Chunks of ice broke away from Rubens's fist and shattered against the steel floor near his feet with sharp, dry cracks.
Some of the fragments were still stained with Yashin's dark blood.
He slowly lowered his arm, trying to steady the leg that had trembled when he landed.
Blood ran from his injured wrists to his fingertips.
Candice approached, concern on her face, but he raised an open hand before his sister could speak.
"I'm fine."
Candice looked down at his feet, which had sunk slightly into the steel platform.
"Of course you are," she said sarcastically, her voice thick with emotion.
I tried to take a deep breath, but the sharp pain in my chest kept me from filling my lungs.
Beside me, Tsukumo was still leaning against the support column.
Blood from the cut above his eye had dried over his eyelid, leaving it half shut, and his broken hands hung limp.
Candice reached for the device attached to her ear.
"Gordon? Are you there?"
"Yes, ma'am," the dwarf answered through a crackle of static.
"You saw that, didn't you?"
"Affirmative."
"Gron-Tarh is ours," Candice said, relief in her voice.
"I need transport and a medical team on the crane platform right away."
"And the two boys?"
Candice looked at us.
"Alive. Hurry, Gordon."
As the adrenaline began to fade, I finally realized how much effort it was taking just to stay on my feet.
Havelyn approached us, keeping her right wing folded against her body.
She spread her left wing slightly to balance on the tilted steel floor.
"Let's get out of here," the harpy said.
I tried to step away from the column, but my injured leg immediately gave out.
Candice caught my coat before I hit the floor face-first.
"Easy, for fuck's sake," she swore.
"I'm…"
"I can see that."
She draped my left arm over her strong shoulder and held me firmly around the waist.
Tsukumo also tried to leave the column, but his first movement forced him to stop.
Havelyn quickly moved to his side.
That was when I heard the harsh scrape of metal against the access walkway.
Sahger was coming down the side passage, dragging one leg with tremendous difficulty.
His hunter's helmet and chest plates were gone.
Blood covered his abdomen and ran down into the torn clothing at his waist.
His wounded hands hung loosely at his sides.
Even so, he kept coming toward us.
"Sahger…" I called, but my voice barely made it out of my throat.
He stopped and turned toward the sound.
"Suki?"
I took my arm off Candice's shoulder.
She tried to hold me back, but I kept going, dragging my boots across the walkway for the few steps between us.
When my knee buckled, Sahger extended his forearm and caught me before I fell.
"You made it," I said, searching for his eyes.
He was breathing through his mouth in short gasps.
The deep, hollow wheeze of his exhale made me look again at the blood covering his chest.
"You need a doctor, man."
One corner of his mouth lifted in a faint smile.
"Remember? I'm a great healer."
I tried to laugh at the joke, but pain tore through my chest halfway through.
My chest seized, my leg lost what little strength it had left, and my forehead fell against Sahger's shoulder.
He slipped an arm behind my back to keep me from collapsing.
I felt him tremble and sway under my weight, but his boot scraped across the ice until it found firm footing on the walkway.
Sahger was alive.
I no longer had to carry the fear that he had died down in those galleries.
My vision began to fail, darkness creeping in around the edges.
My body was shutting down, but I still saw Tsukumo take a few more steps and tilt to one side.
Havelyn reached him in time to catch his forearm across her shoulders.
"I'm not… going to fall here…" Tsukumo murmured, lowering his head.
His eyes closed before he could even plant his boot.
Havelyn grabbed his waist and dug her talons into the floor.
Tsukumo's weight pulled her forward, but she bent her knees and shifted her arm behind his back, keeping them both from crashing onto the platform.
I heard Candice calling our names in the distance.
Rubens reached the walkway and placed his enormous hand against Sahger's back, supporting both of us at once.
The hunter was still on his feet when everything went completely black.
I woke with my mouth as dry as sandpaper and an uncomfortable pressure squeezing my chest.
I tried to push it away, but the doctor caught my wrist before I could reach the bandage.
"Leave that alone."
I blinked several times before I could make out the ship's low metal ceiling, the infirmary's white lights, and the electrical cables secured to the walls.
An IV bag hung from a stand beside my bed.
Once I stopped tugging at the bandages, the doctor released my wrist.
"Breathe slowly."
I obeyed, but a sharp pain spread across my ribs anyway.
I turned my head.
Tsukumo lay in the next bed, his hands immobilized in splints and his injured arm wrapped in clean bandages.
Havelyn sat in a metal chair between us.
She lifted her head as soon as she noticed me move.
"Suki?"
