Kyldak.
He’s sprawled just a few feet away, half-buried in the twisted remains of the portal stabilizer harness. His armor is scorched, his skin smeared with soot, the gold of his scales dulled to bronze — but he’s breathing.
I can see the rise and fall of his chest. The faint red flicker of his cybernetic core under the ribs. His eye — that brilliant, feral red — flutters open.
My voice rips free before I can think.
“Kyldak!”
He groans. His hand twitches. Then that deep, rough voice — torn from a throat full of gravel and gods — manages, “Jaela?”
The sound of it nearly breaks me.
I crawl toward him, my knees scraping the metal deck, ignoring the medics shouting at me to stay still. “Don’t move,” I tell him, even as I’m shaking. “You’re… we made it, Kyldak. We made it through.”
He blinks up at me, the confusion in his eyes giving way to something softer — disbelief, then wonder, then a raw, unguarded relief. “This… this is Earth?” he rasps. His voice cracks halfway through the wordEarth, like it’s something sacred and unfamiliar on his tongue.
I nod. “Yeah,” I whisper. “Earth.”
He laughs once — a short, broken exhale that sounds almost like a sob. “Smells different.”
It does. The air is sharp, wet with storm ozone and the tang of metal. It’s colder here, thinner than Jurtik’s furnace winds. The rain stings like pins against my skin, but it’s beautiful.
Before I can say more, a new roar cuts through the noise — a dropship. I squint up through the floodlights just as the heavy transport descends, repulsors hissing and spraying mud in violent gusts. The medics scatter to clear the pad.
Through the swirl of rain and light, a figure steps down the ramp.
My heart stops.
“Vira…” I whisper.
She’s here.
My sister looks impossibly out of place — pristine gray uniform half undone, rain flattening her curls against her forehead, a sidearm at her hip and a med badge around her neck. She’s running. Toward me. Towardus.
When she sees me, her composure crumbles. “Jaela!” she screams, boots splashing through puddles, and then she’s kneeling in front of me, cupping my face in trembling hands. Her eyes dart across my features like she can’t believe they exist. “You’re alive. You’re—gods, you’re really here.”
I can’t breathe. The lump in my throat’s too big. “You came.”
Her laugh’s half a sob. “You think I wouldn’t? Your drone pings went dark over the Black Glass Desert three weeks ago. I tracked the residual codes myself. You were never good at covering your digital footprints.”
Despite everything, I laugh — weak, wet, shaky. “Never said I was perfect.”
Behind us, Kyldak groans again. The medics rush to him, but he waves them off, staggering to his knees. His voice cuts through the rain, hoarse: “Jaela.”
I spin toward him and catch his shoulders as he nearly falls. He’s heavier than I remember — the weight of armor, of blood, of history — but he’s alive.
His red eye flicks to Vira, narrow, assessing. She freezes, recognition flashing like lightning. “You’re him,” she whispers. “You’re Kel’s father.”
Kyldak’s brow furrows. “Where is he?”
The words punch air out of me. I swallow, clutching his hand. My voice comes out small, reverent.
“He’s waiting.”
Kyldak’s expression fractures. He searches my face, as if afraid to believe it. “Waiting?”
I nod, tears spilling over. “Yeah. He’s alive. We got the samples through. The treatment worked. Vira kept him safe.”
