When Nessen withdrew the needle and moved to carefully place the vial of her blood in the fridge, he turned to the monitor and enlarged the body scan, highlighting the empty spot where her Stella should be.
This, she was used to—the creak of the circular device as he swung it to her chest, and the faint thrum from the electrodes at her temples as they read her vitals.
Lucien’s hand left her.
Untethered, her fingers twisted against the leather of the chair, unable to let her eyes close, lest she fall back into those nightmarish memories with Kit—the humming of electricity, the seizing of her body.
Her half-lidded eyes met Cyrus’s, and she didn’t look away from him, and he didn’t look away from her. As if, even without tasting her emotions, he could just tell, she was one breath away from breaking.
Rin couldn’t help but find the deep shadows beneath Cyrus’s eyes a bit alarming. Everything about the incubus seemed muted. His complexion was ashen, his hair seemed a bit more flat, and the purple in his eyes was dull.
As the machine whirred, Rin wondered if Cyrus wasfeedingenough.
Lucien tensed,watching Nessen’s brows knit together as he leaned forward, staring at the monitor. He reached for a dial, adjusted it, and the machine’s whirr ticked up in pace.
Nessen hummed, mouth tugging down at the corners.
The monitor registered Vesperin’s sudden spike in heart rate.
"What?" Vesperin’s soft voice broke through, that single word sending tension straight through Lucien’s bones. "What is it?"
Nessen remained quiet for a moment, continuing to stare at the monitors. His hand waved, pulling up another screen—her vitals.
The numbers flickered imperceptibly. Any doctor would recognize the subtle, unnatural pattern.
The outline of her body flickered occasionally on the largest monitor. At its center pulsed the hollow mass that marked the absence of her Stella.
"Your heart rate," said Nessen. "It is still exceptionally resilient. Even after the—Pulse. I wonder if it would recover well under stress?" he mumbled as if to himself.
"Is that a problem?" Rhyden interjected.
Lucien’s hand shook, and he let it fall to the back of Vesperin’s chair to hide the faint tremors.
If anyone found out he had used harmony…
"It is a variable," Nessen replied. "There seems to be interference. Her vitals are unreadable. Unsteady. It is something I have seen referenced before."
The weight of a journal in his hands, the scratch of a pen’s tip against the thick paper. A room made of Daria rock to regulate temperature, leaving him always chilled. Slipperssliding across pristine floors as he paced. The swish of robes and tickle of his long, black hair against his elbow as he bent over the pages—writing his theories and ideas, until his hand grew numb. Staring out at the courtyard and the purple-tinged eve, colored by the two moons.
And the quiet feeling that he should never speak of it, even as he wrote?—
Standing before a council and proposing his research, expecting to be turned down, but instead met with wicked eyes, thinking only of what his research could do for them.
"I have found that Earth Stella can be a valuable asset in keeping organisms alive. I have used my Stella to continue the existence of smaller organisms when they are faced with extenuating circumstances from experimentation. An incredible phenomenon occurred: I could control them." Lucien’s voice echoed in the white stone room of the scientific and research council building. He stood at the base of the chamber, faces peering down at him from a sea of robes.
Echoes of invalid findings resounded, stopped only by a hand raised. A blur of a face.
"No, let him speak. Share your findings, Quenlan," a feminine voice rang out.
Lucien unveiled what was covered on the low observation table to his side. As the white sheet was pulled away, a glass box with a tiny creature was revealed. A nireloo, a small mammal with four legs and splotchy fur. It was barely the size of Lucien’s palm. A native of Tarz, known for its heat resilience. Severe cold was deadly to the creatures.
Lucien pressed a button on the side of the box, and frost began to fill the air within. The nireloo hopped and chittered. He turned the dial up, making the air colder, and just before the nireloo began to fall over, he let his Stella seep out, green glimmers filling the air as he touched the nireloo’s heart,steadying its beat and slowly acclimatizing it to the frigid temperatures.
Slowly, the nireloo stood and shook its tiny head, then twirled in fast circles. It stopped by the glass and rose on its hind legs, its slitted orange eyes blinking up at him as if it adored him.
Lucien turned back to the council and waited for them to speak.
Slow claps filled the air.
