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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/PSHoffman on 2026-02-06 17:32:00+00:00.

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Agraneia couldn’t stop shivering. The ceiling spun, and the floor felt like it was rolling on an arctic ocean current. She tried to steady the motion, tried to hold herself upright, but her muscles gave out. She tried to grab ahold of the chair, but her liquid metal hand was still numb and she couldn’t feel the fingers on her mortal hand. So cold.

And a voice poured like warm honey into her ears, “Easy there, Ags. Just stay with me another moment.”

Feathered hands—real hands—hooked under her arms and the corvani crowed with the effort of hefting her up until she was face to face with a corvani. Icy cold filled her mind, slowing her thoughts. How can the dead be this strong?

An insect, or something like it, bit into her chest. Then, another—sharper than the first. She tried to swat it away, but her arms refused to lift. She grit her teeth, and tried again. She had to fight. She had to, if she wanted to live.

“Easy,” the dead corvani said again.

Then, a stiff warmth crawled into her veins. It started where the insect bit her, and oozed into her heart. Suddenly, her muscles tightened. Her eyes shot open. Two nanite syringes jutted from her chest. The last drops of that silvery liquid drained into her body.

Gingerly, a black-feathered hand plucked them out of her body. Agraneia realized she was no longer bound to that chair. Instead, she was propped up, half laying and half sitting in her dead friend’s lap. Eolh looked down at her with a smile tugging at the corner of his blue-black beak. How does someone eat with a beak that big? She found herself wondering. Ridiculous.

Then, the ice that clouded her thoughts cracked. “Eolh?” She sat up. Too fast. Her stomach clenched. She leaned over and started to vomit.

“Easy, I said,” Eolh patted her back with his mortal hand. “That nanite’s good, but it’s no miracle. Give it time to work.”

The dead corvani was very much alive. “How?” Agraneia rasped. Thankfully, the nanite was starting to numb her raw throat.

“Found it in the Sovereign’s head-thing. Reckon the damned machine used it to keep you alive.”

“No,” Agraneia grunted, “How are you here?”

“You asked for help,” Eolh said. “Poire heard.”

“The godling?”

“Know anyone else named Poire?”

Agraneia propped herself up on her stiff metal arm, and stared at him. Just stared. If he was a dream, he was more real than any dream she’d ever had. His dark eyes glistened in the dim gray light. His fingers gripped her wrist and shoulder, holding her up. The individual barbs of his feathers stirred in the artificial breeze from the air vents.

“Impossible…”

“I thought the same thing. One moment, I was watching the Scar unfold across the sky. Could feel it pulling me—gah!”

Whatever he was going to say was choked off, as Agraneia threw her arms around him and clasped her hands together and squeezed as tight as she could.

“Ags,” he gasped, even as embraced her back. “Easy on the ribs.”

She eased a little, but didn’t let go. His feathers were so soft. His muscles, as wiry as ever. She could even feel the warmth of his body through her liquid hand.

“Seems like the nanite is working,” Eolh said.

Perhaps it was the nanite, or the days (or weeks?) of torture, or something else, but she thought she could see a faint glow blurring around the corvani. It outlined his feathers. His head. Even his clothes.

“What the hells are you wearing?” Agraneia asked.

Eolh looked down at his shirt, as if seeing it for the first time. Thousands of mirror-like tiles, as small as fingernails, clacked and clinked as he held it out. “No idea,” Eolh laughed. “I think the Fledge made it?”

Agraneia pinched the tiles between her fingers. It moved like the highest quality chainmail, but she couldn’t see how the tiles were linked together.

A distant boom shook the floor. It rattle the metal debris, and vibrated up through the walls. Then, another boom, this one close enough that Agraneia could feel it buzzing in her teeth.

“Come on,” Eolh said, unfolding himself from her, and helping her stand on shaky legs. “Time to go.”

Agraneia started to rise when her foot kicked a familiar hunk of ruined metal. Dull gray light shone from inside. The memory of Laykis, being torn apart by the Sovereign, rushed back and sapped the strength from the cyran’s legs. Agraneia fell to her knees. “Oh, gods,” she growled. “I’m sorry.”

One of the Sovereign’s arms had fallen and crushed Laykis’s skull. The scarred mask of her face was intact, but the back of her head was crumpled inward. Hot tears slid down Agraneia’s cheeks as she cradled the android’s head.

