The return to Dawnspire was met with silent awe, then erupting cheers that quickly turned to tears. They had won. The tyrant was dead, his weapon destroyed.
But the cost was etched on the returning shuttle.
Lyra was concussed but would recover.
Kaelen was critically damaged.His biological half was stable, but his cybernetics were fused, unresponsive. He lay in a coma, a hybrid of man and broken machine, his mind perhaps finally at peace in the memory of his sister.
And Skodar… he was changed. The silvery scars covered more of his body now. His eyes held the weight of galaxies. He had stared into the void and filled it with his heart, and a piece of that void had looked back. He was a living bridge between chaos and order, and it was a lonely place to stand.
The empire, reeling from the loss of the Eclipse and the scandal of Malakor's attempted genocide, withdrew from Arthoje in disarray. The planetary governor was recalled. A power vacuum opened.