POV: Vesper

  I watched as my Revenant was tossed like a ragdoll.

  It was unbearable.

  His body hit the ground at angles no body should. He clawed, bled, and bit. Again and again. And every time, he got back up. I floated beside him, or behind, or above, or wherever I could find space to exist without being seen as a threat.

  And yet, it hurt. Even without nerves or flesh, it hurt to watch.

  Every impact sang down the tether between us. Every break, every spark of adrenaline, every defiant surge. I felt it. Not as pain, but echoes of it through the bond. Distant. Diluted. But constant.

  But, what could I do?

  The man, Thorn, was more than capable of destroying us both. He was honed for this. His control over Solis was terrifying, not just in power, but in precision. Every flare, every blistering pulse, was exact. He burned nothing by accident. His fire danced on the edge of cruelty, never tipping into chaos. And if he had wanted to, I have no doubt he could have crushed my core like a fruit rind and ended us both right there on the scorched floor.

  But he didn’t.

  He said, maybe we’ll talk after you revive.

  So he knew we would come back. He planned for this.

  The fight ended… if you could call it a fight. More a ritual than a contest. And when it was over, when my Revenant was nothing but breathless motion and tattered stubbornness, Thorn knelt beside him.

  He rested a hand near his forehead.

  “I like to meet Revenants this way,” he said. “Tells me more than words ever could.”

  After a pause, his voice softened. “Sorry about the pain. See you around, Blueberry.”

  Then his fingers tensed, and the heat rushed inward. Not fire. Not light. Just a pressure so heavy it folded my partner in on himself, like watching a soul implode.

  I saw my Revenant die.

  And then Thorn looked up at me.

  There was no malice in his gaze. No mockery. Like someone acknowledging a priest in the corner of a battlefield. Not holy, but still important.

  But that’s not how it ends. Not for our kind.

  “Sorry you had to witness all that, little Phantom,” Thorn said, his voice carrying a strange reverence. “I’ll carry him before he dissolves. We’ve got time.”

  He lifted the body and began walking. I followed. Not because I trusted him, but because… There was nothing else to do.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” Thorn continued, not looking back. “I’m not your enemy. Not unless you want me to be.”

  His voice was quiet. Measured. It was the kind of honesty that felt more dangerous than any threat.

  “You held the line. Most Phantoms flinch or flee. You didn’t.”

  He walked in silence for a few steps, then added, “What’s your name?”

  “My name is Vesper,” I said, floating a little closer. “And… I don’t think you plan to hurt me. But may I ask, what is your game here?”

  “You’re a good tether. That’s rare,” Thorn said, still walking. “As for my game? You already know what I am. What we are. Your partner is newly rezzed. No ties. No loyalties. Uncorrupted. That’s rare too. Especially for one who found an icefruit this early. What’s he been alive for, maybe two weeks?”

  “Closer to two days, actually,” I corrected, carefully.

  Thorn stopped in his tracks.

  He turned slightly, his expression thoughtful. Then his gaze flicked upward.

  “You getting this, Zira?”

  A second light rose from his chest. It pulsed once before floating out beside me.

  She looked like me, but different. Green-hued, firmer in shape. She didn’t flicker. She was rooted, as if this world had long since accepted her presence.

  “Fascinating,” came the voice. Feminine. Smooth, but not soft. There was steel in it, wrapped in curiosity. “Two days. No conditioning. No teaching. Already resisting you and drawing fire. That’s a rare breed.”

  Her form circled me once, slow and deliberate. It wasn’t hostile. But it was definitely an evaluation.

  “Should we help them?” she asked, almost absentmindedly, like she was still calculating.

  Thorn did not answer right away. He just kept walking, carrying the husk of my partner like it was a sacred artifact. His boots left faint scorch blooms with each step.

  After a few moments, Thorn paused just outside the small, heat-washed room. The walls here were smoother, scorched only at the base where too many boots had passed through.

  “I want to help him,” he said quietly, as if saying it too loud might change the truth of it. “Hell, I did help the last one.”

  His jaw shifted, stubble catching the glow from a nearby vent. For a moment, he looked older. Not worn. Just… cauterized. Like something had tried to hollow him out and only got part of the way.

