Chapter 285
It happens all at once—too fast to process, too massive to ignore.
The battle’s slipping out of our hands.
Lile’s ice halberd screams as it slices through the air again, barely missing Wake’s face. Elanora throws another wave of pressure at Miore, who’s already breathing hard, the ice forming slower beneath his fingers. Cora’s shield generator sparks and dies on her wrist with a loud pop, leaving her exposed. Arista’s twin blades clash with a ripple of water, deflecting a killing blow at the last second.
We’re not losing, not yet.
But we will.
They’re better. Not smarter, not braver—but more prepared. They’ve trained for this kind of war. We’ve been surviving. That’s a different skillset entirely, and it’s not enough right now.
Tyler grips me tighter behind cover, one hand hovering over his weapon, the other bracing me like I might fade. He’s probably right. I can barely lift my head. Everything buzzes with leftover energy, but none of it’s mine anymore. I gave too much. And Lily’s machine took more.
Then a sound cuts through it all.
Not a blast. Not a scream.
A note.
Low and ancient, haunting and terrible.
And it’s Delphi.
She steps forward from behind the crates, her bare feet making no sound on the cold metal. Her braid has unraveled, strands of glowing hair whipping around her like she’s underwater even though she isn’t. Her eyes burn white-blue, not like electricity, but like the birth of stars.
She opens her mouth.
The second note lands like a hammer.
The air cracks. Metal shrieks. A wall fractures. Lile stumbles, clutching his ears. Elanora recoils, her next attack dying on her lips as blood drips from her nose.
Delphi doesn’t stop.
She sings.
It’s not a song like anything human. It’s not music, exactly. It’s command. It’s power given form. Her voice reaches into the bones of the structure, into the wiring, the walls, the very air. She’s not just projecting sound—she’s waking something.
“She’s doing it,” Cora breathes from across the room, stunned. “She’s using the Voice of Ages.”
Delphi’s melody pierces the air again, this time higher—more focused. Lile tries to strike her, his halberd reforming into a javelin of jagged frost. He throws it.
It never reaches her.
The sound shatters it midair.
Tiny ice shards rain down around her, harmless.
Elanora lunges again, teeth bared.
Delphi doesn’t even look at her.
She sings again, this time a low thrumming hum, and the floor beneath Elanora collapses, as if the metal itself just decided it had had enough of being solid.
The room shakes. The alarms that had been quietly blaring go silent.
Wake doesn’t wait. “Move!” he shouts, and the crew does.
Miore hauls Cora to her feet. Arista slings Silo’s arm over her shoulders. Peter pulls Tylerler toward the loading ramp, me still in his arms. Everything’s moving at once now, and Delphi—Delphi makes it happen.
She doesn’t stop singing.
Instead, she turns toward the far side of the docking bay. Past the chaos. Past the ruined consoles and sparking walls.
To the medical stasis tanks.
The ones holding the podded Enkians.
They glow faintly, all eight of them, lined up like coffins waiting for a verdict. I’d seen them before. Shoal’s trophies. Test subjects, he'd said. “Volunteers,” Lily claimed.
Delphi’s song changes. It dips into a new register, and I feel the shift—not just in the air, but in me.
This is no longer battle.
This is awakening.
Her voice threads through the crystals embedded in the tanks, vibrates through the glass like sonar. The pods begin to glow brighter. I see shapes inside—long, sinuous bodies, silver skin, unfamiliar patterns. Some with fins, some with sharp bone crests, some humanoid. All of them Enkian.
One of the tanks hisses. Steam leaks from the sides.
Then another.
Then all of them.
The locks begin to disengage with sharp clunks, one after the next, and the water inside drains with a rhythmic thoom, thoom, thoom, like a heartbeat reawakening after too long asleep.
The Enkians inside begin to move.
Not sluggishly. Not groggily.
With purpose.
Delphi steps back, her song softening now, like a whisper of encouragement, a mother coaxing children from bed. Her hands tremble, her glow dimming, but she stays upright. Barely.
The first pod opens. A figure steps out—tall, sleek, armor fused to skin like organic plating. His eyes glow faintly in the dark. He looks around, and when he sees Delphi, he bows.
“Voice,” he says.
The rest follow suit.
Eight soldiers from a forgotten war. Eight bodies returned to the fight.
Cora rushes to them without hesitation, already directing two toward the control station. “We need cover fire and clearance paths. Now. West corridor, then the launch platforms.”
Miore and Arista herd the rest of us toward the exit.
I glance back from Tyler’s arms.
Lile is trying to rise. His skin is cracked with frost and blood. He looks at Delphi like he doesn’t understand what she is. Like she’s something outside his training. Outside his nightmares.
She meets his eyes as the last note fades.
And for a moment, all I see in her face is pity.
Then we’re moving again.
Down the ramp. Past the ruptured bay doors. Into the hallway systems that should’ve been filled with Lily’s army.
But they’re not.
The song still lingers, thrumming through the air like a lullaby wrapped in steel. The mentally-altered soldiers—those biohacked footsoldiers, those mind-locked enforcers—are nowhere to be seen. If they’re still inside the building, they’re either hiding or sleeping. The melody holds them like a spell.
Delphi falls in behind us, her strength flagging, her glow now barely visible. Peter slips under one of her arms, keeping her upright without a word.
Wake meets my eyes as we move down the corridor. His chest is heaving, his shirt scorched, his knuckles bloodied.
But his face says everything.
This was our only shot.
And somehow… Delphi gave it to us.
“Let’s get to the ship,” he says. “Before the spell breaks.”
No one argues.
The gods may be old.
But Delphi?
She just reminded us they aren’t dead yet.
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