Page 20 of Signed, Sealed, Seduced
The sight should not affect me as it does.
I terminate the feed with a sharp gesture and turn away. The meditation chambers await, and I have never needed their clarity more than I do now.
The ancient halls of the fortress’s lower levels are seldom visited by any save the warrior caste. Here, the obsidian walls are unadorned, the crystalline veins pulsing with a deeper, slower rhythm that echoes the heartbeat of Zater itself. I move through them with practiced ease, my footsteps silent despite my size.
Three cycles of meditation have done little to center my thoughts. If anything, the forced stillness has only made me more acutely aware of the disruption in my usually ordered existence. Like a single discordant note in an otherwise perfect harmony, the courier’s presence reverberates through my consciousness.
I should assign her to Vex’ra’s care. It would be the logical course. The diplomatic.
Yet I find myself taking the path to her quarters instead.
The guards straighten as I approach, their posture shifting from alert to rigid attention. I acknowledge them with the barest inclination of my head.
“First Blade,” the senior guard greets me, hand pressed to chest in salute. “The human has been... restless.”
“Explain.”
“She has dismantled the serving droid,” he reports, a hint of discomfort in his otherwise formal tone.
This is... unexpected. “For what purpose?”
“Unknown, First Blade. She claimed it was ‘making a noise that would drive anyone insane.’ Her words.”
I suppress what might have been amusement in a lesser warrior. “Open the door.”
The guard complies, and I enter to find a scene of controlled chaos.
Suki kneels on the floor, surrounded by the disassembled components of what was once a domestic service droid. The unit is ancient—a relic from before the War of Shattered Moons, when such luxuries were common in Zaterran households. Itscrystalline core glows faintly, but the rest of its parts are scattered in what appears to be a methodical arrangement around her.
She doesn’t look up immediately, her focus absolute as she manipulates something in the droid’s central processor with a tool that appears to be fashioned from a hair ornament left by the attending females who prepared her upon arrival.
“If you’re here to yell at me about the robot,” she says without looking up, “in my defense, it was making this horrible grinding noise. Like metal being slowly tortured to death.”
Her ability to sense my presence without visual confirmation is... impressive.
“It is a serving droid,” I correct her. “Discontinued after the War of Shattered Moons. There are perhaps three functioning units left in existence.”
Now she does look up, her hazel eyes widening slightly. “Oh. Crap. Is this like, a priceless antique? Because I can totally put it back together.” She pauses, considering. “Probably. Most of it, anyway.”
I move closer, studying her work. Despite her improvised tools and unfamiliarity with Zaterran technology, her disassembly appears methodical, even skilled.
“You understand its mechanisms?” I ask, genuinely curious.
She shrugs, a casual gesture that somehow conveys both confidence and dismissal. “Not specifically. But tech is tech. This little guy’s basically just a glorified beverage dispenser with some rudimentary AI, right? The grinding was coming from his mobility core—the bearings are shot to hell.” She holds up a small, crystalline sphere. “See? Micro-fractures all through the structure. No wonder he sounds like he’s dying.”
I kneel beside her, bringing myself closer to her level, though I still tower over her smaller frame. The proximity allowsme to detect the faint scent of her—alien yet not unpleasant. Something sharp and clean, like the air after a lightning storm.
“The unit is over three hundred cycles old,” I inform her, taking the damaged component from her hand to examine it. Our fingers brush briefly, and I note the slight acceleration in her pulse at the contact. “Replacement parts do not exist.”
“Yeah, I figured.” She gestures to a small pile of discarded components. “That’s why I’m cannibalizing the non-essential functions to rebuild the critical ones. It won’t be able to tell those weird riddles anymore, but at least it’ll move without sounding like it’s being murdered.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You encountered its riddle function?”
“Oh yeah.” She rolls her eyes, a distinctly human expression of exasperation. “Before it started making death noises, it asked me something about ‘the tears of the void’ and ‘the breath of stars.’ I told it I was terrible at riddles, and it called me—” She pauses, frowning. “Actually, I’m not sure what it called me, but based on the tone, I’m pretty sure it was insulting my intelligence.”
The corner of my mouth twitches involuntarily. “The unit was programmed to provide mental stimulation as well as refreshment. Its... personality matrix was considered quite advanced for its time.”
“Well, its personality is intact. Snarky little thing.” She returns to her work, fingers moving with surprising dexterity as she reassembles a portion of the droid’s outer casing. “So, is this a social call, or are you here to escort me to my ship like you promised?”