  “Last time I gave too much, I almost didn’t come back. Not just physically, either. I mean, gone. Phantom dead. No anchor, no spark, nothing.” He exhaled through his nose, gaze still on the floor. “That Revenant and Phantom didn’t make it. I barely did.”

  He walked into the room, knelt, and laid my partner’s body down on a low bench padded with heat-warped fabric. The heat in here was stable. Contained. Almost reverent.

  Then he turned to me.

  “But I’m not heartless. I want this one to make it.” He met my gaze directly. “So I’ll give what I can.”

  A beat passed. He studied me.

  “But I need something in return, Vesper.”

  I tilted slightly, uncertain. “What?”

  “You can’t tell him.”

  I hesitated.

  “I’m serious. You don’t tell your partner that I carried him in here. That I said any of this. You let him think this was all yours.” His voice dropped low, not threatening but firm. “He needs to believe you are the reason he came back. Not me. Not Zira. You.”

  “…Why?”

  “Because life is fickle when you’ve a newly rezzed.” He turned toward the doorway, arms crossing. “He needs to believe in you. Not lean on me.”

  I flickered faintly. Then nodded. “I swear.”

  At that, Zira drifted forward again. Her form pulsed once in approval.

  “You should at least give him something better than a glorified chisel,” she murmured. “That ice pick’s going to get him killed the second he meets real resistance.”

  Thorn didn’t argue.

  From a loop stitched into the side of his belt, he pulled out a small, weather-worn knife. The kind of thing you forget you’re carrying until you need it. Plain steel. Single-edged. No markings, no shine.

  A functional knife.

  He turned it once in his hand, then set it down beside the body along with the sheath.

  “Better than a pick,” he muttered. “But don’t fall in love with it.”

  Zira hovered nearby, her glow casting soft green across the blade.

  Thorn stood again, watching it for a moment.

  “If things go well,” he added, quieter, “he’ll earn something better.”

  He didn’t look at me when he said it.

  “You can start reviving him, by the way. The room’s stable. No interruptions down here.”

  He paused again, gaze lingering on the still chest of my Revenant, who hadn’t yet gotten a proper name.

  “Speaking of,” Thorn muttered, “he needs a name. ‘Blueberry’ is not going to cut it forever. Tell him to pick something, or I’ll keep calling him Blueberry for the rest of his existence.”

  Zira gave a small laugh, dry but amused. She began drifting back toward Thorn, her light growing dimmer with every pulse.

  I blinked. “How… are you doing that? Reabsorbing her like that?”

  Thorn looked at me. For the first time, his expression wasn’t tired or measured. It was just... knowing.

  “In time, Vesper,” he said. “You’ll learn.”

  And with that, Zira vanished into his chest like a memory returning to its source. He gave me one last nod, then turned and left.

  The heat slowly faded away from the area.

  The only things left were the gift and the shape I was meant to remake.

  I came back different this time.

  It started the way it always did. Nothing, then pressure. Then something was pulling me upward. Like rising too fast from deep water. I could feel my body before I could move it. Limbs assembling. Muscles stitching together along familiar threads.

  But this time, it wasn’t just flesh. It was awareness.

  I felt Vesper.

  Not in the abstract way I did before. I felt him. There was texture to it now. Shape. Motion. Like a cord strung through my spine, humming with steady light. He pulsed near me, not as a glow or a guide, but as a presence. Real. Tangible.

  I breathed in, and the air was warm. Not scorching or frozen.

  My eyes opened slowly. The ceiling above was smooth and metal-dark, lined with heat-warped beams and flickering pipes.

  I groaned, my chest hitching as breath scraped through half-healed ribs. My body remembered the pain even if it was gone.

  “You’re back,” Vesper said softly, closer than usual. I turned my head. He floated just beside me, but something about him shimmered differently. Not brighter but something deeper. Like there was more of him, stretched behind the visible shape.

  “I can feel you,” I murmured.

  Vesper pulsed, surprised. “You can what?”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Feel you. Like… not just hear. Not just know you’re there. I can feel you. Like-” I struggled to find words for it. “Like we’re... braided together.”

  He hovered quietly, then nodded. “I would guess that the icefruit did a lot more than originally expected.”

  I sat up slowly, my joints aching with phantom echoes of the fight. My fingers twitched as I checked my limbs. All intact. No blood, no open wounds. Just soreness and a heat in my veins that hadn’t been there before. A slow, current curling through my body. I couldn't tell what was causing it

  Then I saw a shape on the bench beside me, a knife.

