The Eclipsera Codex

3. Theron

The last time I saw Nyra Aelori, I smelled lightning and burning vocal cords.

Not metaphorically. Literally “Codex just dumped a whole choir through her throat and I had to hold a stormfield so the tower didn’t fall on us” levels of bad.

People like to talk about the Tower Operation like it was just “high-risk.” It wasn’t. It was stupid. Command shoved five operatives into a live Codex breach, handed us a half-finished resonance map, and told Nyra to “just stabilize it.” She did—because she’s her. It cost her voice, almost cost her mind, and I nearly flash-fried my channels keeping the stormfield from tearing apart.

So yeah, when Kaien said she was actually coming back, every nerve I’d scorched that day woke up.

Now we’re standing in Docking Bay Two of the Celestium Array, pretending this is normal.

The bay is all glass and light—Celadryn never does subtle. Starlight from the outer rings filters through the ceiling, hits the polished floor, makes everything shine and scream “do not bleed here.” Aetherion banners hang from the far wall. Two neat lines of security mechs idle along the docking rail. When Command reactivates an asset, they like a stage.

Kaien stands to my left, posture textbook, command carved into his spine. Eryndor’s on my right, somehow half in shadow in a room with almost none. Cassian leans on the railing like he bought tickets for this, a smile tucked at the corner of his mouth.

We all heard the same thing over comms: Aelorian transport on approach.

We all pretended it was just another incoming specialist.

It’s not.

“Stop bouncing,” Kaien says without looking at me.

“I’m not bouncing.”

“You’re bouncing.”

“It’s excitement,” I say. “Let me have this.”

“This is a recall,” he says. “Not a festival.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Cassian snorts. “He’s just mad he can’t open with ‘welcome back, Operative’ and have it sound hot.”

Kaien ignores him, which is the most Kaien thing possible.

I scrub a hand through my hair and try not to stare at the docking tunnel. “You think she got the ugly transport?”

“You mean the Aelorian crate?” Cassian asks. “Probably.”

“She likes those,” Eryndor says quietly. “Said once she trusted Aelorian engineers more.”

I glance at him. “You remember that?”

He gives me a look like it’s obvious. “I remember what she says.”

Something tightens low in my chest. I remember, too—the way she’d lean over a resonance slate, hair falling in her face, fingers tapping the table when she was listening to a frequency only she could hear.

The docking bay siren pulses once—clean, three-beat tone. Incoming.

I drag my eyes to the tunnel just in time to see the transport lock. It’s not pretty, but it’s distinct—Aelorian lines, sunstone plating, a little scuffed like it actively fought being polished. The ramp lowers.

Kaien’s shoulders straighten. So does everyone else’s. Aetherion protocol: asset arrives, command team awaits. No crowding, no grabbing, no personal reunions on the dock.

Annoying. Because every cell in me wants to walk right up that ramp and say, hey, Echo, you sound better? But this place loves rules. So: soldiers first.

She appears at the top of the ramp.

And yeah. It hits.

She hasn’t changed much—maybe a little leaner, like Aeloria was “training and side jobs” not “rest and vacation,” but still Nyra. Copper-gold hair pulled back in a practical braid, wisps loose from travel. Skin sun-warmed. Eyes sharp—gold-brown, always looking like she’s listening to light as much as sound. She’s in Aetherion black again and it fits like she never took it off: tailored jacket, high collar, resonance cuffs at her wrists. Dampener ring on her finger; I clock that before I even finish one breath.

She walks down like she’s already decided this is going to be stressful and she’s doing it anyway.

Behind her is Auren, carrying a small satchel like a good little courier. He looks relaxed. She looks like she’d kill for another hour of quiet.

She steps off the ramp and the air actually shifts. Not because she’s dramatic—because her resonance is that strong. Even dampened, it’s like the room tunes around her. Celadryn’s ambient hum smooths out, goes cleaner.

My throat tightens. Yeah. I missed that.

She stops the exact distance she’s supposed to—ten paces from us, Command ring centered.

“Echo-Warden Nyra Aelori, reporting as ordered,” she says.

Voice check: better. Rougher at the edges, deeper, but steady. If I hadn’t heard her scream-sing a Codex tower into submission, I wouldn’t know she’d ever been wrecked.

The ranking Array officer—some Celadryn pencil in Luminous trim—steps forward and gives her the formal nod. “Operative Aelori. Welcome back to Aetherion service.”

“Provisional,” she says, nice and mild.

“Provisional,” he agrees, lips twitching.

He launches into the protocol spiel—reactivation terms, Codex-class anomaly designation “Ecliphane,” immediate quarters assignment, debrief in an hour.

Nyra nods at all the right spots like she’s listening.

She’s not looking at us.

She clocked us the second she stepped off the ramp—I saw the micro-shift in her shoulders, the one extra pulse in her throat—but she’s doing the thing where she pretends we’re just furniture until the rules are satisfied.

Very her.

Cassian leans closer, voice barely a breath. “She looks good.”

“Understatement,” I mutter.

Kaien doesn’t comment, but his jaw flexes. Eryndor is watching her like a man cataloguing data, but I know him—he’s listening to her resonance, checking for cracks.

The Array officer finishes: “—and you will be working with your former unit for the duration of this anomaly.”

