The Eyes That Watch
Gravemarket didn't greet him.
It studied him.
Sky moved through the upper grid deck like a pressure anomaly wrapped in boots and quiet. Shadows clung to the scaffold rails. Whispers didn't wait until he passed—they rode ahead of him like smoke curling under doorways.
"That's him."
"The Spiral."
"He's back already?"
He didn't look at them. Didn't need to. The wind carried weight behind every word, and weight was his language now.
The Resonance blade rode his hip, its hilt brushed clean but still laced with the black ribbon Nyx had tied near the guard. Her pressure lived in it—refined, familiar, intimate. A gift sharpened like memory.
But on his right hand, worn tight over calloused fingers, the forged iron-knuckle ring Neyra had left him glinted faintly beneath the rustlight. Worn. Scarred. Useful.
Two symbols.
Two kinds of gravity.
Neither explained.
He reached the deck's edge, where Gravemarket leveled out into a makeshift negotiation terrace—old helipads turned neutral ground. No weapons drawn here. Only words.
Neyra Flint was waiting.
She stood alone, coat pulled tight, one hand resting against the scaffold rail. Her visor was off—just her face now. Cool. Watchful. Unreadable.
"Didn't think you'd come," she said, voice low but steady. "Figured the Queen's kiss would've sealed your orbit."
Sky stopped a few paces away, brow arching. "You spying on my mouth now?"
A flicker—almost a smirk. "Not quite. But when someone bends a Core-hunter in half and giggles about it the next morning... word spreads."
Sky exhaled softly, eyes scanning the upper deck. "You're alone."
"I'm not afraid of shadows." Her gaze dropped briefly—first to the blade, then to the ring. "Though you carry enough of them."
She pushed off the rail and walked toward him with slow, balanced steps.
"You wore it," she said, nodding at his hand. Her voice wasn't warm. But it wasn't cold either. "That's enough for now."
Sky didn't answer right away. He glanced down at the ring, flexed his fingers once, then looked back up at her.
"It fits."
Neyra tilted her head. "Does it?"
Before he could respond, a ripple passed through the deck—a pressure shift so subtle, so cold, it made the ash shiver.
Sky froze.
Neyra's hand dropped near her waist.
Then came the voice. Smooth as obsidian. Soft as command.
"Hope I'm not interrupting."
Nyx had arrived.
The Invitation Offered
Nyx stood at the far edge of the terrace, coat fluttering like a living shadow, her boots whispering over rusted metal as she stepped closer. She wasn't flanked this time. No operatives. No guard. Just her.
The cold authority she radiated made even the wind correct its direction.
Her eyes found the blade at Sky's hip first.
Then the ring.
She said nothing.
Yet.
Sky's chest tightened. He didn't flinch, but the gravitational field around him sharpened like a breath held too long.
Neyra didn't turn.
She just raised her voice slightly. "Didn't think you'd arrive so early, Seraphina."
Nyx's tone could've iced molten glass. "Didn't realize we were on a schedule."
She stepped up beside Sky, close enough for the heat from her suppression field to touch his skin—but not enough to claim space.
Not yet.
"You didn't answer my question," she said to him. "Am I interrupting?"
Sky blinked once. "Would it matter?"
Nyx tilted her head, gaze cutting toward Neyra with the weight of an execution order. "Only if you intended to make a mistake."
Neyra finally turned to face her, cool and unshaken. "Or a decision."
Their eyes locked. The silence between them had teeth.
Sky shifted slightly, putting one hand over the blade at his side—not to draw, but to remind both women where the center of the spiral stood.
"I'm here," he said quietly, "to listen. Nothing more."
Neyra's gaze flicked to him again. "Then listen to this."
She stepped forward—one slow step—and held out a small case. Inside: a coded Gravemarket badge, ration credits, a shelter key.
"No titles. No doctrine. No blood-locks." She paused. "You want distance from all of this?" A pointed glance at Nyx. "You'll have it."
Sky looked at the case. Then at her. Then at Nyx.
Nyx's expression didn't change. But her eyes darkened.
"You think you can offer him something we haven't already?" she asked softly.
"I'm offering him something you can't."
Nyx smiled, but it didn't touch her eyes. "And what's that?"
Neyra stepped closer to Sky—not touching, but close enough her voice lowered.
"Freedom."
Nyx's smirk sharpened. "Cute."
Sky exhaled through his nose. "Are either of you gonna stab each other or should I just flip a coin?"
That made Nyx laughs. A low, teasing sound.
"Only if I get to call heads."
Nyx's gaze shifted—slow, deliberate—toward the shelter key still resting in Neyra's offered hand.
She didn't speak.
Didn't scoff.
She just looked at it like it was laughable, and somehow still beneath her.
Then she turned back to Sky, voice velvet and low. "She's trying to build you a cage out of comfort."
Sky raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't look like a cage."
Nyx stepped closer. Not aggressively—intimately. She reached for the blade at his hip, fingers trailing along the void-threaded hilt like it was hers—not his.
"You're wearing my weapon," she said softly. "That wasn't just steel. That was trust."
Neyra's mouth twitched. "You sure it wasn't branding?"
Nyx didn't flinch. "If he's mine, I don't need to brand him. He already knows where he bends."
Sky's ears burned. His Core pulsed, caught between calm and chaos.
