Escape was a blur. Kira and Kaelen carried Skodar's limp form. Elara, weeping and hacking through doors, led them out through service tunnels as alarms finally blared across the city.
They reached the skiff. Kira piloted, pushing the engines past redline as they shot into the night sky, leaving the glittering, confused city of Morvane behind.
In the hold, Elara worked frantically. Skodar was alive, but his vital signs were faint, fluctuating wildly. The Living Stone fragment on his chest was dark, a web of cracks across its surface. His Prima Genes were not just dormant; they were scarred, lacerated by the contradictory energies he had channeled.
Kaelen watched, his own cybernetics flickering erratically—the feedback surge had affected him too. "He chose the third path," Kaelen said, his monotone finally broken by something like awe. "He chose to bear the cost himself. Illogical. Inefficient... Heroic."
Back at Dawnspire, Vaktari met them in the medical bay. Her face, for the first time, showed true, undiluted terror. She floated over Skodar, her hands passing through his body, reading the damage at a cellular level.
"He is... in stasis. A self-induced coma to prevent total genetic collapse," she whispered, her light dimming. "The fragments of the Living Stone are keeping him on the threshold. But I cannot wake him. To do so might shatter what's left of his essence."
Makosra stood by her grandson's side, her own recently awakened glow pulsing with helpless distress. Sukodar clutched Skodar's cold hand, tears streaming silently.
Their leader, their spark, was out.
And in the silence of the medical bay, a new sound began—a soft, rhythmic beeping from Elara's terminal. An alert she had set on the deep-space monitors.
She read it, and her blood ran cold.
"Eclipse...it's moving. It's breaking orbit. Trajectory analysis... it's heading for a low planetary station-keeping position. Directly over the southern continent."
Malakor was done with subtlety. The surgical strike had failed. Now, he was bringing the scalpel down with orbital force.