Silence lived up to its name. It didn't appear on sensors. It didn't trip perimeter alarms. The first they knew of it was when the Sanctuary's outer bio-luminescent mosses in the landing hangar died.
Echo felt it first—a localized wave of death through his Life-Thread Perception. One moment, the vibrant green threads of the moss were there; the next, they were severed, graying to nothing.
"It's here," he said, his voice low in the bond-link.
They moved. Kiera, to her credit, didn't panic. She drew a pair of needle-like plasma daggers from her sleeves, her body dropping into a fluid, defensive stance that spoke of expensive training.
Silence manifested from the shadow of Kiera's ship. It was a wraith of smoked glass and blurred edges, its form constantly shifting, never settling. It had no face, only a smooth oval where one should be. It moved without sound, without air displacement.
It went straight for Kiera.
Leyla intercepted, her claws meeting something that felt like cutting cold vapor. The Void-Stalker's arm reformed into a blade and slashed back. Ryn fired, but her plasma bolts passed through its shifting form harmlessly. Mira tried to pin it with spatial compression, but its reality was "slippery"—it existed partially out of phase.
Echo didn't try to attack its body. He targeted its life-thread.
To his Perception, Silence was a horror. It didn't have a normal, flowing thread of vitality. It had a knot of stolen, severed life-threads, all writhing in torment, powering its existence. It was a walking crime against life itself.
Echo reached for it with his Sovereign will. He couldn't command the knot, but he could tug on it.
He issued a psychic command, amplified by his bloodline: "BE STILL."
The Void-Stalker stuttered. For a half-second, the stolen threads within it rebelled, straining against their bondage. Its form solidified.
That was all Kiera needed.
With a speed that belied her merchant persona, she lunged, not for the center mass, but for the smooth "face." One of her daggers, charged with a brilliant white energy he didn't recognize, pierced the smooth surface.
Silence didn't scream. It unraveled. Its form dissolved into a shower of disconnected, fading life-threads that whispered their final thanks before winking out. The Cleaner was gone.
Kiera stood panting, her dagger hand trembling. The weapon's hilt was now cracked and dark. "One-time void-piercer," she explained breathlessly. "Cost me a fortune. Worth it."
She had held her own. More than that, she had struck the killing blow. She had fought with them, not just beside them.
The shared danger had changed the air. The look she gave Echo was no longer just that of a business partner assessing an asset. It was the look of someone who had been protected, and who had, in turn, protected.
A new thread, thin but strong, began to weave itself from her golden-silver tapestry toward Echo's crimson core. The bond had found its first spark.