Empress Xalvoria slowly reached her hand out toward the makeshift altar, her pale fingers extending to grasp the jagged, glowing fragment. As her hand drew closer, the pale gold veins inside the stone began to pulse faster, the faint, rhythmic glow completely synchronizing with the sudden spike in Xavier's heart rate.
"I am going to have to stop you right there," Xavier said, his voice cutting through the heavy silence of the cabin as he stepped fully into the doorway. "You might be some kind of supreme galactic empress and whatnot, but you absolutely cannot have that stone."
The obsidian knight pivoted on her heel in a fraction of a second. The metallic shriek of her massive broadsword leaving its scabbard echoed through the confined quarters, and she leveled the heavy blade directly at Xavier's throat, ready to separate his head from his shoulders for the blatant disrespect.
