Allium was already on the floor when the voices rose.
Not sitting.
Not resting.
Already slipping.
Curled inward, one arm wrapped over his head, fingers digging into his scalp as if he could physically hold his thoughts in place. His other hand clawed at the floor, nails scraping as the pressure inside him grew heavier—denser, intentional.
The apple lay a short distance away, bruised where it had struck the ground. Its scent—sweet, Solara-fed—felt distant, like something remembered through glass.
The sound in his mind wasn't loud—it was precise.
A tightening.
White pressed against orange beneath his skin, not burning, not overwhelming—correcting.
Like a hand turning a dial—one increment at a time.
The first word landed like a blow to the sternum.
Puppet.
Allium's breath locked in his chest. His ribs seized as if braced by invisible clamps. His glow flickered—orange dimming as a thin, sterile white crept upward, threading through his veins like frost through cracks.
"No," he said, hoarse—more instinct than defiance.
The second word struck before the air fully returned to his lungs.
Used machine.
His arms twitched.
Not violently—deliberately.
Muscle memory awakened where no memory should exist—
commands without language,
responses without consent. His fingers curled as if waiting for instruction.
White flared brighter.
His vision narrowed.
Allium slammed his palm into the floor, grounding himself in pain instead of power. He pressed his forehead down, breathing hard—forcing sensation to outrun thought.
"I choose," he said, dragging each word free like something caught under rubble. "I choose."
The third word slid in quieter.
Closer.
Almost tender.
Servant.
His arms lifted— just a fraction.
His legs tensed—ready to stand, ready to move, ready to comply.
Allium snarled and folded tighter, forearms crossing over his head as if to shield his mind itself. His glow wavered violently—orange fighting to hold shape as white pushed back, patient and relentless.
The voices did not shout—they waited.
Far away, on the shattered glass plain where the Temple of Stillness had once stood whole, Weaver's breath came thin and uneven.
The tracker in his hands pulsed.
Once.
A soft beep—too quiet, for what it meant.
Weaver froze.
The wind whispered across broken glass, carrying faint chimes as shards shifted against one another. The sound reminded him of thread vibrating under tension.
He moved the tracker back over the sand.
Another beep.
Closer.
Weaver swallowed and forced himself to slow, Nina's warning echoing sharply in his mind. Don't thread. Don't reach. Let it reveal itself.
The tracker chirped again.
Weaver's eyes followed the signal down.
The air itself bent there.
Not invisibility—refusal. A distortion like heat shimmer without heat, like reality misremembering its own shape. Footprints marred the glass around it, overlapping, circling, stopping, starting again.
Many passes.
Many pauses.
Evidence of patience.
Weaver stepped closer despite himself.
His boot slid.
Something wet.
He staggered, catching himself, heart hammering as color rippled beneath his sole—liquid, unseen until disturbed, refracting Solara's light into sickly hues.
"Oh no," he whispered. "He's learned…"
Behind a fractured boulder, half-buried in the glass, stood a shape.
Khelos.
Or what had been Khelos.
A perfect copy—upright and empty.
A shell.
Its surface dull, lifeless, like a skin shed rather than destroyed.
No presence.
No pressure.
A decoy.
A sound clicked behind him.
Once—sharp, dry, final.
Weaver spun.
His threads exploded outward on instinct, snapping into place—
—and then froze.
Khelos let himself be seen.
No concealment. No distortion.
His body had broadened, reshaped. Antennae rose from his head like living instruments, vibrating faintly, humming just below hearing. His eyes sat on thin stalks now, each moving independently, all of them fixing on Weaver at once.
Parts of him phased in and out of solidity, edges stuttering between frames.
Grasshopper-like wings unfolded from his back with a wet, tearing sound.
The air clicked as they locked into place.
His mouth opened.
The voice that emerged began as a child's—soft, curious, almost sweet—
Then warped.
Layered. Scraped. Distorted.
A chorus wearing a single throat.
Weaver didn't think—he ran.
Not to win—to leave.
Glass screamed under his boots as he sprinted, shards cracking and snapping with every step. His breath tore at his lungs, each inhale burning sharper than the last. Behind him, the clicking followed—not frantic, not fast.
Measured.
Observing.
A wingbeat thundered overhead.