  It was just a plain steel knife.

  I glanced at Vesper. “What?”

  He didn't respond.

  I touched it carefully. The metal was cool, the cord grip rough. It obviously wasn’t mine. But someone had left it here.

  Someone who expected me to pick it up.

  I looked at it a second longer, then reached down and slid it into the sheath. It fit neatly against my hip.

  “So… did that guy leave this here as a gift or something else?” I asked

  He flickered once, gently. “Let’s just say not everyone here wants you dead.”

  “Odd thing to say about someone who literally just killed me, but alright,” I said with a half smile.

  I stood slowly, rolling my shoulders. The warmth of the room soaked into my skin. I could still feel Vesper, clearer now, like standing beside a fire and hearing the beat of a second heart.

  “I feel strong,” I said quietly. “Not better. Just… more here.”

  “You are,” Vesper replied. “That’s what the bond’s supposed to feel like. I can feel it too.”

  I nodded once, then turned toward the door.

  “Let’s go see what I’m supposed to do with it.”

  I walked outside the room and into the hallway, and looked around. The heat had died down significantly, and now it just felt like a regular basement. Still stuffy but not nearly as bad as the oven it once was.

  My gear was where I left it.

  Scattered just outside the room. The jacket was crumpled against the wall, and my backpack slouched over on its side. The ice-pick lay half-forgotten on the floor.

  I crossed to them slowly, Vesper drifting close behind me, silent.

  I gathered my gear without thinking.

  Jacket first, stiff and sour with old sweat. Backpack slung over one shoulder. The ice pick came last.

  I didn't want to put it in my backpack like my crowbar, which was still there, and leave it.

  I just kept it in my hand like I always had.

  Vesper floated in close behind me. “You’re still carrying that thing?”

  “It has better reach,” I said. “And until it completely fails on me, I’m gonna dance with the one that brought me.”

  He pulsed once. “Yeah, alright. But wouldn’t you want something better?”

  “Oh, absolutely, give me a greatsword,” I said, chuckling, “or a proper gun. But who knows if we will even find anything like that.”

  I turned towards the way I came and began to walk back towards to maze of a complex entered from.

  I felt like a new person.

  “By the way,” he said, “Thorn was right about one thing.”

  I glanced at him.

  “You should probably find a name. A real one.”

  Right. Blueberry. Still echoing in my head like a joke that stuck too long.

  I walked a few more steps before I spoke. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “Oh?” Vesper asked. “Anything good?”

  I slowed near a long burn mark carved across the wall. It looked deliberate. A pattern, maybe. A signature. It didn’t matter.

  I turned towards Vesper.

  “Kade,” I said, more confident now that I said it out loud, “I think I like Kade.”

  Vesper pulsed softly beside me.

  “I like it, it sounds familiar,” he said after a moment.

  I gave a tired half-smile. “Yeah. Me too.”

  “It suits you.”

  I nodded once, the name settling into me like a weight I could actually carry.

  “You want it to mean something?” Vesper asked.

  “It will eventually,” I said.

  Then I started walking again.

  I came back into the hallway I had originally used to come down here and looked toward the only other path I hadn’t taken. The closed door ahead now seemed almost friendly compared to the one I had followed before.

  I reached for the handle and pulled it open. A soft hiss escaped as the seal broke, and the interior slowly revealed itself.

  Inside, it was cleaner. Way cleaner than the rest of the compound I had seen so far. The walls were smooth, the floor free of soot or rust, and the lights above glowed steadily without a flicker.

  Maybe this was closer to the heart of the place. Maybe not.

  Who knows.

  The walls here were smooth metal, polished in places where hands had clearly brushed them over and over. No soot. No graffiti. The floor wasn’t scuffed by boots or warped from heat. It felt untouched. Or maybe just carefully kept.

  The lights overhead glowed a steady white. No flicker. No delay. The hum in the walls was constant, quiet, almost like breath.

  And the doors.

  They appeared every few steps, built flush into the walls, sleek and unmarked except for small numbers above each one and keypads that glowed a soft, patient blue. Some had scanners the size of a hand. Others had narrow card slots. None of them opened.

