The return trip to the Cathedral-ship was a silent, grim journey. The image of the frozen Vyper operative was burned onto Kaelen's retinas, a constant, accusatory ghost in the cockpit. The seed-pod sat on the co-pilot's console, its gentle glow feeling like a morbid nightlight. She had traded a piece of a dead god for a prize stolen from a graveyard. The morality of it was a knot she couldn't untangle, so she stopped trying. Survival had a way of simplifying ethics into a binary choice: do or die.
The Steward's lair materialized from the nebula's swirling colors, its immense, patchwork hull a grim promise of sanctuary and servitude. The tractor beams locked on with their familiar, impersonal precision, guiding her into the same hangar bay. The Vyper scout ship she'd seen before was now completely skeletonized, its parts doubtless feeding the endless hunger of this place.
The Steward was waiting for her at the foot of the ramp, his data-eye already scanning the seed-pod in her hand. He did not ask if she was successful. He already knew.
"The sample," she said, her voice flat, holding it out.
He took it, his augmented fingers handling the organic object with a surprising delicacy. He did not thank her. "The debt is reduced. By a fraction." He turned to leave.
"Who was he?" The question was out of her mouth before she could stop it.
The Steward paused, half-turning back. His organic eye regarded her with a flicker of what might have been impatience. "A competitor. A fool who believed Vyper's resources could protect him from the Garden's curator."
"The curator? That… place was maintained?"
"All collections are maintained," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "The Architect does not let his work fall into disrepair."
The Architect. The name landed with a weight that filled the hangar. The Garden of Glass wasn't a natural phenomenon or an accident. It had a creator.
"You sent me to steal from someone called the Architect?" Kaelen asked, a cold dread seeping into her bones.
"I sent you to retrieve an asset from an unsecured location," the Steward corrected, his tone chillingly neutral. "The previous owner was… removed. The asset was available. Now it is not." He held up the pod. "This is a key. One that Vyper was too impatient to use correctly."
He turned fully now, his data-eye focusing on her with a new, unsettling intensity. "Your next task will require more finesse than brute force. The Architect is not our enemy. He is a potential ally. A reclusive genius who has mastered technologies we can scarcely imagine. His creations are… art."
Kaelen thought of the frozen, terrified faces in the crystal. "His art is terrifying."
"All profound art is," the Steward replied without a hint of irony. "Vyper wishes to enslave him. The Echoes wish to destroy him for his 'hubris.' We wish to open a dialogue. This," he gestured with the pod, "is an invitation. A token he once gave, and that was stolen. Returning it may earn us an audience."
The mission shifted under her feet. She wasn't just a smuggler or a thief anymore. She was a diplomat being sent into the lion's den with a piece of meat.
"Why me?" she asked, the dread solidifying into a hard lump in her throat.
"Because you are unexpected. You are not Vyper. You are not an Echo. You are a neutral party. And," his gaze flickered toward her ship, toward the locker, "you carry a curiosity that I suspect the Architect would find… intriguing."
He was using the fragment as bait. Her leverage was now part of the deal.
"Your ship will be reprovisioned. Study the files I am sending you on the Architect's last known location. You will depart in six hours."
He left her then, standing in the hangar bay, the weight of the new mission pressing down on her. She was to return a stolen key to a reclusive genius who curated a gallery of nightmares, all while being hunted by two factions who also wanted him dead or controlled.
Back in the cockpit of the Scrap-Jumper II, she opened the data packet. It was sparse. Coordinates to a rogue planet in a starless tract of space between galaxies. Sensor ghosts. Theories.
And a single, blurred image, taken by a long-dead probe.
It showed a world not of rock, but of shifting, geometric shapes. A planet-sized puzzle box. And in the center of the image, carved into the side of a mountain that was also a perfect cube, was a symbol.
It was the same symbol she had seen in the data-stream from the derelict ship. The same elegant, flowing script that had been etched around the Aetherial being's wound.
The Architect wasn't just a recluse. He wasn't just a genius.
He was studying the Aetherials.
A jolt, not from the fragment, but from her own realization, went through her. The Steward didn't just want an alliance. He wanted the Architect's research. He wanted to understand the fragment she carried.
She was not just a courier. She was a key, being used to unlock a door the Steward could not open himself.
The fragment pulsed in its locker, a warm, steady rhythm.
…Recognition…
It knew the symbol. It recognized the hand of the Architect.
For the first time, Kaelen felt a tremor of something other than fear or resolve. It was a faint, fragile thread of hope. This Architect, this maker of nightmares and prisoner of beauty… he might have answers. He might know what the fragment was. He might know what to do with it.
She had a new destination. Not just a set of coordinates, but a purpose that went beyond debt and survival.
She was going to meet the man who spoke the language of the gods.