Page 74 of Enslak

And I did. I needed her to know. Needed someone to witness what had been done to me. To acknowledge it. To help me carry the weight of it.

I took a breath and let the memories surface.

"I was fighting during the Romvesian-Vaktaire skirmish. It was... chaos." The words came faster now, like a dam breaking. "Warriors everywhere. Weapons fire. Screaming. I was with my friend Daicon and my brother Charick, trying to hold position on one of the Gilese mining moons—trying to keep the Romvesian forces from breaking through our line."

The memory was fragmented, like watching a vid with pieces missing. But the emotions were intact—the fear, the adrenaline, the desperate need to protect my brothers, my people.

"I got hit. A blaster shot caught me in the side." I touched my ribs, remembering. "It hurt, but it wasn't fatal—I'd had worse. The impact threw me back, and I cracked my head on a stone. Everything went dark."

I could still feel it—that moment of consciousness slipping away, the world fading to black.

"When I woke up, I wasn't with my unit anymore. I was in a cell." My voice went flat. "Standing over me was General Riunodo Barkaze."

Niki's hand tightened on mine. "Who?"

"A Romvesian. He'd competed with my mother for the seat of Alliance Prime. Lost. He hated her for it. Hated our entire family."

The memories pushed through the walls I'd built. Clearer now. The pain came with them.

"He kept me prisoner. For years. I don't know how many." My voice sounded flat, emotionless, like I was talking about someone else. "He tortured me. Beat me. Tried to break me. He wanted information about Alliance defenses, about my mother's strategies, about everything."

I could see Riunodo's face in my mind. Cold. Calculating. Taking pleasure in every moment of my suffering.

"I didn't tell him anything. Couldn't. Even if I'd wanted to, I didn't know most of what he was asking. I was a soldier, not a strategist. But he didn't believe me." I swallowed hard. "Or didn't care. He just kept hurting me."

My voice cracked on the last word. I had to stop. Had to breathe. Had to remind myself that I was here. On Avalon. With Niki. Not there. Not in that cell.

"Enslak." Niki's voice was thick with tears.

"Eventually, he got tired of me. Or maybe he realized I truly didn't have the information he wanted. Either way, he sold me." The words tasted like poison. "To the Ulkommenian."

Niki made a sound. Small. Wounded.

"They were different from Riunodo. They didn't want information. They wanted a test subject, and what they did to me was worse than anything that came before. They were experimenting with augmentation, trying to create the perfect soldier, the perfect weapon. They took me apart and put me back together over and over again. They spliced me with other species, grafted scales onto my skin, changed my bone structure, enhanced my claws and teeth. They made me into something that didn't look Vaktaire anymore."

I glanced down at my body as I spoke. The grafted scales were gone. The foreign tissue they'd spliced into me had been removed. The hybrid modifications that had made me look like something stitched together from nightmares were gone. My body was mine again, mostly.

But not entirely. Some things couldn't be undone. I was considerably larger than most Vaktaire, my frame built bigger and stronger than it should have been. My claws were longer than they should have been, curved and sharp in a way that standard Vaktaire claws weren't. My fangs were longer too, visible through slightly parted lips. These things were part of me now, woven into my actual body at a cellular level. Not grafted on. Not foreign. Just mine.

I looked down at my hands, turning them over to study the claws. They'd been forced on me, yes. But they were mine now. Part of who I was. Part of what I'd survived.

"Then they threw me in the pits." The words came out tight. "To test their work. To see if their augmentations made me a better fighter. They wanted me to kill. To rage. To become nothing but violence and instinct. And I did. I killed so many times. So many creatures. Because if I didn't, they'd kill me or drag me back to the lab for more experiments."

The memories crashed over me. The blood. The screaming. The endless cycle of fight, survive, recover, fight again.

"They gave me suppressants to control my hormones. To make sure all my aggression went into fighting. They wanted a mindless weapon."

I looked at Niki. Tears streamed down her face.

"I'm sorry," I said automatically. "I shouldn't have—"

"Don't." Her voice was fierce despite the tears. "Don't apologize. Don't you dare apologize for what they did to you."

She moved closer, her hands coming up to frame my face. "You survived, Enslak. Do you understand that? You survived a century of torture and experimentation and horror, and you're still here. That's not weakness. That's strength."

"I don't feel strong." The admission came out raw. "I still feel... broken. Like there are pieces of me missing that I'll never get back."

"Then we'll find new pieces." Her voice was steady. Sure. "We'll build something new. You don't have to be who you were before. You just have to be who you are now. And who you are now is enough. More than enough."