Chapter 149: Singing Faye

Chapter 149: Singing FayeThe mess hall in A Block sagged under the weight of recycled heat and old rations.

Tables leaned sideways, trays cracked along the seams, the faint sour smell of gray-food clinging to the air. The lighting buzzed in the ceiling panels overhead, dim and sickly.

Elias sat across from Faye, their trays pushed between them, untouched.

Dot’s blue glow hovered low at the table’s edge, her hum faint but steady, matching the sluggish beat of his shard still pressing in his ribs.

The tension from the command room hadn’t left him. It sat just under his skin, the Chairwoman’s question — Will you break? — still scraping across the back of his mind like a blade he couldn’t sheath.

He shoved the tray forward, the texture gritty and uneven under his fingers. His hands ached from how tightly he’d held himself together.

Across from him, Faye sat with one elbow propped against the table, her red hair catching in the flickering overhead light. Her eyes — wary, but warm — watched him carefully, picking at the edge of her ration without real interest.

"Still standing, hero?" she asked, voice soft, the tease barely there. A faint smile tugged at her mouth, more habit than feeling.

Her music Ikona floated close behind her shoulder, a low hum threading the space between them like a melody trying to find a place to rest.

Elias caught the strain under her words — the stiffness in her posture, the way her fingers hovered over the tray before picking at it again. Small tells she might have hidden better on a normal day.

Their talks in the training yard — her teasing over his bruises, the stories she’d once told him of broken promises and second chances — pressed in at the edges of his memory.



It felt farther away than it should have been.

And at the same time, it felt like the only thing still real.

He managed a dry smile, the motion pulling against the ache stitched deep under his fatigues. The stab wound in his side throbbed dully, a stubborn reminder that healing hadn’t caught up to duty.

"Barely," Elias said, his voice low, catching rough in his throat. He leaned back in the chair, the old frame creaking under his weight.

His gaze shifted to the faint hum hanging between them — the soft pulse of Faye’s Ikona hovering at her shoulder. He nodded toward it, letting curiosity bleed into the moment.

"Your Ikona practice," he asked, "any better?"

He remembered the frustration carved into her features back in the pod room — the way she’d sung under her breath, chasing stability through melody when raw will hadn’t been enough to hold her shard’s spirit steady.

Around them, the mess hall’s low chatter hummed — shard users speaking in tired murmurs over trays of half-eaten rations, the steady mechanical undercurrent of Cube X threading underneath it all like a second heartbeat.

Faye sighed, the sound soft and frayed. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her earlier smile fading.

"Singing’s tedious," she said. Her tone dropped heavier now, the weight slipping through the cracks she hadn’t patched fast enough.

"But it makes her fly farther. Maybe conjure a control word or two."

Her eyes drifted toward her Ikona — the bird-like shimmer pulsing faintly against the recycled light — and for a moment, her gaze dimmed.

Not in anger. Not even in frustration.

Just tiredness.

Dreams that had once burned bright — the family name she’d once carried like a shield, the politician’s daughter who had fallen into obscurity — slipped further from reach with every half-success, every concession to a life rebuilt from rubble.



"It’s not what I wanted," she added, her chuckle frayed at the edges. The sound didn’t carry amusement — only an echo of their earlier talks, when rebuilding from nothing had still felt like a choice, not a sentence.


Elias nodded slowly, his hands tightening around the edge of the tray. The cheap plastic bit into his palms, grounding him better than his own thoughts could.

"I get it," he said, his voice dropping quieter, the words barely scraping past the weight on his chest.

The bloodbath flashed in his mind again — Roachaline’s aura detonating soldiers without mercy, Lyra’s wind carving wide, merciless paths through Federation lines.

"They’re unstoppable out there," he admitted, leaning forward, his elbows braced against the worn table, the words spilling too fast to catch.

"Chairwoman’s pushing me hard, but A Block’s barely holding."

He pressed his palms harder into the tray’s edge, feeling the strain where old tension hadn’t left his body.

"Kikaru’s on edge," he said, voice tightening. "Tidwell’s restless."

His shard pulsed faintly in his chest — a dull ache under the heavier press of worry threading through him.

Elias forced himself to meet Faye’s eyes — needing her steadiness, needing the part of her that didn’t bend, even when the world narrowed around them.

Faye leaned back in her chair, her Ikona’s faint hum softening, the glow flickering low at her side. She tilted her head slightly, studying him.

"You’re stronger than you think," she said, voice gentle.

The words echoed the compliment he’d once given her back during early training, a moment he hadn’t realized she’d even held onto.

She traced a slow line across the tray’s battered surface with her fingers, the motion hesitant, as if the words cost her more than she wanted to show.

"I’m no fighter, Elias," she added, her tone quieter now. "Spent my life singing, not battling aliens."



A small, real smile tugged at her mouth — the first honest one he’d seen from her tonight. No polish. No performance.

"But you," she said, looking at him full-on now, "you keep us steady."

The words didn’t come like a grand speech or a shouted rally.

They landed soft.

A tether thrown across the space between them when the ground beneath everyone else kept breaking apart.

Elias felt something ease in his chest, the knot that had tightened since the meeting loosening just enough to let air in.

Dot’s hum vibrated faintly against his wrist — steady, low, a quiet echo of the moment’s weight.

He exhaled slowly and managed a nod, the stiffness leaving his neck only by force.

"Thanks," Elias said, his voice still low, rough at the edges, but real.

He pushed his tray aside, the gray rations untouched, the plastic scraping quietly against the battered table.

"Keep singing, Faye," he said after a breath.

"It’s more than you know."