“Ags,” Eolh crowed her over. He stooped over the android’s body, and using the hand that the android had given him so long ago, Eolh popped open her chest chassis. The gray light brightened, casting dramatic shadows across Eolh’s blue-black beak.

“What is that?”

“Didn’t they teach you mechanical anatomy in the Academy?”

Agraneia sniffed and wiped her face with one arm. “What are you talking about?”

With his metal hand, Eolh ripped open Laykis’s chest armor. He plucked something from her ribs. A smooth, glowing oval that fit heavily in his palm. A construct’s core. It was almost translucent, like glass filled with something like smoke, except the core was cracked and gray mist leaked out, shimmering in the air.

Agraneia scrambled over to the android, and almost without thinking, she reached for it, intending to cover the crack with her liquid metal hand. When she touched it, she heard a voice.

“Is that you, Agraneia?”

Tears stung her eyes again, but she blinked them back. “Yes. It’s me.”

“Are you well? I was very worried about you.”

For a moment, Agraneia couldn’t answer, she was so choked up. Laykis had been through the hells. Her body was broken, her core was fading, and yet Laykis was worried about her?

“I’m sorry, Laykis. It’s all my fault.”

“I couldn’t be more proud of how you performed. The Sovereign has had thousands of years to perfect its craft, yet when it tried to break you, you endured. Just like me. I knew I was right to call you sister.”

“What is it?” Eolh asked. “What is she saying?”

“Who else is there?”

“Eolh is with me,” Agraneia answered, though she had no idea how to explain it.

“Of course,” Laykis said, as if Eolh’s resurrection was the most natural thing in the world. “Vul, the Guardian who is with him until the very end. I should have known. And where is the key?”

“Khadam?”

“Yes. She is everything, now.”

“I…” Agraneia’s stomach sank. After every torturous hour, after all these miracles, they were no closer to finding the Maker Divine. She glanced at Eolh. “Do you know where Khadam is?”

Eolh shook his head. But Laykis answered at the same time, “Yarsi knew.”

“Yarsi isn’t here.”

“Her memory is. I kept it safe.”

There was a tug on Agraneia’s thoughts. It came from Laykis’s core. “Open your mind,” Laykis said.

“How—”

It felt like a fist punching directly into the brain. Agraneia was thrown back as a whole set of memories filled her thoughts. Machine-filled corridors and utility tunnels and hordes of skittering maintenance constructs crawled into her mind. The memories overlaid the real world, glowing bright. She could see herself picking up Laykis’s scarred mask. Carrying the mask and the core with her, as she set off down one of the access tunnels.

Agraneia pulled her liquid hand away from Laykis’s core, and the future memory disappeared. Timidly, she touched Laykis’s core again, and the memories flooded back. She could see exactly where to go. Curiously, she couldn’t see Eolh.

She looked at him. He cocked his head at her. “What?” he croaked.

“You’re real, aren’t you?”

Eolh shrugged. “I feel real.”

Agraneia wiped her eyes once more. And put out a hand, letting Eolh help her to her feet. “As long as you’re with me, it’s good enough.”

Agraneia picked up Laykis’s mask. Put it under her arm, along with the core, and set off.

***

The two armadas of the Sovereign converged upon each other. Trillions of repulsors ignited as twin metal waves screamed toward each other. Millions of kilometers of space rippled with movement.

At the center of their convergence, there were three objects. The machine-covered Earth, a hollowed-out moon glittering with traces of silver, and further out, a Scar. With the scanners at maximum magnification, Queen Ryke could just make out the lonely black structure that hung suspended in front of the Scar. The Light dam looked like the closed-up bud of a night flower, like the ones that grew on Gaiam. That used to grow on Gaiam, she corrected herself.

But her view of the Scar, and the Earth, were soon obscured as tiny, fiery streaks forked out from the twin armadas. Both sides of the Sovereign, it seemed, were eager to strike the first blow, but the left wing shot far more than the right.

Then, the right’s missiles split open, each body containing many smaller ones inside. Ryke watched as the waves of missiles slipped into each other, just over the Earth. Collisions created beautiful, blossoming spheres of superheated metal and radiation. Some were close enough ...

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