Beyond the High Tribunal’s shattered archway, the thoroughfare pitched downward into the spiraling dark of the Venzor undercity. Iskira didn't pause, hauling Tavren’s inert form down crumbling stairwells slick with perpetual condensation. The air grew thick with the metallic tang of unrefined stellar dust and the damp scent of ancient, unwashed stone. Above, the polished spires of the Khandaric Domains glittered like distant, uncaring stars. Here, the only light came from flickering lumina-moss clinging to cavern walls and the occasional sputtering gas lantern marking a smuggler’s den. She didn’t stop until she reached a grimy, unmarked door nestled between two overflowing refuse chutes. A quick sequence of raps, a whispered counter-phrase, and the heavy durasteel swung inward, revealing a cramped, airless space. Her temporary refuge. She deposited Tavren onto a worn cot in the corner, his breathing shallow and ragged. The crimson tether band on her wrist pulsed against her radial artery, radiating heat into the hollow ache in her ribs. She ignored it. “Stay still,” she commanded. Tavren’s clouded pupils tracked her as she reached into a wall cavity for a battered steel medical kit. Beneath his frayed tunic, his sternum sparked with an irregular pulse of cerulean brilliance. Not just a stolen design, then. She ripped the cloth aside. A jagged fissure bisected his chest, the stretched skin sheer as parchment over a knot of raw celestial fire. It was a core-graft, a forbidden alchemy whispered about only in the darkest undercity corners. A physical transplantation of a celestial core, the very essence of an inventor’s genius, ripped from its host and fused into another. She pressed two calloused fingers against the boundary. Underneath, severed conduits bucked like live wires. Ozek had not merely reproduced Tavren's schematics; he had surgically ripped out the man's celestial core and grafted it to his own. The erratic flicker signaled the prince was pulling heavy current through the bond right now, wrenching Tavren's remaining vitals along with it. Her fingers worked with mechanical precision. A sterile patch, a topical anesthetic to numb the blistering skin, a stabilizing draught she’d synthesized herself from obscure undercity fungi. Tavren winced as she worked, his frail body trembling. “Why?” he rasped, air whistling in his throat. “Why bind yourself to me? You could have vanished through the lower gates.” His bony fingers gripped her forearm, surprisingly rigid. “Sentiment is a liability,” Iskira said, swab in hand. “You understand his siphon grid better than anyone alive. You are the operational asset I require to break him.” His grip dug into her muscle. “An asset. You trade your own lifespan to keep an asset breathing.” The fever in his stare narrowed into fierce, unblinking devotion. “The court discarded me the moment my mind broke. But you bled into the stones to take me back.” The hinges groaned as the slab door swung inward. Brivani stepped through the threshold carrying an overstuffed canvas sack and a lidded tin cup. Dust grayed her saffron mantle, her plaited hair frayed at the temples. “I skirted three patrol lines,” Brivani breathed, dropping the sack on an upturned cargo bin. “The Ascendant Tier apothecaries are on lockdown after the courtroom breach, so I had to buy off an undercity fence. Pain suppressants, coagulants, nutrient tubes.” Her eyes flicked from Iskira’s collarbone to the blue glare fracturing Tavren's ribs. Iskira tracked the precise speed of the unpackaging. Brivani’s hands were steady, her pulse visibly flat in her neck despite the claimed rush. Iskira only nodded. As Brivani reached for a small, dark vial, her hand brushed against the edge of the crate. The vial, filled with a coarse, obsidian sand, slipped from her grasp, tumbling to the floor. It shattered with a faint pop, spraying its contents across the grimy stone. A droplet of Iskira’s blood, freshly drawn from a prick on her finger as she applied a bandage to Tavren, landed directly amidst the spilled grains. The black grains snapped toward the red drop, fusing into a hard, faceted node around the fluid like a parasitic gall. It twitched once, then fell lifeless. Brivani pulled her hand back, breath catching. “Careless of me. It's only void-slag, a binder for volatile mercury salts.” She dropped to her knees, sweeping the dark grit into a corner of her cloak without meeting Iskira's eyes. Tavren jerked upward on the cot, spine arching as the light in his breast flared blindingly white. Spasms locked his shoulders. His fingers locked around Iskira’s wrist directly over the charred crimson brand, nails pressing white against her skin. “I know you’re dying,” he gasped against her ear, fierce and frantic. “I can hear your soul tearing inside our link.”

The Starlight Scraps