  I walked past slowly, fingers grazing the wall between each frame. No rust. No decay. Just silence.

  Whatever this part of the compound was, it hadn’t been abandoned.

  I didn’t try the keypads. Not yet. No use guessing codes. Besides, the air here made me cautious. This place felt preserved. Like it was still in use.

  The hallway bent gently and narrowed. The walls drew in tighter, leading me toward a chamber farther ahead.

  At the end stood a different door.

  Massive.

  Reinforced with thick steel plates that overlapped like armor. No seams. No visible hinges. Just a broad, rounded slab set clean into the wall. A vault door.

  Above it, a black lens stared down. A camera. Watching.

  To the side, a flat biometric panel waited in silence. Next to it, a thin slot for an access card.

  I stepped closer, studying the line between the door and the wall. Not even a fingernail’s width of space.

  “This place feels insanely advanced for a frozen moon,” I said, eyes trailing the smooth walls and silent keypads. “Like... this isn’t just functional. It’s… more.”

  Vesper hovered close, taking it all in. I could feel him through our newly improved bond. “Compared to that wrecked camp we crawled out of, this might as well be a palace.”

  I didn’t try the scanner. Whoever built this door obviously didn’t want anyone getting through without permission.

  So I turned away.

  The hall felt longer as I walked back. The quiet felt deeper now.

  Every door I came across was locked, so I couldn't tell what was inside these rooms.

  For all I know, they could be anything from living quarters to a cryo-chamber full of failed experiments.

  After a while of walking I heard something different.

  Voices.

  Faint and muffled, coming from behind one of the sealed doors. I leaned in, listening. Movement. Speech. I couldn’t make out words, but someone was inside.

  I paused. Waited. Nothing changed.

  No way in.

  No code. No card. No welcome.

  So I kept walking. The corridor ahead was still open. And for now, it was the only place I could go.

  The corridor stretched longer than it should have. Clean walls. Sealed doors. Silent glow. Nothing moved, but the air felt thick with surveillance.

  I kept walking until I saw the last door at the far end. This one wasn’t locked. No keypad. No scanner. Just a plain metal door with a single red light pulsing above it.

  I stepped closer. The light stopped blinking.

  A soft click echoed from somewhere above, followed by a low static hum.

  Then a voice came through the ceiling speaker, calm and crackling with distortion.

  “You made it farther than most.”

  I froze, glancing up at the camera lens above the door. Its glass eye stared straight down at me, unblinking.

  “Didn’t think the puzzle would actually work. You must be new. Lucky, stubborn, or both.”

  The voice paused. “Doesn’t matter. You’re in our space now.”

  Vesper hovered silently at my shoulder, his glow dimmed low. I could feel him holding his breath, metaphorically or not.

  “Who are you?” I asked, not loud, but clear enough.

  The speaker answered without delay.

  “We’re a collection of smaller clans. We call ourselves Ember’s Hand. We’re Mercenaries. Scavengers. Survivors. A handful of ghosts like you. Just one small alliance in a frozen corner of the planet. And like a lot of others out there, we’re just trying to live without getting stepped on.”

  There was something measured in the way they said it. Not pride. Just fact.

  “We don’t answer to any Warlord. We don’t worship anything. We don’t hunt our own unless they give us reason,” the voice continued, “We work. We fight. And if you want to stay, you’ll have to prove you’re worth the space you breathe.”

  “Seems I must have made someone happy. They're willing to keep us,” I said low enough so that only Vesper could hear.

  The door in front of me slid open with a soft hiss. Inside, the room was empty, except for a metal bench against the wall and a table stocked with a few essentials: a half-full water canister, a ration bar, and a small folded map sealed in plastic.

  “You can take what’s there,” the voice said. “But if you do, you owe it back. Compensation comes due. We run lean here.”

  I stared at the table for a long moment. The ration bar looked old but clean. The canister was full enough to matter. The map... that one was tempting.

  I didn’t move.

  “I’m good,” I said. “For now.”

  There was a pause. Then a faint, amused crackle in the voice.

  “Smart. Alright then, take the map at least, thats a gift. Getting lost is useless to us.”

  Another brief pause. Then the voice shifted tone, from sizing me up to giving orders.

  “We lost a drone two days ago. Scouting pass over an old satellite crash. Probably got clipped by a storm, but we tracked its signal to a frozen ridge west of here. We want it back.”

