Page 28 of Vylit: Glowing for Her
My hearts, which had felt near collapse, now hammered so hard I thought it might split me in half. The bruised colors on my chest bloomed into white-hot halos of light. I tried to control it, to keep my composure, but the relief and awe crashed through my body in tidal pulses.
The ancient judge’s eyes flickered with surprise and something like respect. "Do you claim this warrior, Maya Poe, of your own volition?"
"I do," she said, and the words ripped through the crowd like a quake. "No one forced me to bond. I chose. And I am choosing now… here, in front of the world, I choose Vylit."
A scream erupted from the Agency’s section, the jelly-mass exec bubbling and convulsing in its containment field. The humanoid mouthpiece tried to speak, but the translation patch shorted, and all that came out was a thin whine.
Elder Ustred leaned back, every light in his body now trained on the Agency reps. "So recorded. The human is bonded by choice, and the Registry stands corrected."
The chamber exploded in a riot of sound. Every judge, every witness, every petty bureaucrat started shouting, demanding to know what this meant for the treaties, the pairings, the entire economy of the Agency. The echo was a physical force, the air thick with the spray of a million questions and accusations.
But all I could see was Maya.
She was shaking. The energy it took to stand up to the tribunal, to tell off the Agency, had left her raw and exposed. I reached for her, tentatively, not daring to overstep after all that had been said.
She took my hand. Clung to it, like a lifeline.
"I’m sorry," she whispered, so low only I could hear. "I didn’t mean to?—"
I quieted her the only way I could, with a hand to her face. A wordless, frantic joy poured out of me in an aurora of color. My marks touched hers, and the resonance that sparked between us made the whole reef shudder.
There would be consequences. The Agency would fight back, the pirates would come, the world would keep spinning its webs of deceit. But for that single, impossible moment, the center held.
"Let the record show," Elder Ustred intoned over the riot, "that the ancient law of consent is upheld. The bond is valid. The Biolock is now required."
I blinked, suddenly aware of the ceremonial step I’d nearly forgotten. The Biolock… final, irreversible, no going back for either of us. Once sealed, the bond would withstand not only the courts and the registries, but also anything else that threatened to separate us..
"Do you accept the Biolock, Maya Poe?" Ustred asked, this time with a hint of curiosity.
She squeezed my hand, hard. Her eyes blazed with determination. "Yes."
I led her forward, up to the dais where the ritual was performed. The mosses here were not ordinary… these were Ancestor strains, living threads that stored the collective memory of our species. As we placed our hands on the central node, it writhed and wrapped around our wrists, biting deep enough to draw blood and memory both.
The pain was sharp but fleeting. The real sensation was in the bond itself… an electric surge that overwrote every lingering doubt, every fear. My name and hers wove together in the living archive. I felt the whole of Mavtros recognize us, stamp us, accept us. Maya swayed a little, her face pale but steady.
"It is done," Elder Ustred said, his voice resonant with finality. "The first human-Mavtrosian Biolock is sealed."
The crowd went silent, and then, slowly, the applause started. First from the judges, then from the witnesses, until the entire chamber was vibrating with the rhythmic pulse of acceptance. Even the Agency execs, outnumbered and outgunned, could only stand and watch as the future they’d tried to rig collapsed before their eyes.
I looked at Maya, and for the first time in my life, I had no words. Only light. Only the unbreakable, living strand that now joined us.
Later, there would be trouble. There always was. But for that one, perfect heartbeat, I was whole.
For the first time, I realized what it meant to be more than a Last Warrior, more than a symbol or a weapon.
I was hers.
And she had saved me.
CHAPTER 13
MAYA
At last, the tribunal and its crushing weight of judgment were behind us. Vylit led me up through the spiraling coral arches to the highest observation scallop. My legs still trembled from standing before those ancient, glowing judges, their eyes dissecting me like I was nothing more than an interesting specimen. The moss-liner clung to my skin, prickling with anticipation as we emerged into open air. Below us, the ocean spread endless and wild, while above, the night sky burned with a comet shower that painted Vylit's translucent skin in flashes of silver and blue. His hand remained firm at the small of my back, steadying me as we stepped onto the curved platform. For the first time since the violet tide had swallowed me back on Earth, there was silence… no pirates, no tribunals, no envoys with clipboards and disapproving stares, just the two of us breathing the same air in peace.
I curled into him on the moss curve, my body fitting against his like it had been designed for that purpose. The living material beneath us puffled with contentment, forming a perfect hollow for our bodies. Vylit's arm encircled me, his massive hand spanning my waist, the heat of him burning through the thin moss-liner. We watched the comets streak fire across the sky, silent meteorites that carved momentary gashes of light against the darkness.
"I was empty before you," he whispered, the words dropping into the quiet like stones into still water. His biolights dimmed to a soft, pulsing blue that matched the rhythm of my own heartbeat. "For cycles, I searched. The Registry matched many potentials, but none... none felt right."