The air displaced violently as something jumped, not chased. Glass exploded somewhere behind him, the sound like a thousand bells breaking at once.
Weaver risked a glance back—Khelos was airborne.
Not flying—leaping.
His wings beat once, then folded as his body arced impossibly through the air, landing with a concussive crack that sent fractures racing across the glass floor.
Weaver didn't slow.
Didn't look again.
The HQ gates loomed ahead, merciful and terrible.
A final click sounded behind him.
Then—
"…good…"
The word echoed faintly, pleased.
Weaver crossed the threshold and collapsed inside, palms scraping against the floor as he fought for breath. His heart pounded so hard it blurred his vision.
He had made it back—he did not feel safe inside it.
And inside HQ—the fracture had already begun.
Back inside Jax's office, tension snapped.
"I'm the commander, not you!" Jax roared, his fist slamming into the console. "I don't want you in charge! You take orders from me!"
Cassidy rolled her eyes hard. "Jax! Dude? Did you even hear what I said and what Weaver is doing?"
Jax hit the console again. "I don't care about some thread-man with a god complex! Central left this to me! Get out of my office—now!"
Thane blinked, unfocused. "Wait… that's where we are?"
Cassidy smacked her palm into her face.
Rose stepped in.
She shoved Jax back into his chair and, against his struggling, froze his boots lightly to the floor.
"Cass is trying to help us," Rose said, voice steady. "Please shut up—or I'm going to freeze your mouth next."
Jax went still. Steam practically rose off him.
Cassidy exhaled sharply. "Thank you, Rose. Just—sit. I'll fix this."
Rose nodded and sat. Thane glanced at her.
"Are you cold?"
She ignored him.
Nina approached Cassidy, suddenly small.
"I am a good doctor," she said quietly. "Right?"
Cassidy nearly tore her hair out. "YES. Yes you are!"
Nina flinched and started to cry.
"Oh—no—no—" Cassidy softened instantly. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Nina cried harder.
Cassidy groaned. "Ugh! This is the last time I'm left alone with crazy people!" She glanced at Rose. "Except you. You're just… chill—sorry—relaxed."
Rose stared at her.
The doors slid open.
Weaver staggered in, pale, shaking, eyes too wide.
Cassidy rushed to him, steadying his back. "Gods, you look like you saw a ghost. What's wrong?"
Weaver crouched, breathing hard. "It's him. He… he molted or something. He was there. Showing himself. Like he wanted me to see him."
Cassidy went pale. "Wait—he showed himself? Why didn't he attack?"
Weaver swallowed. "Maybe… maybe I could convince him—"
"No." Cassidy cut him off sharply. "No. He could've killed you and didn't. He wanted you back here. And—shit—I get it."
She straightened. "He's trying to push Allium into Overload through HQ. Where is he?"
Weaver shook his head. "He's in his dorm. Hearing voices. I don't know what to do."
Cassidy looked at her Mark, flaring.
"I'm going to talk to him."
Weaver grabbed her arm. "Attachment caused the last reaction—"
"I know," she said firmly. "But I'm not totally affected. My mark will warn me. No one else here is in the right state of mind. If this fails, follow your own advice."
"What advice?" Weaver asked.
She helped him up. "Evacuate. Now. If this goes bad, you'll all die."
Rose spoke quietly. "We can't leave. If Khelos is keeping Weaver here, it's all of us. But… you're the only one who can do this."
Cassidy nodded once.
Weaver removed his robe and draped it around Rose's shoulders.
Cassidy turned and left.
Toward the Balance.
Toward the trap.
And the deeper she went—
the less HQ felt like a place that could protect everything.
And unseen, satisfied, Khelos listened—
learning exactly how close he could stand before Allium broke.
Solara HQ did not feel like a fortress anymore—it felt like a building full of people pretending their minds belonged to them.
Cassidy moved through the corridors with her jaw locked and her hands clenched inside her sleeves, stepping around the evidence of fracture like it was debris after a storm—only this storm had no sky, no lightning, no warning. Just thoughts.
A door had been barricaded from the inside with a cot frame and a shelving unit. Someone had painted a symbol on it in hurried, uneven strokes—something meant to mean safe but shaped like panic instead. In the next hall, a man sat on the floor with his back against the wall, staring forward without blinking while tears slid down his face like he didn't know they were his.