  A line of red light blinked to life on the wall beside me, tracing the edge of the map.

  “The place is dead ground. Some call it the Bleed. Old battlefield. Nobody owns it, but a lot of factions pass through. If you're fast and quiet, you can get in and out before anyone knows you're there.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the map. “And if someone’s already there?”

  “Then we see what you’re made of.”

  I exhaled slowly. “Are you sending a squad with me?”

  “No. Trust is earned. Not issued.”

  The speaker buzzed, like it wanted to say more. Then it did.

  “We invite you to walk among us. Bring back the drone. Do it clean. No dragging trouble back to our door. Then we’ll talk.”

  The speaker cut out.

  I stood there for a moment longer, staring at the table, the unopened supplies, and the blinking line on the wall beside me.

  Vesper floated beside me in silence.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.

  His glow flickered faintly. “That this is only the beginning?”

  “Yeah. Either this will be the best thing to happen to us...” I said.

  “...Or the worst mistake we make,” Vesper finishes.

  I grabbed the map and turned away from the rest of the supplies and stepped out of the room, following the blinking red line toward the exit on the other side. It led up and out of this place, presumably, to the surface.

  “The map says we’re around here,” I said, pointing to the spot near the bottom edge. The light made the writing easier to see.

  Night had shifted to day somewhere between finding that facility and walking out of it. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been underground, but the sky had changed without asking.

  “So we go west, which should be this way,” Vesper said, drifting to my left and nodding toward the horizon.

  We started walking.

  The snow crunched under my boots, each step pressing deeper into the soft powder. Wind curled around us, not harsh, but enough to sting. The cold out here always found a way to remind me it wasn’t done with me yet.

  The ridge in the distance matched the curve etched into the map. We were definitely going the right way.

  Vesper floated just ahead, his glow dimmed to a faint pulse in the daylight.

  “That place didn’t feel abandoned,” I said after a few minutes. “Felt... preserved.”

  “Because it was,” Vesper replied. “Too clean. Too quiet. Nothing decays that evenly unless someone is maintaining it.”

  I nodded. “Even the doors were pristine. Like they were waiting to be used again.”

  “The hall with the scanners? That was not for decoration.”

  We kept moving, boots carving a steady line westward.

  “What do you think was behind that vault door?” I asked.

  Vesper was quiet for a moment. His glow flickered, slow and thoughtful.

  “Storage, maybe. Or containment. It could have been the original heart of the facility. Command core, maybe.”

  “Or maybe that is where they store all the equipment used for higher-tier Revenants. Stuff designed for neural circuits. Guns that read intent before you pull the trigger. Armor that shifts density mid-impact or regulates gravity around your limbs.”

  Vesper chuckled, and I felt it now. The ripple of it through the bond between us, a low vibration of shared amusement.

  “That, too.”

  I adjusted the strap on my pack, watching my breath fog in the air as we moved.

  After a while, I spoke again, shifting the conversation.

  “Thorn fought like someone who had seen some shit. Like he had gone up against people with real skill.”

  Vesper did not answer immediately. He hovered a little closer, his light steady.

  “He was not guessing when he attacked,” I said. “He knew where to hit. He knew how to end it fast.”

  “But he did not,” Vesper said.

  I nodded.

  “Yeah. He pulled back. He let me have the fruit, too.”

  I touched my side unconsciously, remembering the burn that came after. The fire curling through my veins. The sense of something waking up.

  “He said the fruit would not do much for him anymore,” Vesper said.

  “Do you think it changed me?” I asked.

  Vesper hesitated, then answered in the tone I was starting to get used to.

  “It did not just bring you back. It deepened our bond. Made you more aware. Gave the connection shape. Texture. Maybe more.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that,” I said quietly. “Not just hearing you now. I feel you... like something alive inside me.”

  The wind howled gently ahead, brushing snow across the ice in thin, whispering waves.

  “Thorn knew what it would do,” I said. “He wanted me to have it.”

  “Or he wanted to see what you would become after.”

  “I am not sure which one I like more.”

  We did not speak for a while after that. Just walked.

  The edge of the Bleed was coming into view now. A valley, jagged and dark, the ice there fractured in deep, unnatural patterns. Like something had burned through it from below and left scars in the world.

  I kept walking.