The Quiet Before the Storm
The Red Radiant drifted silently through free space,
the neon of Havoc's Bastion shrinking behind them like a dying ember.
Inside the ship, the mood was… wrong.
Tense.
Heavy.
Jaxen lay in the Radiant's medbay —
sweating, feverish, muttering in his sleep.
Bandages wrapped around his chest and arms,
his breath ragged despite Plo's best efforts.
Drex curled protectively near him, growling softly whenever anyone came too close.
The Diagnosis
Plo hovered over Jaxen's biomonitors,
her face twisted in rare frustration.
"The fever should have broken by now," she muttered, scanning him again.
"Cellular degeneration… toxin traces… but no biochemical match in known medical databases."
She tapped furiously at her slate.
Kaelen stood nearby, arms crossed.
"What's wrong?" he asked quietly.
Plo shook her head, ears drooping slightly.
"It's not normal poison. It's something else."
Iselyra leaned against the doorway, her arms folded, watching grimly.
Zaraya stepped closer, voice low but urgent.
"Give it to me straight, Plo."
Plo closed her eyes for a moment.
"He was poisoned during the match.
The source is… magic in nature."
Silence fell across the room.
"You mean cursed," Kaelen said flatly.
Plo nodded reluctantly.
"If we don't find a specialist — a true healer or mage-doctor — soon…"
She didn't finish.
She didn't need to.
Realization
Zaraya clenched her fists.
Jaxen, stubborn, sarcastic, brave —
one of them —
was slipping away under their watch.
And she wasn't about to let that happen.
"Alright," Zaraya said, her voice steel. "We find a healer. Fast."
Plo brightened slightly.
"I may have a lead," she said, flipping through her research notes. "There's a minor outpost two jumps from here — an independent station orbiting the shattered moon of Elvara Prime.
Rumors say a wandering healer has been living there. A former battlefield medic with… unusual abilities."
"Unusual how?" Iselyra asked, raising an eyebrow.
Plo shrugged.
"Some say he was touched by the old gods. Others say he's a fraud.
Regardless, he's our best chance."
Setting the Course
Zaraya moved without hesitation, striding toward the helm.
Kaelen followed silently, a dark guardian.
Iselyra paused for a heartbeat longer —
looking back at Jaxen, then Plo —
before pushing off the wall and falling into step.
Drex stayed behind in the medbay —
curled around Jaxen like a silent sentinel.
The Red Radiant's engines flared to life.
A new course plotted:
Elvara Prime —
and the healer hidden in the ruins of the Shattered Moon.
Meanwhile…
Far from the Red Radiant,
in the ruins of the Wrecked Light Belt,
something stirred.
A fracture pulsed.
And unseen hands moved ancient pieces on a cosmic board,
aligning fate, death, and treasure.
The Dawnbreakers' story was growing.
And so was the darkness hunting them