it said.
Its voice wasn't really a voice. It was a feeling. It was drums and wind and old, tired hunger.
You call for me like a child, it said. You pull on pieces of me without knowing the shape of the whole. You are loud. You are clumsy. You are mine.
"I'm not yours," I snapped, even here, even broken.
It tilted its head.
You cling to such small words. Yours. Mine. As if ownership matters to a star. I chose you when your heart was still forming. I burned your name into my own skin.
The constellations around us flickered, briefly rearranging into lines that almost spelled something—and then dissolving again.
You are the vessel, it said. Through you, I wake. Through you, I burn. Through you, I will rewrite this world.
"I don't want to rewrite anything," I said, desperate. "I just want to save her."
That gave it pause.
Ah, it breathed. Her.
A ripple went through the star-lines.
Your guardian. The girl forged to stand between you and the knife. She is… inconvenient.
My hands clenched.
"She is the reason I'm still alive," I said. "So you don't get to call her inconvenient."
You would break reality for her, it observed.
"Yes," I said without thinking.
Something in the vast, dark space changed.
Like a smile.
Then let us break it properly, Astra said.
The star-lines surged toward me, wrapping around my invisible chest, my limbs, my throat. Not choking. Claiming.
Your body cannot hold my full light yet, it murmured. But you do not need full light.
You just need… more.
The universe contracted.
My lungs—my real lungs—dragged in air like I'd been drowning.
I slammed back into my body.
The stun rod was still pressed to my ribs.
The guard was still snarling curses, sweat dripping down his face with the effort of holding me down.
Nyra was still screaming.
But now…
Now the light under my skin wasn't blue.
It was white.
Blinding.
The stun rod melted in his hand.
He yelped, jerking back as molten metal dripped onto the floor.
I stood up.
I didn't remember making the choice.
One moment I was on the ground.
The next, I was on my feet, the world sharpened into terrifying clarity.
I could hear everything.
The guards' heartbeats, thudding too fast.
The tiny sizzle of exposed wires in the ceiling.
The drip drip drip of a leaking pipe somewhere in the wall.
Nyra's breath. Ragged. Sharp.
She sagged in the grip of the guard behind her, smoke curling from the spot where the taser had kissed her skin.
"Let her go," I said.
My voice sounded… wrong.
Too deep.
Too layered, like there was a second voice riding under mine.
The guard holding Nyra swallowed audibly.
"She's just leverage," he said, a little too fast. "Doctor said—"
"Let," I repeated, taking a step forward, "her. Go."
The floor cracked under my bare foot where it landed.
The light pouring off me painted the walls in stark outlines. Papers curled at the edges. The closest guard raised his gun, hands shaking.
"Back off!" he snapped, voice trembling. "I'll shoot—"
I looked at the gun.
It crumpled.
No gesture. No effort. Just a flicker of thought and a spike of protective rage—and the metal twisted in his hands like clay, the barrel bending in on itself with a shriek.
He dropped it with a choked curse, clutching his burned palms.
The other guard tried to drag Nyra backward, toward the hall.
Bad choice.
She dug her heels in, even half-conscious.
"Kian," she rasped. "Don't… lose yourself."
Too late, some quiet part of me thought.
Astra laughed.
Lose himself? it echoed inside me. No. He is finding what he was always meant to be.
I moved.
To me, it felt slow.
To everyone else, it must've been a blur.
One moment I was standing five meters away.
The next, I was in front of Nyra and the guard, my hand wrapped around the front of his vest.
I lifted him off his feet with one arm.
His legs kicked, boots scraping the floor.
His face went pale.
"Put him down," Nyra croaked. "Don't—"
I looked at the guard dangling in my grip.
Part of me—too big, too bright, too new—wanted to squeeze.
To snap.
To make sure no one ever touched her like that again.
My fingers tightened.
The guard wheezed, clawing at my wrist. "P-please—"
Nyra's hand, shaking, grabbed the edge of my shirt.
"Kian," she whispered. Not Prince. Not Vessel. Just my name. "Look at me."
I did.
In her eyes, I saw reflected—
Not a boy.
Not exactly.
Light.
Too much of it, shoved into a human frame.
I saw the fear there.
Not of the guards.
Of me.
"I'm scared," she said, because she was always more honest than I deserved. "But I trust you. Don't make me wrong."
Her words cut deeper than any rod or bullet.
The white blaze inside me faltered.
The guard in my grip gasped as my hold loosened slightly.
They are insects, Astra hissed in my head, suddenly sharp, angry. Do not throw away power for an insignificant—
"I'm not doing this for them," I whispered. "I'm doing it for her."
I opened my fingers.
The guard dropped to the floor in a heap, scrambling away on hands and knees.
"Run," I said coldly.
He didn't need to be told twice.
The other conscious guards backed toward the door, dragging their injured comrades with them.
"Fall back!" someone shouted. "Fall back, fall back—!"
In seconds, the room was just us.
Me.
Nyra.
The broken chair.
The ruined door.
The cracking floor.
The light dimmed a little around me, settling closer to my skin, less blinding. I sucked in a breath, suddenly aware of how badly my ribs hurt, how my muscles trembled, how my head pounded.
My body wasn't built for this.
Not yet.
I turned back to Nyra.
She sagged forward, catching herself on the edge of the metal chair. Sweat beaded her forehead. Her breaths came harsh, but she was upright.
"I told you to run if anything felt wrong," she muttered.
"You did," I said. "I ignored you."
"Idiot prince," she sighed, but there was a hint of relief in it.
I held out a hand.
"Come on," I said. "Can you walk?"
She looked at my hand for a moment like she was evaluating it as a weapon.
"You're going to burn yourself out," she warned. "You can't hold Astra like that. Not yet. Your body will break."
"I'll break later," I said. "We're getting out first."
Her fingers slid into mine.
The contact grounded me more than anything else had since this nightmare started.
The light inside me settled again, just enough.
Alarms still screamed. Somewhere in the building, heavy doors slammed. Backup would come, and soon.
But for the first time, I didn't feel like I was walking into this alone.
We stepped out into the hallway together.