The one-week ultimatum fell over the makeshift lab like a shroud. The frantic energy of experimentation was replaced by a grim, focused desperation. Every tick of the Kronos's ancient chronometer was a countdown to Kaelen's dissection.
Lyra's idea of a conduit became their sole obsession. Kael, the master of metal and mechanics, and Lyra, the theorist of esoteric energy, worked in a silence broken only by the whir of tools and the sharp hiss of the welding torch. Kaelen watched them, a prisoner in his own body, the subject of their furious race against time.
The device taking shape on Kael's workbench was a thing of brutal, strange beauty. It was not a gentle prosthetic. It was a gauntlet, forged from a matte-grey, non-conductive ceramic alloy scavenged from the Ghost Liner's interior. Etched into its surface were fine, capillary-like channels that glowed with a faint, captured bioluminescence—a stabilizing agent Lyra had synthesized from the very moss of the Glowing Mangroves. At the palm and the tips of each finger were intricate, interlocking plates of a shimmering, crystalline material that was not of the Weep, but a synthetic quartz designed to resonate with its energy signature.
"This is the regulator," Lyra explained, her fingers trembling slightly as she held the finished gauntlet. Her eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep. "The theory is that it will sync with the crystals in your hand. It won't stop the energy from building, but when it reaches a certain threshold, these plates will align and create a controlled discharge pathway. It should bleed the power off before it can reach a critical, volatile state."
"It should?" Kaelen asked, his voice flat.
"It's a theory," Kael rasped, not looking up from the micro-calibrations he was performing with a tool finer than a needle. "The alternative is the Gleaner containment team. They will not be gentle."
The two Gleaner observers, Cora and Finn, stood at their usual post by the door. Their mirrored visors gave nothing away, but Kaelen could feel the weight of their judgment. They were witnessing a last, desperate gamble.
"Are you ready?" Lyra asked.
He wasn't. He was terrified. The memory of Jax slamming into the wall was a fresh wound. But the image of a Gleaner dissection table was sharper. He nodded.
The procedure was not surgical, but it was intimate and horrifying. The gauntlet was not simply strapped on. Lyra applied a cold, clear gel to his wrist and the base of the gauntlet.
"This is a bonding agent," she said quietly. "It will form a temporary psio-conductive seal. It will feel... strange."
Strange was a profound understatement. As the gel solidified, Kaelen felt a sudden, violent tug deep within the bones of his arm. It was as if the gauntlet was a magnet and the crystals in his hand were iron filings. A wave of nausea washed over him. The synthetic quartz plates on the gauntlet began to glow, first a soft blue, then brightening to a stark white that mirrored the light in his own flesh.
A low hum filled the room, emanating from the device. The fine, glowing channels pulsed in time with his heartbeat. He could feel it—a new pressure, a structured pathway where before there had only been a chaotic, boiling potential. It was like a raging river suddenly being forced into a sluice gate.
"Initial sync is stable," Kael reported, his optical device zooming in on the interface between flesh and machine. "Energy levels are holding."
"For now," Finn, one of the Gleaners, commented, his voice a toneless buzz through his helmet's speaker. It was the first time either of them had spoken in days.
For the next three days, they tested him. Lyra would present him with stressors—sudden loud noises, complex mental puzzles, even bringing in a small, captured creature from the Weep that made his senses recoil. Each time, he felt the surge of power, the instinctual panic. Each time, the gauntlet responded. The plates would shift with a faint, crystalline click, and the built-up energy would dissipate in a visible, shimmering heat-haze from the palm plate, harmless and controlled. It was exhausting, like constantly holding a deep breath and then letting it out slowly, over and over.
He wasn't cured. The mutation was still there, a constant, painful presence. But for the first time since the Spirehold grotto, he felt a semblance of control. It was a leash, yes, but it was a leash he could hold.
On the fifth day, Elara entered the lab. She had given them space, but her presence now was a reminder of the ticking clock. She looked at the gauntlet on his arm, her expression unreadable.
"Can he use it?" she asked, bypassing any pleasantries.
"He can regulate," Lyra said, a defensive note in her voice. "The volatile outbursts are contained."
"I didn't ask if he could be a stable power source," Elara said, her gaze fixed on Kaelen. "I asked if he can use it. Can he navigate? Can he sense the Weep through that thing? Or have you just put a muffler on a broken engine?"
