Chapter 6: The Quiet Before the Fall
1282 Words
The evening air shimmered with the sterile chill of New Lux. From their penthouse suite atop the Obsidian Tower, Elena stood at the window, watching the skyline pulse with light. Down below, Valkor’s mechanised patrols moved in efficient formations, a quiet reminder of the control they wielded over the city’s heartbeat.
Damian had been gone since morning. Again.
Elena crossed her arms as the window’s glass subtly adjusted tint, casting the room in a blue-tinged glow. She no longer asked where he went or whom he met. The man who once called her his compass had turned into a shadow, operating in silences and secrets. Sometimes, she wondered if she’d ever really known him at all.
The sound of the biometric lock disengaging pulled her from thought. She turned slowly as the door hissed open and Damian stepped in, suit crisp, expression unreadable. His steel-grey eyes flicked over her once before he loosened his collar and dropped a black data
chip onto the coffee table.
“No message today?” Elena asked lightly, voice smooth, though her spine had gone rigid. “Not even a hello?”
Damian’s lips curled slightly. “I didn’t know we were counting pleasantries now.”
“You used to.” She walked to the table, brushing her fingers over the edge of the chip. “What’s this?”
“Mission data. Northern sector. You asked for updates on the rogue tech groups.”
She didn’t remember asking. Not recently. But she said nothing.
Instead, she picked up the chip and turned it between her fingers. “You’re avoiding me.”
“I’m managing a war,” he replied coolly. “Against four rival syndicates, three collapsing sectors, and our board of directors. Forgive me if I haven’t sent roses.”
“You’ve stopped sending anything,” she said softly. “Even your words.”
He stepped closer then, his presence sharp and commanding. “What exactly do you want from me, Elena? We have power. Legacy.
You command half the fleet. You sit on the strategy council. What more do you need?”
She met his eyes without flinching. “You.”
There it was — the moment she hadn’t dared to speak aloud. Not for weeks. Maybe months.
Damian’s gaze darkened. “Then perhaps you’re forgetting what this alliance was meant to be. We built Valkor to change the world. Not to play house.”
“And we didn’t build it alone,” she countered. “I was there in the trenches with you, Damian. When this was still an idea scrawled on the back of a ration slip. Don’t reduce me to a symbol now.”
His jaw tightened. The silence that followed wasn’t empty — it was lethal.
Then, without warning, his hand cupped her cheek, the touch gentle, almost reverent. “You’re more than a symbol,” he murmured. “But symbols don’t get to have doubt, Elena. They don’t get to fall apart.”
She didn’t lean into the touch.
Instead, she turned her face slightly, letting his fingers fall away. “Then maybe I’m tired of being one.”
He stepped back, exhaling through his nose as he scanned the room, not in frustration, but as though assessing a perimeter. “I need to prepare for tomorrow’s briefing. Sector Thirteen’s rebellion is escalating again.”
“You said you crushed them last month.”
“Rebellions have a habit of returning from the ashes.”
His words hung between them, too sharp to be a coincidence.
Like I would.
Damian left the room without another glance. The door sealed behind him with the softest hiss — and for some reason, that sound cut deeper than any of his words.
Later that night, Elena lay in bed alone, watching the ceiling shimmer with dimmed sensor lights. Her thoughts raced — not just of Damian, but of the silences around him. Of the passwords changed. Of the empty office drawer that used to contain their original Valkor charter.
She wasn’t paranoid. She was careful. There was a difference.
Slipping out from under the sheets, she moved to the secured comms terminal in her study and activated the interface.
A familiar voice answered after only one ring. “Commander Drakov.”
“I need a trace run,” Elena said quietly. “Three names. All connected to Valkor’s outer contracts. I want full movements, financials, and surveillance pulls. I want to know if Damian has authorised anything I haven’t seen.”
“Understood. Is this… personal?”
She paused. Then: “No. It’s protocol.”
She ended the call and leaned back in the seat, staring into the dim blue glow of the screen.
The following day brought a different kind of chill. Elena accompanied Damian to the summit held in the Senate Quadrant of New Lux, where their rivals smiled with poison-tipped grace. She wore black — sleek and silent, with her hair pulled into a braided crown, each strand pinned with micro-sensors disguised as decorative clips.
She was no longer just a strategist. She was a sentry.
During the summit, she watched Damian speak with veiled threats and poised civility. His voice, the one that once whispered dreams into her ear, now echoed with empire and execution.
Senator Veylor — father of Cassian — leaned toward her during the recess.
“Your husband speaks well,” he murmured.
“He always has.”
“But speaking and meaning aren’t the same, are they?”
Elena turned her gaze toward him, spine straight. “Is there something you’d like to say, Senator?”
“Only this,” he said, sipping his drink. “The greater the empire, the greater the fear of its fall. I’ve seen what Damian is willing to do to keep his crown.”
She didn’t reply. Couldn’t.
Because deep down, she’d started to fear that same truth.
Back in the Obsidian Tower that night, the lights flickered once.
It was subtle. A hiccup. But Elena noticed.
In Valkor, nothing flickered unless someone wanted it to.
She made her way to the control centre on floor forty-nine — a restricted level, supposedly under security lockdown for upgrades. But she had clearance. She had always had clearance.
What she found when the doors slid open made her blood run cold.
A private vault, biometric-sealed — with her husband’s signature encoded into the core. Inside, rows of files, data logs… and
schematics.
Of her.
Of her body.
Implant maps. Blood temperature regulators. Neural activity charts.
And a file labelled: Failsafe Protocol: Unit DRAK-1.
She didn’t realise she was shaking until she heard footsteps behind her.
“Elena,” Damian’s voice was quiet — too quiet. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
She turned, pulse pounding, eyes unreadable.
“And yet here I am.”
He didn’t look surprised. Only disappointed.
“Some things are necessary precautions.”
“You embedded a kill switch in me.”
“I embedded a failsafe,” he said calmly. “To protect everything we’ve built. In case you ever… forgot who we are.”
“No,” she said, voice like ice. “In case you forgot who I was.”
He took a step toward her. “We can still fix this.”
“You can’t fix betrayal.”
Silence stretched. The tension coiled.
Then, she walked past him, deliberately brushing his shoulder with hers as she passed.
“Goodnight, Damian.”
She didn’t look back.
But as she entered the lift, she knew something inside her had finally cracked — not loud, not obvious — but deep. Like a blade being pulled from its sheath.
She was not gone yet.
- Writer