Further in, voices spiked.
Two technicians argued in a corner with the kind of anger that didn't belong to the words they were using. One shoved the other hard enough to make their shoulder hit the bulkhead. No one stepped in. No one trusted their own intentions enough to play hero.
Cassidy passed them anyway.
Not because she didn't care—because there was only one unfair battle she could afford to fight.
She kept moving.
The deeper she went, the stranger the air felt—too still in places, too heavy in others. Lights held their brightness for a second longer than they should have before dimming back down. It wasn't malfunction.
It was restraint.
Like the building itself was trying not to make noise.
Cassidy's Mark pulsed once against her wrist. Sky-blue. Soft. Alert.
Her pace didn't change.
She reached the dorm.
Allium's door.
The hallway outside it was quiet in a way that didn't match the rest of HQ. No crying. No shouting. No hurried footsteps. Just silence stretched tight, like thread pulled to the edge of snapping.
Cassidy raised her hand to knock.
Her Mark flared—sharp enough that it stung.
She froze, breath caught.
"Okay," she whispered to herself. "Okay. So… no knocking."
She swallowed and tried again, gentler, barely a tap.
The Mark flared again.
Cassidy shut her eyes briefly, jaw tightening until her teeth hurt.
"How am I supposed to get in then?" she muttered, voice low like the walls were listening.
She reached for the doorknob.
No flare.
Cassidy stared at her wrist like it had betrayed her on purpose.
"Of course," she breathed. "Just step into a nuclear reactor. Thanks… gift."
She turned the knob and eased the door open.
The room was dim.
Not dark—dim, like the light itself had been told to keep its distance.
Orange glowed in uneven pulses across the floor and walls, then thinned, then fought back. White pressed into it in slow increments, not burning, not exploding—correcting. The air carried the faint scent of Solara apples and something sharper underneath it: sweat, fear, and the metallic edge of too much energy held in too small a space.
Apples lay scattered on the floor.
Bruised.
Half-eaten.
One crushed near the base of the bed where it looked like it had fallen—mid-bite.
Allium was in the corner.
Not resting.
Not recovering.
Curled inward like someone trying to make their own body smaller than the thoughts inside it.
One arm wrapped over his head, fingers tangled in his hair, gripping hard enough to turn his knuckles pale. His other hand scraped against the floor in shallow, absent motions, nails whispering over the material like he was searching for friction, for grounding, for anything that belonged to him.
Cassidy's throat tightened.
She opened her mouth to speak—
Her Mark flared.
She stopped.
She took one step closer anyway.
The Mark flared again, hotter this time.
Cassidy paused, breath shallow, heart thundering too loud in her ears.
The vision from before tried to climb up her spine—like a reflex.
Ash.
Fire.
White light.
Allium looking at her like she was a target.
Every instinct in her screamed to do something.
To grab him.
To pull him back.
To make it stop.
She moved closer.
The air grew heavier with each footstep, as if the room noticed her approach and increased the pressure on purpose. Orange flickered, dimmed, then surged in defensive pulses. White threaded through it, sterile and patient.
Cassidy stopped when she was a foot away.
Allium's shaking was obvious this close—not dramatic, not convulsive, but constant. A tremor in his shoulders. A tension in his jaw. Muscle held ready to move without permission.
Cassidy's eyes burned.
Her Mark flared again.
Her hand twitched, wanting to reach for him.
Flare.
She wanted to speak.
Flare.
She felt a sound break in her chest that didn't quite become a sob.
Flare.
Cassidy swallowed hard and blinked fast, ashamed of how small she suddenly felt.
"I can't," she thought, panicked. "I can't do this. I can't be the person who sets him off. I can't—"
She shifted her weight and sat down slowly on the floor, not close enough to touch him.
Not close enough to trigger whatever line the Mark was protecting.
She watched.
She watched Allium's orange lose ground in thin, miserable inches.
Watched white creep upward beneath his skin like frost through cracks.
Watched him fight in silence.
And for a moment, she hated the Mark.
Not because it was wrong—because it was right.
Her hands shook as she reached into her pocket without thinking.
Her fingers brushed something soft and familiar.
Earbuds.
Cassidy stilled—
Like the world just offered her an answer she didn't deserve yet.
The Mark did not flare.
It warmed.
Not bright.
Not sharp.