Neyra took a step forward, closing the triangle. "If you really trusted him, you wouldn't need to appear every time someone offered him a choice."
Nyx smiled—sharp, slow, dangerous. "If I really didn't trust him…" she leaned in toward Sky's ear, her breath warm, her tone molten. "I'd have collapsed this platform the second I felt your signal light up."
Sky said nothing. He stared forward, perfectly still, as both women hovered on either side of him like gravity waiting to snap.
He could feel them.
Neyra—coiled, calculating, daring him to break formation.
Nyx—poised, possessive, willing to let the whole market burn just to make a point.
"So this is what it costs," he muttered. "Being Spiral."
Nyx's eyes flicked to him. "Cost?"
"You both talk like I'm a weapon that hasn't chosen a war yet."
Neyra's voice dropped an octave. "You're not a weapon, Sky. That's the difference."
Nyx's gaze turned colder than voidsteel. "No. That's the mistake."
Sky's eyes narrowed. "And what am I to you?"
Nyx paused. Let it sit. Let the silence curl between them like smoke.
Then she whispered, soft and dangerous:
"The center. Not the edge. Not the blade. The point everything turns around."
Neyra looked away—but only for a second. Her jaw set.
"You'll have to decide, Sky," she said quietly. "Whose gravity you want to obey."
Weight and Wording
The silence lingered like fog with sharp edges.
Sky stood between them, feeling more like a fulcrum than a person. His Core pulsed once—soft, centered, listening.
Neither woman moved.
Neyra tucked her hands behind her back, chin tilted slightly. She was composed. Always. The kind of composed that got scav teams home with only one casualty instead of five.
"You've been watching him," she said, calm but pointed. "Tracking his Core development. Since before Gravemarket."
Nyx didn't deny it. "He makes a lot of noise for someone who doesn't speak often."
"Noise?" Neyra smiled thinly. "I'd call it pressure. The kind you don't ignore unless you want your lungs folded."
Nyx's lips curved—not into a grin, but something smaller. Sharpened.
"He could've killed Cindral the first time. He didn't. He watched. Calculated. Waited until we'd seen enough."
Neyra's brow arched. "And that's loyalty?"
Nyx stepped forward. "No. That's clarity."
Sky let the words play out between them. He didn't interrupt. He didn't need to. They weren't just talking to each other—they were talking at him.
Every line was a hook.
Every glance a blade.
Neyra took a small step sideways, her voice quiet. "You're dressing it up in doctrine, but the truth is… you're scared."
Nyx turned slowly. "Of what?"
"That he doesn't need you anymore."
The pressure changed.
Not explosive. Not aggressive.
Just… heavier.
Sky felt it behind his ribs—a null-field heartbeat, slow and deliberate.
Nyx didn't respond immediately.
Then she smiled again.
"Is that why you gave him the ring?" she asked. "To feel like you'd marked something first?"
Neyra didn't flinch. "I gave it to him because it was mine. Just like he chose to wear your blade."
Sky's voice cut through the tension like gravity falling into place. Quiet. Final.
"I didn't wear either of them for you."
Both women looked at him.
"I wore them because I needed both," he said. "One hand to hold back. One to strike."
Nyx's expression shifted—just slightly. Amusement? Admiration?
Neyra studied him longer. No smile. Just… understanding.
"You're building your own center," she murmured.
Sky nodded once. "The Spiral doesn't belong to anyone."
The Cost of Knowing
Nyx was the first to break the silence.
Not with words—just a slow exhale through her nose. She stepped closer to Sky, her fingers brushing the edge of the blade at his waist.
Not possessive. Not gentle.
Just enough to remind him who gave it to him first.
Then she leaned in.
Her lips brushed his cheek—not a kiss. A mark.
"You'll come back to me," she murmured, voice like velvet soaked in certainty. "When you realize why it scares you to want peace."
Before Sky could reply, she was already stepping away—coat flaring behind her like night peeled open. One boot. Then another. Her gravity thinned, like she'd pulled her storm back into herself.
And then she was gone.
Neyra didn't speak for a long moment.
She just stood there, watching the empty space where Nyx had vanished, jaw tight, brow drawn.
Sky adjusted his weight. The tension wasn't gone—it had just changed direction.
"She always do that?" he asked quietly.
Neyra's voice was cool. "Only when she thinks she's lost ground."
"She didn't."
"I know."
She walked past him—slow, deliberate. As she passed, her hand brushed his left wrist.
Not in warning.
In reminder.
"You carry her blade," she said without turning. "But the ring... that was a choice."
Sky looked down at his knuckles. The old metal glinted dully, blackened in places where time and impact had left it scarred.
He didn't say anything.
Neyra reached the edge of the terrace and paused.
"You can't belong to both of us," she said.
Sky finally looked up.
"Then maybe," he said quietly, "I don't belong to either."
Neyra turned to glance at him over her shoulder. Her expression didn't crack—but something in her gaze did.
Not pain.
Not jealousy.
Just... knowing.
"That'll cost you more than you think," she said. "But maybe that's the price of being Spiral."
And then she was gone too.
Sky stood alone.
Blade at his hip.
Ring on his hand.
Heart beating like a Core folding inward.
He didn't speak.
Didn't move.
But the gravity around him?
It hummed.