“Belief is harder to regulate than behavior,” Elsa said.
“Exactly.” Ari’s mouth curved—not quite a smile, but acknowledgment. Recognition of someone who understood power as a system rather than a prize. “Vask doesn’t need soldiers. He needs converts. True believers who’ll follow his interpretation of Lux’s purpose rather than the crown’s. And he’s been cultivating them for years—in the lower classes, in the servant quarters, among the guards who feel overlooked by noble-born commanders.”
Mia had stopped hyperventilating. She was listening now, some of the panic in her eyes replaced by the same desperate focus that came with having something to concentrate on besides fear. Elsa had seen it in patients aboard theStardancer—the way a crisis could be managed by redirecting attention from the overwhelming whole to manageable parts.
“Who funds them?” Elsa asked. “Power structures like that don’t run on faith alone.”
“Tithes from the faithful. Donations from noble families who want religious sanction for their political moves.” Ari paused, something shifting in her expression. “And bribes. Vask has connections to the pit administrators—the males who manage the labor operations, the ones who decide which prisoners work and which ones don’t survive the week.”
The implication settled in Elsa’s gut like cold water. “He can make prisoners disappear.”
“Or survive longer than they should. It depends on what he needs.” Ari’s gaze met Elsa’s steadily. “The pit guards answer to the council officially, but unofficially? Half of them are on Vask’s payroll. They report to him. They follow his orders when those orders don’t directly contradict crown mandate.”
“What does he fear?” Elsa pressed.
Ari considered the question. Somewhere beyond the cell, metal clanged against metal—another gate opening or closing, the rhythm of the under-fortress continuing around them.
“Irrelevance,” she said finally. “The Lux faith has been losing ground for generations. The young males don’t attend ceremonies the way their fathers did. They’ve started questioning the old interpretations, wondering whether the goddess who blessed their ancestors is still watching at all. Vask needs something to revitalize belief. Something that proves Lux is still active, still choosing, still intervening in the world.”
“Something like a human female who carries Lux’s blessing.” The words tasted bitter on Elsa’s tongue. All her life, she’d been defined by her skills—her navigation expertise, her ability to calculate coordinates that machines couldn’t, her value as a trained professional. Now she was being reduced to something she’d never chosen, a biological quirk that painted a target on her back.
“Something exactly like that.” Ari’s voice hardened. “You’re not just leverage against Sylas. You’re proof of concept. If Vask can demonstrate that Lux’s blessing works through you—that you can activate the old systems, the sacred technologies the ancestors left behind—he becomes the interpreter of a living miracle. His power becomes unquestionable. The faith becomes vital again.”
Elsa thought about the grid conduits. The security systems that responded to her touch. The way Moon Tears flared when she was near, as if something in her blood called to something in their alien chemistry. She’d assumed it was random—a quirk of her physiology that the Yzefrxyl found useful. Now she understood it was a weapon.
One that everyone wanted to aim.
Mia made a small sound. “And if she refuses?”
“Then he makes her cooperation unnecessary.” Ari didn’t flinch from the truth. “There are rituals in the old texts. Ways to extract blessing from an unwilling vessel. Vask has been researching them for months—I’ve seen the manuscripts in his study when Ryxin brought me to religious functions.”
Elsa filed that information away, adding it to the map she was building in her mind. Not just corridors and junctions now, but power structures. Influence networks. The topology of threat that surrounded them.
“What about the other pit administrators?” she asked. “The ones who aren’t in Vask’s pocket?”
“A few hold out. Old loyalists who remember when the crown had absolute authority over the labor systems.” Ari’s attention drifted toward the barred window again, tracking something in the corridor beyond. “They’re not friends, but they’re not enemies either. More concerned with their own positions than with religious politics. If they thought backing the crown was safer than backing Vask...”
She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. Elsa understood the calculation. Every power structure had fractures. Every faction had members whose loyalty was more practical than ideological. The trick was finding those fractures and applying pressure in exactly the right places.
The bond stirred in Elsa’s chest. Faint, muffled—still dampened by distance and stone and whatever residue of sedative remained in her system—but present. Sylas was moving. Searching. She could feel the edge of his fury like heat against her skin, the focused intensity of a predator tracking prey.
He’s coming.
She didn’t know whether that was reassurance or warning.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Not the guards—this rhythm was different. Heavier. Multiple figures moving with purpose, not patrol. Elsa rose from her crouch beside Mia, positioning herself between the door and the other women by instinct.
The sound grew closer. Passed their cell without stopping. Through the barred window, Elsa caught glimpses of movement—dark shapes, the glint of metal, something being dragged.
Someone being dragged.
She moved to the window without thinking, pressing her face against the cold iron bars to see into the corridor beyond. The light was poor, the angle worse, but she could make out a procession of guards hauling a figure between them. Human-sized. Human-shaped. Limp legs trailing across the stone floor, arms held by Yzefrxyl who didn’t bother to let their prisoner walk.
Dark hair. Broad shoulders. Hands that hung at wrong angles—but it wasn’t just swelling from labor. His fingertips were blackened, the skin blistered and raw in a way that spokeof burns rather than bruises. Chemical burns, maybe. Something that had eaten into the flesh rather than crushed it.
The procession moved past a torch on the wall, and the light fell across the prisoner’s face for just a moment. Just long enough.
Elsa’s heart stopped.