Warm, like approval without a word.
Cassidy's breath hitched.
She pulled them out slowly, staring at the small plastic shapes like they were relics from a life that still had music in it.
Her Mark pulsed again—gentle, steady, content.
Cassidy looked back at Allium.
Then, very carefully, she leaned in.
The warmth stayed.
She moved closer until she was beside him.
Still no flare.
She sat down within his reach, close enough to share air but not so close she touched him yet.
Allium turned fast.
Too fast.
His eyes locked onto her with a flash of white so clean and intense it made the room feel smaller. Pressure hit Cassidy's chest like invisible hands, pushing her backward without moving her.
Her body went cold.
Not from Rose's frost.
From instinct.
A tear slipped down her cheek anyway, silent and honest.
Cassidy lifted her hand slowly, like she was approaching a wild animal that might bolt—or bite.
Between her fingers, she held out one earbud.
She didn't speak—didn't dare to.
Her eyes did all the talking:
Please… stay here.
Allium's gaze held her like a blade.
Then the orange returned in a thin thread, as if something inside him recognized the shape of her intent.
Not control.
Not fear.
Company.
Cassidy moved her other hand gently toward his hair.
Her Mark stayed warm.
She brushed his hair aside and placed the earbud in.
Then she put the other in her own ear.
Cassidy closed her eyes and turned the music on.
The first notes were quiet.
Not triumphant.
Not loud.
Something sad enough to be true.
Allium's shaking didn't stop instantly.
It slowed.
Like his body had found a rhythm that didn't belong to the voices.
The white didn't retreat—it stalled.
Cassidy stayed still beside him, breathing in time with the sound, letting it fill the room without demanding anything from him.
Then she leaned in.
Her arms wrapped around him, careful and slow.
The Mark did not flare.
Allium didn't move at first.
He didn't return the embrace.
He didn't push her away.
He just… allowed it.
They sat like that on the floor in the dim, orange-white light, music threading through the silence.
Cassidy's heart pounded hard enough to hurt.
Then it started matching something else.
Not a pulse.
A presence.
Allium's breathing.
Slow. Forced. Then steadier.
The white glow began to fade, not defeated—outlasted.
Orange deepened, calmer, collected, reclaiming the room one inch at a time.
Cassidy didn't open her eyes.
She didn't look for proof.
She just stayed.
Quiet company.
A choice that didn't fight.
Eventually, Allium's voice came—soft, raw, like it had traveled a long way to reach the air.
"Thank you."
Cassidy opened her eyes.
She looked at him and smiled gently, like smiling was the only safe thing she knew how to do right now.
"Don't," she whispered. "I like your company."
Her voice trembled on the honesty.
"Are you okay now?"
Allium nodded once.
Small.
Real.
The Mark at Cassidy's wrist settled, the sky-blue pulse easing back into something normal.
For a moment, the room felt like it belonged to them again.
And that was the mistake.
Then—
A sound.
Not from the music.
Not from the vents.
Not from the building.
A dry, careful click.
Cassidy's breath caught.
Allium's head turned slightly, eyes sharpening.
Another click followed, softer, like an insect adjusting its grip somewhere just out of sight.
The room did not change—the air did.
Like attention had entered it.
Cassidy didn't move.
She didn't tear the earbuds out.
She didn't reach for her gauntlet.
She just held onto the quiet for one more second, because she understood what Khelos was doing now.
He wasn't trying to end them.
He was learning how to stand close.
He was listening to what worked.
And he had just heard the first thing that brought Allium back.
Allium stepped in front of Cassidy without thinking.
Not reacting—deciding.
The distortion at the far wall thickened, space folding inward as something forced itself through—angular, jointed, wrong. A leg pierced the air and with it came pressure, not force but insistence, like reality being told where to stand.
The wave hit him square in the chest.
White surged up his spine, sharp and surgical, reaching for control it had tasted before.
Cassidy gasped as his glow fractured—
Then Allium shut his eyes.
The music was still there.
Low.
Steady.
Human.
The pressure wavered.
White tried to rise again and failed, smothered beneath memory and presence and choice. His breathing steadied. His hands unclenched.
He opened his eyes and stared directly at the distortion.
"Not gonna work this time."
Behind him, Cassidy exhaled hard.