Nyra’s mouth curves, tiny. “So I heard.”

“Operative Varric is field lead.”

“I know,” she says. “He bends less than the others.”

That gets the barest hint of a smile from Kaien. For him, that’s practically a hug.

“Your quarters have been prepared,” the officer continues. “If you require medical recalibration—”

“I’m currently stable,” she says. “If that changes, I’ll report to Resonance.”

“Very good.” He steps aside, gestures. “Welcome back, Operative.”

She inclines her head. Then—finally—she looks at us.

Not long. Not soft. Just a sweep.

Me first—because I’m on the edge and I’m tall and bright and extremely not subtle. Her gaze catches, runs over my armour, the storm bracers, the same old grin I can’t shut down.

I give her the smallest two-finger salute. Nothing wild. Just hey.

Her mouth twitches like she wants to roll her eyes.

Then she looks at Eryndor. Stays there longer. Shadows recognize shadows. He dips his head; she dips hers back.

Cassian gets an actual smile—small, fast, unfair—because of course he does.

Then her eyes hit Kaien and stop.

There’s history there that doesn’t always reach the rest of us—Command calls, leadership, his hands on her shoulders as he dragged her out of a collapsing resonance field. He gives her a nod—neutral, respectful. She returns it, the barest lift of chin.

All of that in maybe three seconds.

Then she’s back to business. “Where’s the Codex data being held?”

“Array inner ring,” the officer says. “You’ll have access after debrief.”

“Then let’s get to debrief.”

She says it like she didn’t just see four men who would walk into live Veins for her.

She says it like she’s choosing the mission first.

Which… yeah. That’s Nyra.

I watch her walk, because I’m not made of stone.

She still moves like a fighter—weight balanced, every step aware of exits—but there’s still Aeloria in her hips, a little loose at the end of each stride. Her braid’s a bit uneven from the trip; there’s a faint pale line at her throat where her voice must’ve healed. I want to ask if it aches in cold air. I want to tell her I liked it better when she was yelling at me.

I don’t say any of that.

Because, again: Aetherion.

She falls in step with the officer, Auren just behind. She doesn’t look back.

My chest does a stupid little pull.

“Still breathing?” Cassian murmurs.

“Barely,” I say.

Kaien turns to us. “We’ve got forty minutes before debrief. Get cleaned up.”

“I’m already pretty,” I say.

“You’re sweaty from the corridor,” he says. “And you smell like scorched Crown and lightning.”

“Some women like that.”

“I’d like Command not to write us up.”

“Fine,” I sigh.

Eryndor’s still watching the doorway she left through. “She’s not fully recovered,” he says.

I straighten. “You hear something?”

“Not broken,” he says. “Just… restrained. She’s holding her resonance tighter than before.”

“So she doesn’t blow out,” Cassian says.

“So she doesn’t let us in,” Eryndor corrects.

Yeah. That tracks.

Nyra’s not stupid. She knows walking back into a room with four men who saw her nearly burn out is going to be… a lot. So she’s doing what she always does—lock it down, make it about the Codex, make it about the work.

Doesn’t mean the past isn’t still sitting here with us.

The Docking Bay starts breathing again. Techs move in to check the transport. Security fans out. Auren peels off toward admin corridors.

I stay a second longer, staring at the spot where she stood. My right arm aches, faint echo of the burn from Tower. It always wakes up when I think about that day.

I can still see it.

The tower room was smaller than Command’s renderings—crystal and glass, Codex script running like molten light. The Veins climbed the walls, humming too bright. Nyra stood dead center, eyes lit, voice lifted, taking the whole thing through her like she was built for it. Then it surged—not up, but out—a wave of sound that slammed into the stormfield I was holding.

I remember thinking, if I let this drop, she breaks.

So I didn’t.

I held. Even when my arms shook, even when my channels screamed, even when Cassian was yelling something about divergence and Kaien was hauling her back.

She collapsed.

We never got to talk about it.

Command sent us in different directions like kids being separated after a fight.

Now she’s in the same station as all of us again, and the people who did that think it’s going to be plug-and-play.

“Vale,” Kaien says.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t ambush her.”

I scoff. “Who, me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I’m not going to ambush her. I’m going to casually appear in her vicinity.”

“Theron.”

“Fine,” I say, throwing up a hand. “I’ll be good.”

Cassian laughs. “For fifteen minutes.”

Kaien heads for the exit, done with us for now. Eryndor fades out, probably straight into the Array’s shadow ducts. Cassian drifts toward a console to charm a tech into letting him see docking logs.

I hit the nearest wash bay, strip off the worst of the corridor grime, and try to look at least half-regulation. If Nyra’s going to walk into debrief looking like the Codex’s favourite daughter, I can at least not look feral.

By the time I make it to the inner ring briefing hall, Command has set the stage—long glass table, holo of the Ecliphane glyph spinning slowly above it, Aetherion crest burning on the far wall. Kaien’s already there, posture perfect. Eryndor’s claimed the darkest corner. Cassian’s pretending to read the data feed and absolutely not reading it.

Nyra walks in a second later with the Array officer.

She doesn’t look at us.

She goes straight to the table, hands clasped behind her back, eyes on the holo.

“Echo-Warden Aelori present,” she says.

Command nods. “Good. Let’s begin.”

I grin to myself.

Game on.