"Sahger…" I murmured, my voice hoarse.
"He's being treated. He's alive," she answered before I could ask.
I closed my eyes for a second in relief. When I opened them again, she was still watching me in silence.
"How long was I out?"
"More than a whole day."
I tried to sit up inside the ship.
Since the craft had landed directly on Gron-Tarh's surface, the ramp and main hatch were open just ahead, revealing the courtyard and the fortress exterior.
The movement tugged at the wound in my chest, and my breath caught in my throat.
The doctor carefully supported my back while Havelyn adjusted the pillow behind me.
"You're not getting up yet," the doctor said in a tone that left no room for argument.
I stayed propped up, my legs stretched out on the mattress.
Firm bandages covered my thigh, and another protective wrap surrounded my injured knee.
"Laura…" I murmured, anxiety tightening my chest. "Did you find anything about her?"
Havelyn pulled her chair closer to my bed.
"I searched the isolation rooms and the records on the terminal I managed to access. I didn't find anything about her."
The noise of the medical equipment seemed to recede from my mind.
I looked through the ship's open entrance.
The vessel was parked on Gron-Tarh's surface, giving me a clear view outside through the lowered ramp.
In the courtyard of packed earth and metal, dozens of people carried supply crates, blankets, and stretchers.
Near the entrance, a woman held a thin, pale young man, burying her face against his neck.
Neither seemed willing to let go.
I kept looking toward that scene outside even after they had moved out of my direct line of sight.
"We can still look," I insisted, my voice faltering.
"Yashin's room…"
"Rubens knew her," Havelyn said, cutting through my thoughts.
I turned toward her so quickly that the muscles in my neck twinged.
Havelyn gripped the metal edge of my bed.
"He was waiting for you to wake up so he could talk to you."
Before I could ask anything, a deep, powerful voice rang out from the courtyard outside the ship.
"Anyone who wants to leave will get help finding transport! No one will be forced to stay!"
It was Rubens.
He stood on a block of metal near the ramp, addressing the groups of freed prisoners gathering on the fortress grounds.
"The wounded board the ships first! If you're looking for family or friends, speak to the teams bringing people up from the lower sectors! Don't go down there alone!"
A child ran past the ramp, accompanied by two adults.
Farther away, an old man tried to rise from a wooden crate to see over the crowd.
Rubens waited for the movement to settle before continuing.
"I spent years chained up in here too. I know exactly what they did to you."
Candice stood beside him in the courtyard, her robotic hand resting on her hip and her scythe secured to her back.
"Anyone who wants to stay will have a place here," Rubens continued, projecting his voice.
"We're taking this fortress's cells apart. We need large infirmaries, food, and room to house families. This prison is going to become a shelter."
Several people began talking and asking questions at once.
Rubens stepped down from the block and moved closer to the crowd.
Beside him, Candice pointed at a group carrying a heavy steel beam.
"Not that way! There are people walking underneath! Pay attention!"
Gordon shouted something from a distance that I couldn't make out.
She turned toward the dwarf, raised her mechanical arm, and pointed to the other side of the ramp.
The voices in Gron-Tarh's courtyard blended with the heavy hum of machinery in the background. I searched for Rubens among the people, and Havelyn followed my gaze.
"I'll get him," she said.
The harpy rose from her chair but stopped when she saw Candice coming up the ramp.
Rubens followed his sister, ducking his head to avoid hitting the top of the entrance.
When the giant stepped into the infirmary, the room seemed too small to contain him.
The doctor finished checking the bandages on my chest and moved away to attend another bed.
Candice stayed near the door.
Rubens watched me in silence for a long moment.
"Suki Nakamura."
I nodded.
"She talked about you."
My hand clenched around the blanket.
"Laura?"
He pulled up a reinforced metal chair and sat beside the bed.
Even seated, his head remained above mine.
Havelyn returned to the chair between our beds.
"When they brought her to Gron-Tarh, they put her in the cell right next to mine."
I looked at Havelyn, who remained silent with her head lowered.
"So she really was here," I said, my chest tightening.
"She was."
The words echoed flatly in my head.
I had been so close.
We had fought our way through the armored sectors, torn craters into the ground, and faced Yashin until we could no longer stand.
Havelyn had searched cell after cell while Candice freed her brother.
And Laura had passed through that very same place.
"Where is she now?" I demanded.
Rubens rested his heavy forearms on his legs.
"They took her away."
My fingers loosened on the blanket, and my body sagged.
"Before our attack?"
"Yes."
