Page 72 of Sixth
“The heart of the galaxy awakens,” she said, her voice echoing. “My planet, Echo Light, does not belong to the Council.”
Apex looked up at her, awe flickering across his hard features. “Lume, what are you?”
“I have fully matured,” she answered. “My planet will act now. The corruption the Council poured into my world willreturn to those who birthed it. Its light will answer only truth and repay the darkness with justice. Those who are righteous will remain. Those who are corrupted will not.”
She drew her wings in and then unfurled them in a slow sweep that sent ripples of color across the floor. The waves of light passed harmlessly through people, leaving them untouched, but when the glow met the sigils, insignia, and devices powered by corruption, it reacted violently.
Smoke rose from engravings and seals marked by deceit while untainted armor and pure metals shone brighter. The cleansing light destroyed only the symbols of the corrupt—those who had profited from pain—leaving the innocent untouched. The nearest Council sigil turned grey and then black. The crest over the central arch dimmed and cracked, its false authority undone.
A chorus rose with her, faint and many voiced, athousand threads of sound woven together. It slipped into her bones and took root there. It wasn’t music only. It was a remembering. The planet was alive and had chosen to speak through the small, winged creature who’d loved them first.
“Hear me,” Lume said, and the screens across every wall came alive.
Core took that opening and poured truth into every channel.“Transmission begins. The Nine Galaxies will observe. The chain of evidence is secure.”
Images flared. Testimonies rolled. The faces of stolen women. The lists of vanished names. Voss roaring at a subordinate in a corridor of polished stone. The ledger of trades. The signatures of Councilors who pretended innocence while they counted the profit. Worlds watched. Armies watched.Civilians paused in markets and mines and kitchens and turned toward the nearest screen. Fury woke like fire in dry fields.
Ships decloaked outside the citadel. Hundreds. Then thousands. Intergalactic Warriors answered the call. Their marks blazed through the void like constellations. Beacons aligned into a spiral above the dome. The spiral matched the geometry of the Valenmark. It turned slowly, acrown of living light.
Inside, the remaining guards lowered their weapons. One by one at first. Then in lines. The ones who did not lower them found their triggers dead and their suits unresponsive. Lume’s light had threaded into their systems and made a decision forthem.
The Councilors clung to the steps of the dais like creatures who had never learned to stand without walls. The central figure tried to lift his hand to speak. His voice broke. No soundcame.
Apex walked toward the throne. He passed through the haze of spent fire, through the glitter of shattered glass. He didn’t look right or left. He mounted the last steps and stood before the seat of power. The throne shimmered faintly, an old mind learning a new instruction. He reached out and set his palm to itsarm.
Light surged.
It rose through him and through her and through every bond in the chamber. It ran through the floor like veins and up the walls like vines made of dawn. The Valenmarks flared white. For a breath the world held still while every heart fell into one rhythm. Emmy’s lungs forgot how to move and then remembered in the same instant, as if lungs that had always been two now decided to beone.
Core’s voice echoed through the storm.“Command chain open.”
Apex’s voice rose, deep and resonant. “If the law can be broken by greed, then it was never law. The Intergalactic Warriors stand for truth, not tyranny. We stand for unity. For love.”
The throne’s light fought. Then yielded. The Council crest fractured with a soft crack that sounded louder than thunder. In its place, anew seal formed. The intertwined sigils of every warrior pair. Lines of silver and gold woven into a pattern that joined each of their sigils into one great pattern of unity. The chamber erupted in brilliance. The Councilors fell to their knees. Their insignia faded. Outside, the fleets sent a single answering pulse that flashed across the spiral and down through thedome.
The world became radiance.
Tears slicked Emmy’s cheeks. Heat washed through her, bright and clean. Lume’s wings unfurled one final time and shed a thousand motes that fell like stars. The motes touched armor and skin and stone and lit all three from within. The motes touched the bodies of the women who had been taken and turned their fear to strength that wouldn’t be taken again.
“The balance is restored,” Lume whispered. “Remember me in the light.”
Her outline dissolved. Color unspooled and dissolved into the air until only a shimmer remained. That shimmer rose toward the broken dome. It sank into the spiral of ships like water drawn into a living sea. The spiral brightened.
The throne’s radiance dimmed. Apex stood upon the dais, chest slow, eyes unguarded. He turned to Emmy. Every step hetook toward her seemed to teach the floor a new way to hold weight. She couldn’t breathe for a moment. Then she could.
He reached for her. His fingers brushed her cheek, rough and warm. The touch sank deep and steadied places that had not known steadiness until him. “You were my light in the dark,” hesaid.
Her breath trembled. The past and the war and the ship and every fear that had chased her since the auction fell quiet for the space of a heartbeat. “Then stay where you belong.”
He lowered his head and kissed her. The kiss was not frenzy. It was grateful and sure, like a promise spoken aloud so the universe would not pretend it had not heard. Light moved over their skin and burned through the thin places between two bodies that had already decided to be one. The hall gleamed brighter, every spark answering their joined pulse.
Above, the citadel’s roof opened to the stars. The fleets drifted in perfect order. Every ship’s beacon settled into place until the sky itself wore a crown. The crown’s slow turn cast light across the broken city and found new paths to travel.
Core’s voice, quiet now, carried through the chamber.“Alignment complete. New law recognized.”
Apex drew back only far enough to look into her eyes. His hand remained at her jaw as if he refused to surrender even that small touch. “One law,” he murmured.
She smiled through heat and tears. “No. Two.”