The distortion spasmed. Clicking erupted—fast, jagged, furious. The limb twitched once, twice, then withdrew as space sealed itself shut like a wound deciding not to bleed yet.
Gone.
Not gone enough.
Allium turned slightly. "Where is everyone?"
They were already breaking.
Jax's office felt like a room after impact.
Not destroyed—shaken.
Jax stood rigid near the console, hands braced, eyes bloodshot but focused. "Okay. Okay. I'm good." He looked down at his boots. "Can you remove this, please?"
Rose stepped forward and shattered the ice cleanly. She shivered once—then steadied.
Thane rubbed his temples. "Ugh. Feels like my head went through a blender."
Nina wiped at her eyes, embarrassed. "I haven't cried in years."
Weaver stood apart, robe folded in his hands. Rose passed it back to him. He took it—but the guilt didn't settle with the fabric.
"Cassidy must be behind this," he murmured.
The door opened.
Allium stepped in.
Orange.
Whole.
Every eye snapped to him.
Cassidy followed. "Okay. He's normal for now. Khelos is still here. I know he's not gone."
Jax moved to the console. "Medical teams—assist civilians. Evac to docks. Repeat, evac to docks."
He turned the display toward them.
"In my condition," he said tightly, "I isolated the frequency he uses to hide. It's not perfect—but it's enough."
Nina and Cassidy leaned in immediately.
"He's deep in the Solara garden," Nina said. "Still close."
Cassidy nodded. "When I reached Allium, he was watching. He's still trying to trigger Overload—just adapting around how I stopped it."
Weaver's voice hardened. "Then we don't wait. We deal with him now."
Rose's aura stirred, frost tightening. "After him using me? I want this settled."
Allium raised a hand.
"He will flee… If we approach as we are."
Jax looked up. "Meaning?"
"He knows we are strongest together," Allium continued. "Distance and patience are his weapons. I can remove one of those."
Weaver frowned. "How?"
Allium didn't answer immediately.
"He expects calm.
And a weapon."
He looked at them then.
"What if I am not those things?"
Silence.
Weaver shook his head sharply. "If he learns what stabilized you—"
"He already is," Allium replied. "But he waits. That delay is valuable."
Rose stepped forward. "That still doesn't answer what you're planning."
Allium met her eyes.
"I go out there," he said. "I get his attention. You follow behind."
Weaver stiffened. "That's reckless."
"It buys time," Allium said. "And forces proximity."
Nina spoke carefully. "The ley lines in the Solara garden might disrupt his phasing."
Cassidy snapped her fingers. "Yes. If we spike the nodes with a counter-frequency. I can try tuning it as we move."
Thane frowned. "You'd have to be ahead of him."
"I can stall," Allium said.
They moved toward the armory as the plan sharpened.
Rose walked beside him. "What is my role in this?"
Allium didn't answer at first.
Jax input a code. The blast doors hissed open.
"If the frequency works," Allium said at last, "and he becomes vulnerable—"
He stopped.
Turned.
"I need to face him alone."
The air snapped.
Weaver's voice rose instantly. "Are you out of your mind?"
Jax took a step forward. "That's dangerous."
Thane opened his mouth, then shut it.
Rose didn't speak.
She stepped closer to Allium instead.
"It's attachment," she said quietly. "If he sees one of us fall… that's Overload. No matter what."
Allium nodded.
Weaver's voice dropped, raw. "I can't watch you break again."
Allium placed a hand on his shoulder. "I do not intend to."
He turned to Rose.
"That's where you come in."
Her head tilted slightly. "Explain."
"If the node holds," Allium said, "you freeze him. Everything you have. If you succeed—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
They understood.
Rose stepped closer and took his hand.
"You trust me with this?"
"Yes," Allium said. "I do."
Jax armed the electric weapons and tossed one to Thane, another to Cassidy. "If I can slow him, I will."
Nina handed Cassidy stakes, faint red light pulsing. "I'll track the nodes."
Cassidy smirked faintly. "All brain. No problem."
They fitted the discreet comms.
The front gate opened.
The Solara garden waited—half-lit, breathing, wrong.
Cassidy and Allium moved first.
Into the dark—
Willingly.
Not as a weapon.
Not as a savior.
And somewhere just beyond sight, something leaned closer—
curious to see how far one would go alone before everything finally broke.