Page 32 of She Who Devours the Stars

Dax pulled a rag from his back pocket and pressed it to my forehead. “You got a gash. Needs patching.”

“Go for it,” I said, and let him wipe away the blood.

He worked in silence for a minute, then asked, “You want to tell me what just happened?”

I opened my eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me if I did.”

He glanced up, eyebrow raised. “Try me.”

I stared at my hand, the light still glowing in my palm. I thought about the mythship, about the time-slips, about the moment I’d felt every version of myself running parallel in the same second.

“I think,” I said, slowly, “I might be a little more fucked up than I realized.”

Dax grinned. “Join the club.”

We sat there, side by side, letting the adrenaline drain out. Above us, the first rays of sunrise crept through the dust, turning the smoke gold. The city was waking up, but not the way it used to. Nothing would ever be the way it used to.

I flexed my hand again, watched the light flicker and flare.

“I’m sorry about the apartment,” I said, after a while.

Dax shook his head. “You did well, kid. Real good.”

He stood, offered me a hand, and together we climbed out of the crater that used to be our home.

For about three seconds, I thought we’d survived the worst of it. Then the world, not content with regular old disaster, decided to try something different.

It started as a hum, no, more like a pressure. An itch behind the eyes, the kind that lets you know you’re about to remembersomething you never wanted to forget. Dax and I had just cleared the edge of the crater when the air thickened, every molecule vibrating with a hunger that had nothing to do with biology.

I grabbed his arm, hard. “Get down,” I said, but the words were a formality. Gravity already decided for us.

The impact zone, still smoldering with the afterbirth of three kinetic lances, pulsed. Not out, but in, a contraction of space that dragged every photon, every wisp of dust, every memory of what just happened back into its source code. The shadows on the rubble didn’t just lengthen; they recoiled, burning in reverse, the darkness getting darker and the light turning into something no color chart could handle.

Then, as quickly as it started, the city exhaled.

The sound was back, but it was wrong. Not just echoing, but layered, every voice, every alarm, every shriek from the aftermath playing at once, then all sliced off mid-scream.

The first to go were the Accord drones. One moment, three were orbiting the crash, their blue eyes judging every survivor for emotional instability. The next, they were gone, not exploded, not even blinking out, but erased. Like if reality had done a quick file sweep and decided they’d never belonged here in the first place.

Next: the kill team. Five Accord troopers in full shock armor, staged on the perimeter, their guns aimed and ready for “containment” as soon as the target surfaced. I saw the one on point freeze, rifle up, visor glinting, and then blank. Like a bad edit. The air where they’d been filled in with dust and light and the suggestion of regret. The other four went the same way, one by one, some mid-step, one mid-laugh. None of them made it to the end of their last motion. None of them left a trace, except forthe lingering sense that something in the world was lighter, or maybe just sadder, now that they weren’t there.

Even the memory of them felt like it had been scrubbed. I had to focus, really focus, to remember the shape of the armor, the color of their eyes. The harder I tried, the faster the details bled away. This was the girl Vireleth said I’d consumed all over again. Only this time, no regrets.

A voice broke through the city’s wet static, everywhere at once: a whisper across comms, screens, even the fucking vending machines.

“Nullarch confirmed.”

The words vibrated in the bones. Not just mine, everyone’s, if the sudden hush across the street was any indication. Survivors in the wreckage, hunched under splintered awnings, looked up as one. A woman in a blood-streaked supervisor’s vest just started to cry. A kid, face smeared with dirt and awe, knelt in the rubble and prayed to whatever was loudest.

Another pulse. The air shimmered, and then, stitched into every shadow, a second announcement:

“Trivane awakens.”

Dax squeezed my shoulder, tight enough to bring me back to the body. “You hear that?” he whispered.

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

There was no time to process, because the world was already shattering again.