Page 10 of Galactic Sentinels: Vol 2
He takes her, cradling her tight.
“I’ll take care of them,” he says to Paviok. “Please… let us go.”
“You’re no threat,” Paviok replies. “You’re not Srebats. You’re burdens.”
“We’ll stay out of your way. I swear it.”
“What’s your age, boy?”
“Twelve. Noviosk is seven. The baby—barely one.”
Paviok studies us. Then he sighs.
“Shame. A true Srebat never begs.”
Bartiosk lifts the baby.
Paviok strikes.
Bartiosk falls.
The baby tumbles from his arms.
“She was already dead,” Paviok says. “And the boy? I’d be a fool to let him grow up.”
I lunge at him.
He knocks me out with a single blow.
Through the haze, I see my mother’s throat open, her life pouring out.
A soldier approaches.
“What about the survivors?”
“Kill them all,” Paviok says. “Except this one. I’ll raise him right. He’s young. He’ll forget.”
Return to Present.
But I didn’t forget. Not anymore.
The moment Danayat died like my mother did—I remembered everything.
Paviok said he saved me. He said my family died.
He never lied. But he twisted the truth into a prison I couldn’t see. He built me in his image. Cold. Detached. Efficient. But he underestimated the one rule he taught me:
Attachment is weakness.
And he… got attached.
I look at him now—my mentor, my killer, the man who called me son.
“You trained me well, Master,” I say. “I’m everything you hoped for.”
He stands taller, proud. He doesn’t see the blade. He opens his arms—an embrace, for once in his life.
I step into it.