I ran my tongue over my cracked lip, tasting the metallic tang of dried blood.
"How long before?"
"I can't give you an exact date, kid. It was impossible to keep track of the days down there."
I lowered my eyes to the white bandage covering my chest.
I had pictured finding her behind one of those heavy steel doors.
Hurt, angry, perhaps ready to curse me out and call me an idiot for taking so long.
I had kept fighting Yashin with that image fixed in my mind, even when I could no longer feel parts of my own body.
Now every door stood wide open.
Prisoners were pouring out, and the ship was filled with people receiving treatment.
And I had made it all the way here without finding Laura.
"Did you see her leave?" I asked, my voice breaking.
"I did."
"Was she okay? How did she look? Was she hurt? Please, tell me."
"Laura is alive, Suki."
My eyes snapped up.
Rubens held my gaze.
"She made me promise that if I found you, I would give you a message."
My breath came out short and uneven.
"What message?"
The giant's stern face softened slightly.
"That she was still waiting for that idiot to find her."
I pressed my lips together.
I tried to laugh, but the sound caught in my throat.
I raised a hand to my face and covered my eyes for a few seconds, my chest aching with every strained attempt to breathe.
She was still waiting for me.
When I lowered my hand, Rubens was still there, watching me calmly.
"At first, she barely spoke," he said.
"She spent a lot of time sitting quietly in her cell. I could hear her breathing through the stone wall."
I couldn't interrupt him.
"Then she started talking to me, little by little. Before I knew it, I knew exactly what your home in Lavinsk looked like."
He smiled briefly at the memory.
"A large veranda, the smell of fresh bread and tea. A master who trained his students until they thought they were going to die."
"Silver," I murmured.
"The Silver One," Rubens confirmed.
He ran his thumb over the bandage on his other wrist.
"I always admired his reputation. Never thought I'd meet one of his students that way."
"And she talked about you two all the time."
I looked down at the blanket again.
Havelyn brushed my arm with the feathers of her wing. I didn't pull away, but it took a few seconds before I could find the words again.
"Who took her away?"
Rubens's faint smile vanished.
"A short man in a mask. He came with guards."
I raised my head at once.
"He works for Veronica," Rubens finally said.
I stared at him, waiting for him to tell me I had misunderstood.
"Veronica?" I almost shouted.
"She's alive, Suki."
I shifted my legs, making the blanket slip.
"No," I murmured.
The sudden movement sent more pain through my chest, but I barely noticed.
"Silver killed her. He said so himself."
Rubens remained seated, calm.
"We all believed that too."
My voice rose.
I had to stop to draw breath, but every attempt at a deep inhale sent pain stabbing beneath the bandage.
Tsukumo stirred in the next bed with a low groan.
"Suki…" he called, his voice weak.
I couldn't look at him.
"How can she be alive?" I asked Rubens.
"I don't know," he answered plainly.
Candice took a step toward us, but Rubens raised his enormous hand, asking his sister to wait.
"I can't explain the details," he continued.
"But I know that masked bastard was an arrogant piece of shit."
I immediately remembered Kânia's voice echoing in my mind.
Soul Fusion.
A young body from a pure bloodline.
And I had naively believed Silver had put an end to that entire nightmare.
"She specifically sent for the girl," Rubens said.
"Laura was the one she wanted from the beginning."
"Laura is Veronica's daughter," I said heavily.
Rubens went still.
Candice stared at me, her eyes wide.
"Her daughter?"
I nodded without taking my eyes off the giant.
"She wanted to take her own daughter's body."
Havelyn slowly withdrew her wing from my arm. Rubens tightened his thick fingers against his knee.
"That short man in the mask had been coming to Gron-Tarh before that," Rubens revealed. "He bought prisoners of different races and took them to her. When he came for Laura, he knew exactly who he was looking for."
I remembered everything Kânia had told us about Laura's childhood. The blood mixed in from other races, the experiments, the violence… everything her mother had done to prepare that body as the perfect vessel.
I rubbed my face, feeling my skin sting.
"Stop."
Rubens fell silent immediately.
I stared at the ship's metal floor until I could gather the strength to raise my head again.
"Where is her planet?"
"I don't know," Rubens admitted.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Silence settled over the infirmary for a few seconds, long enough for me to feel the crushing weight of my ruined body against the bed again.
"But I know where that masked worm stays," Rubens continued.
My eyes flew open.
"He works directly for her," Rubens said.
"But before he came for Laura, he would collect shipments of prisoners on Veronica's behalf. He knows the route, and he knows exactly where he delivered them."