Kaelen met her eyes. "I can still feel it. The Weep. It's... muffled, but it's there. The gauntlet channels the energy, but it doesn't block the connection." He focused, reaching out with his mind. The chorus of the Kronos's crew was a distant buzz, but beyond the metal hull, he could feel the slow, patient pulse of the plains, the distant, screaming energy of the Glowing Mangroves. "I can still navigate."
Elara studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "Good. Then it's time for a field test. We're moving out. There's a Gleaner listening post two days from here. Abandoned since the Cataclysm, according to our maps. If it's intact, its data-core could hold navigation charts that would shave months off our search for your cure." She glanced at the Gleaner observers. "Your Preceptor wants progress. He'll get it. We leave in one hour."
The field test was not a gentle reintroduction to the world. They traveled in a rugged, six-wheeled scout vehicle, its engine a loud roar in the quiet of the plains. Kaelen sat in the back, the gauntlet heavy on his arm, the quartz plates occasionally flickering as he worked to maintain his focus against the jarring motion and the psychic "noise" of the machine.
The listening post was a squat, concrete bunker half-buried in a hillside, its surface scoured by wind and time. The entrance was a massive, rusted blast door, sealed shut.
"Can you feel anything?" Elara asked, her voice low. "Is it clear?"
Kaelen closed his eyes, pushing past the hum of the scout's engine. He reached out with his senses. The bunker was a dead zone, a silence in the Weep's song. But it wasn't an empty silence. It was a watchful one.
"There's something inside," he said, his eyes snapping open. "It's not the Weep. It's... a residue. Anger. Fear. It's old, but it's potent."
Jax, who had insisted on coming despite his bandaged ribs, hefted his crossbow. "Scrap-Takers? Weep-Touched?"
"Neither," Kaelen said, his gauntlet-hand tingling. "It's colder. It feels like the Ghost Liner, but... hungrier."
Elara made a decision. "We're going in. Kaelen, you're on point. Your new toy gives you the best early warning system. Lyra, you're with him. Jax, watch our backs."
Using a combination of plasma cutters and brute force, they breached the blast door. The air that sighed out was frigid and stale, carrying the scent of dust, ozone, and something else—something metallic and dry, like old blood.
The interior was a tomb. Banks of dead computer terminals lined the walls, their screens dark and cracked. Desks were littered with the dust-covered artifacts of a lost world: coffee mugs, data-slates, a child's drawing tucked under a keyboard.
Kaelen led the way, his senses stretched taut. The "residue" was stronger here, a psychic stain of panic and final moments. He could almost hear the echoes of screams, of shouted orders.
They reached the central server room. And there, they found the source of the hunger.
It was not a creature of flesh and blood. It was a swirling, sentient cloud of nanites, a legacy of the old world's final, desperate defense systems. They were grey, like liquid metal, and they moved with a single, chilling purpose: disassembly. They had consumed the room, stripping wires from the walls, reducing chairs to their base molecules, and hovering over the central data-core like a swarm of metallic piranha.
"A Scrap-Devil," Jax breathed, raising his weapon. "I thought they were a myth."
The moment he spoke, the swarm reacted. It coalesced, forming a shifting, humanoid shape that lunged at them with blinding speed.
"Kaelen!" Elara yelled.
Instinct took over. Kaelen raised his gauntleted hand. He didn't try to blast it; he focused on the regulator, on the concept of repulsion. He poured his fear, his will to survive, into the conduit.
The gauntlet responded. The quartz plates flared not with a beam, but with a sustained, high-frequency pulse. A visible wave of distorted air shot forward and struck the nanite swarm.
The effect was immediate. The swarm shuddered, its cohesion broken. The nanites lost their collective purpose, scattering like dust in the wind, falling to the floor as inert, metallic sand.
The server room was silent once more.
Kaelen stood panting, his arm trembling from the effort. He had controlled it. He had used the power, not as a wild explosion, but as a precise tool.
Elara looked from the pile of dead nanites to Kaelen, a slow, genuine smile spreading across her face for the first time since the mangroves. "Now that is progress."
As Lyra moved to interface with the data-core, Kaelen looked down at the gauntlet. It was no longer just a leash. It was a hilt. And for the first time, he felt like he was learning how to hold the sword.