The heavy steel doors of the testing hall slid shut behind Eilan, sealing off the humming resonance of the deep tissue scanners. He stood in the acceptance area, a wide, brightly lit corridor lined with pristine white walls and polished chrome fixtures. The air here was heavily filtered, smelling of artificial pine and sterilized metal, a stark and jarring contrast to the ash, blood, and ozone that had choked his lungs just hours ago. Around him, the other recruits who had passed the second phase were celebrating. Some were hugging each other, others were crying with relief, and a few were simply staring at their hands in quiet disbelief. They had done it. They had earned the right to wear the white and gold of the Vanguard Corps. Eilan stood perfectly still, his arms hanging limply at his sides. He felt nothing but a cold, hollow void expanding in his chest. He had passed. He was in. The dream he had chased for seven long years, the dream that had driven him to push his mundane body

The training yard of Relay Station Seven was usually a place of controlled chaos, filled with the shouts of instructors, the clash of sparring weapons, and the hum of aetheric drills. But on the morning of the twenty second day of Eilan Voss's cadet training, the yard fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. The cadets stood in rigid formation, their eyes fixed straight ahead, their breathing shallow. The temperature in the air seemed to drop, and the ambient aether in the atmosphere grew dense and heavy, pressing against the skin like a physical weight. Captain Valeria Draven had arrived.She walked into the yard with a slow, deliberate grace that made her seem entirely detached from the gravity of the world around her. She was a Tier Five legend within the Vanguard Corps, a woman whose name was spoken in hushed, reverent tones in the mess halls and barracks of every floating island in the Sky Archipelago. She wore the pristine white and gold uniform of a high command officer, but th

Eilan sat in the cold metal chair, his chest heaving as he tried to pull air into his burning lungs. The taste of copper and bile coated his tongue, thick and suffocating. Blood dripped steadily from his nose and his right eye, splashing onto the pristine gray fabric of his cadet uniform. His right arm felt like it had been submerged in liquid nitrogen, the flesh beneath the bandages numb and heavy, the second heartbeat in his palm reduced to a faint, erratic flutter. The oppressive weight of Captain Valeria Draven's aetheric aura still lingered in the sealed room, a constant reminder of the lethal power she held. He kept his head bowed, staring at the scuff marks on the concrete floor, his mind reeling from the sheer violation of what had just happened. Veltis had taken his voice. It had used his mouth to bargain with a Tier Five officer. The parasite had saved his life, but the cold, alien rationality of the act left Eilan feeling more like a hostage than a host.Draven did not yell

The interior of the dropship was a cacophony of vibrating metal and nervous breathing. Eilan Voss sat strapped into the crash webbing, the heavy harness digging into his shoulders. Around him, thirty other soldiers of the Third Frigate were checking their weapons, murmuring quiet prayers, or staring blankly at the red tactical lights that bathed the cabin. The air smelled of gun oil, recycled sweat, and the sharp, metallic tang of purified aether. Eilan kept his right arm pressed tightly against his side, his hand buried deep in the pocket of his tactical trousers. Beneath the thick fabric, his right forearm was wrapped in heavy bandages, but he could still feel the cold, sliding presence of Veltis shifting beneath his skin. The parasite was awake, its sensory tendrils tasting the dense, corrupted aether bleeding through the hull of the ship. It was analyzing the threat level, calculating survival probabilities, and remaining entirely silent. Eilan wished it would speak, just to break

The piece of paper was hidden beneath the false bottom of Eilan's locker, but its words were etched into his mind with the permanence of a scar. For five days, the warning consumed him. He spent his waking hours analyzing the jagged, hurried handwriting, trying to match the slant of the letters to the dozens of men he interacted with daily. He analyzed the paper itself, noting it was standard issue Corps stationary, slightly yellowed at the edges, torn rather than cut. It was a physical anchor to a ghost, and it was driving him slowly insane.His paranoia bled into every aspect of his training. He suspected Tyren first. The young sweeper was always watching him, always trying to be near him. But when Eilan secretly compared the note to Tyren's training logs, the handwriting was entirely different. Tyren wrote with neat, rounded loops. This note was sharp, angular, and pressed so hard into the paper it had nearly torn through. He suspected Jace, the young private he had saved at the ou