Page 121 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

I give it the City. Not its source. Not its hidden throats and ration stores and children and trembling halls.

The City as I have learned it.

A woman counting ration tokens while afraid.

A healer insulting pain until it obeys.

A warrior bleeding in a tunnel and still watching where the civilians run.

A queen who knows Krix and does not let Krix make her cruel.

A cautious male whose fear could become a cage, but might yet become a wall.

A people who argue, doubt, bleed, and keep opening doors for each other anyway.

Home.

The machine seizes on the word.

Good.

I wrap my will around it like wire around a blade.

Not cage. Not source. Not prize.

Home.

Mine to defend.

Not by command.

By choice.

The anchor bucks. The pain is absolute, a white-hot universe under my skin. I drop to one knee, but I do not fall. The cage bars flare, and the green light turns toxic-bright around me.

“Rhazek!” Kessa shouts.

Her ring snaps tighter. She bites off a cry and does not move. Good. Fierce, impossible female. She trusts the route even when the route is me burning.

I shove both hands against the cage floor and drive the command downward.

I give it a bridge to the one place every Krixian machine fears.

The arena inside the weapon.

I open the leash into itself.

The result is not sound. It is rupture.

The cage light slams backward through the bars, down the floor track, and into the receiver. The handler jerks the wand up too late. His eyes widen. The damaged receiver shrieks, and every active green line across the chamber floor snaps toward my cage at once.

Kessa yells something, but the command drowns her out.

I bite down on the hook in my mind.

The command says Kessa.

I answer no.