Chapter 297 297: Shoulder Pop

Ice WardHer hand slipped into his hair—wet, tangled, matted from sweat—and pulled his face to her shoulder.

"Slow down," she muttered.

The words didn't carry judgment. Just direction. A line to hold onto.

Cubes moved behind her, sensors active. Its core processor dialed down the ambient heat in the containment bay by two degrees. Airflow shifted, pressure stabilizers adjusted automatically, and the cold returned across the lab in a quiet breath.

She didn't look up. Her arms stayed wrapped tight around him.

Elias wasn't resisting. He wasn't collapsing either. He was just there—heavy, shaking, breath catching between her ribs. His hands hovered near her biceps, fingers barely resting against the sleeves of her uniform

"How are you even alive?"

The question slipped out quieter than she expected. Still sharp. Still weighted.

She didn't let go.
's fall didn't match the official briefings.

Kael Ironhand's death, cataloged forty-five years ago on Giselsin, mirrored everything they'd been taught to ignore.

It couldn't all be coincidence. But he couldn't prove it, either.

Kikaru's voice flickered across his memory. Her talk of doctors, of something hidden in the records—unfinished, broken. That path still felt open, just buried.

But now Elara was here.

Holding him.

Supporting

Can I trust her?

He wanted to.

Her uniform still bore the Valkyrie insignia. Her clearance still matched Cube X's command tier. She still answered to the same system that lied. The same one that had kept him in a tank, sealed under glass, until something finally broke.

Her fingers weren't trained responses.

Her voice didn't come from protocol.

He felt her hold steady against his side, her breath slow, her hand still pressed behind his neck. Her boots left clean prints in the dust beside his—just slightly left to the right side terend Shard Shock Step to the core Force gem intruded IN THE RIGHT AR,M