Q?l?th?s
In Elerian history, it was never clear when the bonding first manifested.
She had learned that as a child, during the years when elders still bothered to teach history instead of survival.
Some argued the bonding was the reason Elerians rose to sentience in the first place; others claimed it came later, during what they called the era of isolated minds, before Elerians even understood they were a single species.
None ever argued the Haralith’s impact.
The delicate creature shaped their society and their bodies alike.
It was said Elerians evolved hollow, weaker arms to better shelter the Haralith, to prioritize protection over force.
Whether that was myth or biology no longer mattered. The result was undeniable.
But the bonding had never been free. Or safe.
She had memorized the numbers young, the way children memorize dangers.
Seven times out of ten, the bonding succeeded.
Failure meant death—sometimes immediate, sometimes not. Either the Elerian was consumed, or the attempt left them damaged, unable ever to bond again.
Even success was not always stable. Some bonds degraded slowly, the Haralith devouring the host from within over the years. True bondings were rarer than tradition admitted. Roughly three and a half out of ten.
Still, the symbiote could touch minds and hearts alike. It was prized enough that those who survived were called chosen.
When the era of extraction came, the Haralith became something else entirely.
They interfaced with technology.
Their civilization was among the few that did not experience a first-contact war.
Their first contact was ’A-K?th’Xül—the Breath of the First Star, in the old tongue.
She remembered hearing the name spoken with reverence even during her childhood, during the war years, before humans destroyed the last archives.
The Haraliths, she later learned, were a discarded experiment of that civilization. Finding a species adapted to bond with them had been… convenient. For them, at least.
She had often wondered why the Elerians accepted assimilation and displacement from their homeworld with such ease. The elders always gave the same answer.
Because there was no choice.
The species they had evolved alongside was not optional. The Haraliths were spiritual guides, connectors to the world, proof of belonging.
To abandon them would have been extinction by another name.
Elerians were millions. Thriving, once. Long-lived enough that, to her, the fall of ’A-K?th’Xül by human hands had happened only a lifetime ago.
She had been a child then. Old enough to remember fire in the sky. Young enough not to understand what was being taken.
Their home planet burned. Their past burned with it.
Other species remembered them as bureaucrats, accountants, bankers, and technical assistants to what was now simply called the old empire. When the war ended, survival replaced debate.
She traced the markings on her face unconsciously, remembering being made a slave by pirates.
She had been told that those who fell under human rule fared better. She had not believed it.
Not until she met Ethan.
She stood now in the same room as him, a few paces behind, the prisoner between them. The memory of the fall bled into the present as easily as breath.
Carrier drones, Ethan called them.
She could feel their mechanical nature through the bond. A pure drive to interface with flesh.
Another kind of symbiote—metal instead of living tissue. When they came for her, the Haralith’s voice had dimmed.
She felt fewer emotions after that. More of other things.
She could see through others’ eyes, feel with limbs that were not hers, and hear voices across distance. Not always like now—physical, immediate—but always present.
She had escorted the prisoner here without question.
She knew she had to obey Ethan. That was clear. Everything else about him was not.
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He did not gloat. He did not posture. He stated demands and explained reasoning.
When he reprimanded, he did not shout. When he judged, he weighed outcomes.
That, more than force, was unsettling.
It wasn’t as unsettling as her body acting on instinct earlier, stopping the falling mass.
That was the execution of an order.
What lingered was the sensation afterward—the certainty that she had fulfilled a purpose.
It was a good feeling, one she never experienced when obeying before.
Was fate offering her people something else?
The thought was dangerous.
She had learned that too as a child, back when hope still had time to hurt.
On Taboo, hope was the sharpest knife one could press against their own chest.
L?ck?h?? K??tr?
???????? were made to rule.
The strong survived. The weak existed to be culled.
The ruined skyline of City 29 stretched above, broken towers and exposed transit lines forming a jagged geometry of past excess.
It was an ugly city, inefficient, layered with decay instead of purpose. She almost approved of that. It was funny seeing lesser beings trying their best to better themselves, only to fail miserably.
Above it all, the dome was closing.
Ancient Imperium metal slid into place, sealing the city. A containment measure, not a shield. It would not stop the beasts.
Nothing short of eradication would. But it would channel them. Funnel chaos into predictable corridors. Reduce uncertainty.
Dexton’s strategy was acceptable.
She wanted to be the tip of the spear.
To wade into battle where sentients screamed, where fear recognized its superior before dying.
But beasts did not fear.
They charged. They thrashed. They died confused, if they registered death at all. No pleading. No recognition. No satisfaction. Slaughter without acknowledgment was labor, not dominance.
That alone would have been tolerable.
The greater insult was this: she had been deployed to protect the lesser.
Not by direct order; the human was careful with wording, but the outcome was undeniable.
His rules twisted intent with ease, and the machine made his word an absolute.
Her squad moved through a fractured avenue, debris crunching beneath armored steps. Thermal signatures flared ahead. One of the beasts surged from a collapsed storefront, all mass and momentum, claws tearing into ferrocrete.
Behind it, one of the lesser stumbled.
Small. Soft. Slow.
The calculation was instant. Let the beast pass. Let it kill. Eliminate the beast afterward. Efficient. Correct.
Her targeting reticle locked.
-Kess, Engage and intercept.-
Ethan’s voice was calm. Absolute.
As she could see what her squad was seeing, Ethan could see what she was seeing.
K??tr? felt the command like a hook driven into her spine.
She moved before she could protest.
The beast turned toward the lesser, jaws opening. She intercepted at full speed, hard light blade carving into dense muscle, redirecting its charge. The impact rattled her frame. The beast howled; just pain.
The machine's enhancement made it almost too easy. She killed it quickly. Too quickly to savor.
The lesser collapsed, alive. Breathing.
Useless weak thing.
If she could act freely, she would’ve decapitated the lesser.
She had lost rein on her body; she was being forced to expend strength for something beneath notice.
To preserve what should have been removed by natural order.
The human had forbidden her from killing the lesser.
It was his first order before sending her to the city.
She stood amid cooling ichor and shattered stone, dome shadows crawling across the street as the city was reshaped above her. Her blade disappeared, but her posture remained perfect.
But the universe had failed its duty.
The duty to entertain her.
It was all Ethan’s fault, yet she somehow couldn’t even be angry at him.
Ethan was strong, stronger than anything she’d met. It was his choice how to rule.
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