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Stories
95
Chapters
855
Words
1.6 M
Comments
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Reading
5 d, 11 h
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Ysra Vanguard Station is a floating fortress of militarized limestone, anchored in the upper stratosphere where the air is thin and biting cold. Rovan’s massive talons hit the central parade ground with a force that shatters the top layer of paving stones. We are immediately surrounded. Three hundred imperial soldiers form a perfect, hostile ring. Their violet-glowing gravity lances are trained entirely on the beast beneath me. Command General Vance stands at the head of the formation, his coat…-
9.1 K • Completed
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Ysra The derelict dreadnought Aegis is a ghost of rusted iron and silent cannons, drifting blindly through the static-charged mist of the cloud graveyard. At the helm, Rovan stands in the shape of a man. I watch the heavy muscles in his broad back shift beneath his rain-soaked shirt as he forces the massive brass steering wheel to port. He is tall, lethal, and entirely human. But the raw, weeping circular burns wrapping around his throat—the permanent brand of the iron bridle—mark him as the monster…
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9.1 K • Completed
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Ysra The descent into the core of Oakhaven is a suffocating crawl through the dark. This is my home. The island where I was born, the civilian sector I swore to protect. Now, moving through its subterranean maintenance shafts, the air pressure compresses my lungs until every breath is a shallow, ragged gasp. The limestone walls sweat with condensation and the metallic tang of old iron. My pulse hammers a frantic, deafening rhythm against my eardrums, syncing with the dull throb in my hollowed left…
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9.1 K • Completed
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Ysra The heavy iron lever slams downward with a definitive, metallic crack. For a single heartbeat, the vault is perfectly silent. Then, the central load-bearing strut disengages from the bedrock. The stasis fields holding the hundreds of stolen heart-scales flicker, turning from sickly violet to a dead, hollow grey. The buoyancy vanishes. Oakhaven drops. The floor falls out from beneath my boots. The sudden, violent loss of gravity throws me hard against the iron grating. A sickening, deafening crunch…
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9.1 K • Completed
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Ysra The sky above Oakhaven is no longer empty. It is crowded with the rusted, colossal hulls of the decommissioned imperial fleet. I lean against the limestone balcony of our newly built aerie, watching the massive steel cables pull taut against the dreadnoughts floating in the upper atmosphere. The arithmetic of the world has been entirely rewritten. We do not harvest heart-scales anymore. We stitch the ambient gravity of the storm directly into the dead iron of the warships, using their massive…
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9.1 K • Completed
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Three Hours Before the Fracture Ysra The first warning is not the siren. It is the cup on my desk becoming lighter in my hand. One moment the tin presses its ordinary weight into my palm. The next it lifts against my fingers, eager for the ceiling, while cold tea crawls over the rim in silver beads. Beneath my boots, the command tower gives a slow limestone groan. I set the cup down before it can float away and look through the observation glass. Oakhaven hangs in a field of morning gold, all white…
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9.1 K • Completed
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The limestone edge of the island fractures beneath my boots, spider-webbing outward in a spray of white dust. I don't look down at the eternal cloud sea churning a mile below. I throw myself off the crumbling ledge. Wind shrieks past my ears, biting like ice, tearing the breath from my lungs. Ten feet below the perimeter of the floating city, the gravity seam is glowing a diseased, volatile purple. It is tearing apart, the natural buoyancy of the island's stolen heart-scale failing against the immense…
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9.1 K • Completed
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Ysra The white dust of the shattered landing pad still clings to my uniform, caking in the sweat on my neck. My left forearm is a throbbing, useless weight, the bone inside turned to hollow glass. I cradle it tight against my ribs as Command General Vance marches across the cracked limestone, two armed guards flanking him. He doesn’t look at the ruin of the stone. He doesn’t look at the massive, feathered beast bleeding from the jaw twenty paces away. He only looks at me. "Gravity-stitcher…
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9.1 K • Completed
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The grey, dormant script on my sternum violently ignites. The heat sears through the dermal layer, a blistering crimson flare that illuminates the damp shadows of the archive. Click. The phantom lock inside my chest re-engages. The countdown resumes, the heavy, rhythmic thud echoing the frantic spiking of my pulse. The Faceless Patron has reestablished the connection. The brief, breathless sanctuary we carved into the stone is gone. Above us, the ceiling groans. The destruction of the quartz relay did…-
11.1 K • Completed
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The kinetic cage of solid shadow is absolute zero. It presses against my skin, driving a freezing paralysis deep into my marrow, neutralizing my magic on contact. I kneel on the recessed floor of the pit, looking up through the dark, thrumming bars of energy. Nera stands at the edge. The heavy iron command-token rests in her hand, ripped from my chest. She does not gloat. She does not need her voice to project her absolute, devastating realization. The betrayal radiates from the rigid line of her…
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11.1 K • Completed
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