The Nyxwing plunged into the deeper veils of the Orion Nebula, a realm where newborn stars blazed with fierce, youthful light, and ancient gasses swirled in chaotic, breathtaking tapestries of emerald, sapphire, and ruby.
It was a place of terrible beauty, a cosmic crucible where creation and destruction danced in an eternal embrace.
Eva, her face illuminated by the shifting colours on the viewport and the soft glow of the Aethelgardian controls, piloted the small ship with a focused grace, her hands moving in an intuitive dialogue with the empathically responsive vessel.
But for Bolt, the beauty was a cruel counterpoint to the empathic storm raging within him.
The sorrow of the Heart of Orion, a constant, pervasive thrum he'd first sensed upon leaving the songline, now washed over him in relentless waves.
It was an ancient, primal grief, the agony of a vast, wounded consciousness.
It manifested as a dull ache behind his eyes, a tightness in his powerful chest, and a profound weariness that settled deep in his bones, far beyond the physical exertion of his recent transformation and escape.
"It's… it's so much pain, Eva," he rumbled, his transformed voice thick with shared suffering.
He leaned his husky head against the cool viewport, watching a river of incandescent gas flow past like a celestial serpent. "It's not just the damage from the old schism.
It's… an awareness. It knows Krell is coming. It's afraid."
Eva reached over, her hand briefly touching his massive forearm. Her touch was a small point of warmth in the overwhelming coldness of the Heart's despair. "We knew this wouldn't be easy, Bolt.
That thing is ancient, powerful. Of course, it feels. And of course, it's scared." Her own voice was laced with a frustration he recognized.
"I wish there was something we could do now, from here."
"I tried," Bolt admitted, a flicker of the raw empathic static he'd used against the destroyer touching his senses.
"To shield myself, like Coria taught. But this isn't an attack. It's… it's the nebula itself weeping."
Their perilous path, guided by the Waystone's faint light and Bolt's increasingly sensitive empathic navigation, led them through regions that would have torn conventional ships apart.
They skirted the edges of violent stellar nurseries where protoplanets coalesced amidst fierce radiation.
They navigated gravitic shears that twisted space-time into dizzying knots, forcing Eva to rely on Bolt's instinctive warnings, as the Ahna'sara within him seemed to anticipate the dangerous currents an instant before the Nyxwing's advanced sensors could fully map them.
Once, a dense cloud of energized ion gas, invisible to most visual scans, threatened to engulf them.
Bolt felt its approach as a sudden, sharp increase in the background radiation of the Heart's sorrow, almost like a cry of amplified pain.
"Hard to starboard, Eva! Now!" he roared, and Eva, trusting his urgency without question, threw the Nyxwing into a gut-wrenching turn, the ship groaning softly as it skimmed the edge of the invisible hazard.
Exhausted by the constant empathic barrage, Bolt found himself staring out at the swirling chaos, the Heart's grief a leaden weight upon his spirit.
He remembered Coria's lesson on projecting harmony. It had been in a controlled environment, against a simulated discord.
Could it work here? Could he offer even a sliver of comfort to that distant, suffering entity?
He closed his eyes, shutting out the visual chaos of the nebula. He focused on the Ahna'sara, not on its power, but on the deep, unwavering compassion he knew was its core.
He thought of Aethelgard's serene light, of Lyren's gentle wisdom, of Eva's steadfast courage.
He gathered these feelings, these echoes of hope and warmth, and then, with a gentle, focused intent, he projected them outwards, a silent song of solace aimed towards the distant, weeping Heart.
He expected nothing. But for a fleeting moment, the overwhelming tide of sorrow from the Heart seemed to lessen, just a fraction.
And in that brief lull, Bolt felt something new: a flicker of ancient consciousness, vast and incomprehensible, acknowledging his infinitesimal touch.
It wasn't a thought, or an image, but a profound sense of shared being, a momentary connection that resonated with the deepest part of the Ahna'sara.
Then it was gone, the wave of grief returning, but now, it felt different to Bolt.
Less like a purely alien suffering, and more like the pain of a kindred, if unimaginably vast, spirit.
The Heart was not just a machine, or a power source. It was aware. It was, in its own way, alive.
This realization solidified his resolve, hardening it from a desperate hope into an unbreakable conviction. Krell could not be allowed to touch it.
"We're getting closer," Eva said some time later, her voice pulling Bolt from his reverie.
She pointed to a section of the main display. "The Waystone's resonance is strengthening, and the ship's long-range gravimetric sensors are picking up… anomalies.
Stable structures, massive energy fields, definitely not natural." Her brow furrowed.
"Looks like Progenitor-level defenses, just as the Keepers warned."
As she spoke, the profound sorrow Bolt felt emanating from the Heart suddenly spiked, a sharp, jabbing note of pure, unadulterated fear cutting through the constant grief.
It was so intense, so immediate, that Bolt cried out, clutching his head.
"Bolt! What is it?"
"The Heart!" he gasped, the agony he felt mirroring its own. "It's… Krell. He's doing something.
He's starting his approach! The Concordance… it must be closer than we thought!"
The weeping nebula around them suddenly seemed to tighten, its beautiful veils no longer just a treacherous path, but the last line of defense before an ancient, terrible wound.