The days following the meeting between Prime-Dexūs and the other leaders were harsher than anything the soldiers of the Edge had known before. Training drills that once pushed them to their limits now drove them past exhaustion. The training fields rang with marching feet, barked orders, and the low groans of tired bodies that refused to collapse only because collapse meant punishment. The air around the barracks was thick with tension and the sharp scent of coolant from the defense drones that patrolled the perimeter.Lorekeeper Veydrān carried out every order Prime-Dexūs gave, but even he could feel the weight settling over the training yards. The soldiers no longer hid their frustration. Some cursed the day they were born into this world. Others whispered the same name over and over with bitterness.Aēllion.°Aēllion-197.Voidbōrn.The runaway. They spoke his name like a curse and sometimes like a warning, as if he had doomed them all the moment he crossed into the real world. A fe

Aēllion’s POVI woke to shouting.Not the kind that comes from danger or alarms, but the sharp, irritated yelling of someone who had been awake far too long and had lost all patience with the universe.“You owe me, man!” Threi snapped through her datapad. “I don’t wanna hear any excuses.”There was a pause. I could only hear her side of the conversation, but I imagined whoever was on the other end shrinking with every word.“You don't want to get on my bad side, Lou.” she continued. “Yeah. Thought so.”She ended the call with a sharp tap and muttered something under her breath that I suspected was not polite in any known language.I groaned softly and rolled onto my back. My body felt stiff from sleeping on the couch. Every muscle protested as I sat up. I rubbed my eyes, then stretched my arms over my head until my shoulders cracked.Threi turned toward me the moment she heard the sound.“Well, look who finally decided to wake up,” she said.Her voice carried its usual edge, but there

Aēllion slept on a thin mattress near the wall, one arm thrown over his face. His dreams were restless, filled with moving lights and falling sensations.He was deep in sleep when a light tap landed on his shoulder.He groaned softly and turned his face into the small pillow beneath his head. The room was dark, quiet except for the faint hum of computers coming from another part of the apartment.Another tap came, firmer this time.“Aēllion,” a low voice whispered. “Wake up.”He cracked one eye open, annoyed and confused, ready to snap at whoever was disturbing him. The shape above him shifted, and he recognized Threi’s outline in the dim light.“What?” he muttered.She leaned closer. “Keep your voice down.”Aēllion blinked the sleep from his eyes. Sira was asleep a short distance away, curled on her side, her blue hair spread across the pillow. She looked peaceful, unaware of anything stirring around her.Threi placed a finger to her lips.“Shh, don’t wake her,” she whispered. “Come