Kyrax stood at the center of the circular hololith dais, his black and golden armor absorbing the ambient light, mask expressionless, but eyes burning with the aftermath of battle. Behind the sealed doors, beyond the threshold, he could feel Morgan’s presence—steady, anchored, a quiet pulse at the back of his consciousness.
She wasn’t in the chamber. She didn’t need to be.
Her support was there, solid and unwavering.
The Five materialized one by one in their holographic forms, masks gleaming, armor shifting with each slow breath. Only their eyes revealed emotion, and today those eyes were unsettled.
Kyrax did not wait for ceremony.
“I have invoked emergency powers,” he said, voice carrying through the cavernous space. “Isshyr of Drath Var is dead.”
The chamber went still.
For a heartbeat—two—there was nothing but the thin hum of the projection crystals.
Then a ripple: shock, genuine and unfiltered, passing across all six masked faces.
He could taste their disbelief through the subtle venom signatures that leaked whenever they reacted strongly. Surprise. Unease. A sharp twist of something close to…relief.
Good.
They had not expected him to return victorious. They had not expected him to survive what they believed would become a fatal spiral.
“Explain,” Vhalcor demanded, voice low, mask carved in the style of a snapping beast.
Kyrax didn’t flinch. “Isshyr attacked my Bastion with a full fleet. He trespassed on sovereign territory, endangered the Saelori under my protection, and sought to abduct what is mine.”
The word reverberated. They all heard the truth beneath it.
“He was warned,” Kyrax continued. “Again and again. He refused to stand down. He chose battle. The consequence followed.”
Silence.
Then Elder Saerith inclined her masked head, slow and heavy. “We suspected his mind had begun to fracture.”
The admission struck Kyrax like a quiet blade—sharp, unsurprising, infuriating.
“Yoususpected, and yet said nothing.”
Elder Saerith lifted her chin, silver-blue venom shimmering faintly through the vents of her mask. “We feared what you would do with that information.”
“And you feared killing him yourselves,” Kyrax said, voice flattening. “Because no new Vykan has been born since my emergence. Because you cling to your traditions as if they are shields.”
The oldest among them, the masked form of Voryn, shifted with something almost like shame.
“We also feared losing another of the Seven,” Voryn said. “And we feared what your instability might become if confronted with his.”
Kyrax’s jaw tightened beneath his helm. “My mind is no longer at risk.”
Their silence answered for them:We know.
They could feel it. Even through projection, they sensed it. The bond in him. The stability threading through his venom and into every fiber of his being. Stronger than before. Grounded.
Saerith spoke again, softer this time. “The attunement is real, then. The balance restored.”
“Not merely restored,” Kyrax said. “Remade. And with transformation comes strength.”
They understood.