Rubens leaned his enormous body forward.
"You need to find that short bastard."
"Where is he?"
"Elvernas."
I repeated the planet's name silently in my mind.
Rubens waited until he was certain he had my attention.
"That man was in Elvernas before he came to collect Laura from Gron-Tarh," he explained.
"I heard him talking to the mercenaries who came with him. They used a bar there as a meeting point to pick up supplies and information."
"Elvernas is the only lead that can take you to the man who knows where she is."
I looked at the next bed.
Tsukumo was awake, lying still on his pillow and listening to everything.
He tried to reposition his injured arm but stopped when pain shot through his immobilized hands.
"Do you remember his mask?" Tsukumo asked, his voice hoarse.
Rubens turned toward him.
"I remember it well."
"He wore a smooth white mask that covered his entire face, with two narrow slits for the eyes and a crooked smile carved where the mouth should be."
"The man was short, cocky, arrogant."
"He treated the prison guards like insignificant servants."
"And he knew exactly where to find Veronica," I said.
"He did."
My hand began to tremble involuntarily. I pressed it against the blanket until I could keep it still.
"She was so close…" I murmured.
No one in the infirmary answered.
"I thought that when we opened those prison doors…" I couldn't finish.
Havelyn lowered her eyes to the floor.
Rubens waited patiently for me to catch my breath.
"I thought I was going to die in that dark cell too," the giant said.
"But Laura talked about you all the time."
I looked at his face.
"She didn't know you would get here today. She didn't know if we would ever get out of there alive."
"But she made me promise to give you that message."
I swallowed, my throat burning.
"We took too long."
Rubens didn't try to lie or convince me otherwise.
Outside, in the fortress courtyard, someone called a name loudly, over and over.
Another voice answered from a distance, and the calls gave way to the loud sobs of a reunion.
I turned toward the infirmary's open ramp.
I wanted it to be her so badly.
I wanted to hear Laura yell at me, complain about my ugly face, punch me, and ask why I had taken so long to find her.
Anything, as long as it was her voice.
Gron-Tarh's cold wind came through the ramp and stirred the edge of my blanket.
"I'm going to Elvernas," I declared.
Candice immediately uncrossed her arms.
"You just woke up from a coma, kid."
"I know."
"And you can barely sit up in that bed."
"I noticed."
I tried opening and closing the fingers of my left hand. They obeyed slowly, but they obeyed.
"But I'm going to that planet."
Tsukumo turned his head on the pillow to look at me.
"We are," he corrected.
I looked at his immobilized hands, his bandaged arm, and the dried blood still clinging to his dreadlocks.
He held my gaze without hesitation.
Havelyn let out a breath through her nose and leaned back in her chair.
"Next time, do me a favor and warn me before you pass out on top of me."
Tsukumo looked at the harpy.
"Thank you for not letting me fall on the platform."
Havelyn stared at him for a moment.
"You could have helped a little, you know."
"I tried."
A faint smile appeared on Havelyn's face, but it quickly faded when her eyes returned to the bandages covering our bodies.
Rubens rose from the reinforced chair, making the metal creak.
"I'll talk to Gordon about the navigation routes. You'll need a ship that can reach Elvernas."
"Are you staying here in Gron-Tarh?" I asked.
Rubens looked toward the ramp, where Candice was already moving back into position to coordinate the rescued prisoners outside.
"There are hundreds of people coming up from the lower sectors with nowhere to go," he explained.
"Some were locked up for so long that they don't have family or a home anywhere anymore."
He rested his enormous hand on the back of the chair.
"I'm going to help my sister give them a home."
I nodded in respect.
The ship's doctor returned to my bed and checked the fluid flowing through the tube attached to my arm.
This time, I let her adjust the bandages on my chest without trying to move.
I called to Rubens before he went through the door.
He turned on the ramp.
"Thank you for talking to her in that cell."
For a moment, the giant stood silently, looking into the darkness of the courtyard.
"She kept me company too, Suki."
I lowered my head.
Rubens left the infirmary with Candice.
Havelyn remained seated between our beds, and Tsukumo closed his eyes, exhausted, though he was still awake.
I listened to the rescue efforts in the courtyard outside while trying to breathe without sending pain through the wound.
Laura wasn't behind any of those doors.
I had to accept that bitter truth if I was going to follow the trail she had left behind.
I ran a hand over the blanket and repeated the planet's name under my breath.
"Elvernas."
A short man in a mask knew exactly where to find Veronica.
And I was going to find that son of a bitch, even if I had to turn the entire planet inside out.