"You've made quite a mess of my lab."
Thea bowed submissively. "They were trying to steal your subjects. I couldn't let that happen."
The Osiri's gaze showed indifference as his attention shifted to Kira. "We finally meet."
Kira's hand clenched around the akieri, wanting nothing more than to remove his head with it. She forced herself to relax her grip. Losing her calm right now would be a mistake. It was exactly what they were hoping for.
Instead, she’d be calm. Patient. As she waited for her moment.
"You've caused my forces quite a bit of trouble."
She planned to cause them even more before the end.
"I'll take that as a compliment," she said.
"You realize you haven’t won this. You’ve only been a tiny nuisance to us. Even now, my forces are massing to eradicate the vermin you’ve brought. Once we have, we’ll take our origin ships and relocate somewhere you’ll have no hope of finding again."
Kira lifted her chin in response. "I don’t think it’s going to go the way you hope."
Though the fact they would so easily abandon this planet upon its location being compromised led her to believe that it may not have been their home world as she’d assumed.
The Osiri set her niece down, his hand still gripping the back of her neck. "Your faith in those vermin is misplaced. As we speak, they die in droves."
Elena kept her gaze locked on Kira as the Osiri spoke, nothing but faith and trust in her eyes.
Kira had no intention of disappointing her niece. Not now. Not with so much at stake.
"You don’t believe me," the Osiri said, his head tilting as he studied Kira with a dispassionate expression.
Kira watched him calmly. His words doing nothing to shake her.
A perplexed look crossed his face. No doubt because she didn’t react as he’d expected. "Shall I show you?"
The image of the space battle taking place over the planet was projected above the platform.
Kira tilted her head to take in the view of the CSS Reliance and CSS Horizon in the midst of battle. Their fighters had been deployed. Both their fixed wing aircraft, along with their waveboards.
Despite that, they were getting their asses handed to them. Both ships taking heavy damage from the much greater forces on the Tsavitee side.
It was only a matter of time before they were destroyed.
"Everything you’ve done to this point has been futile. All you’ve accomplished is delivering yourself and your friends to my door."
Kira’s smile was bittersweet. "There’s an old human saying that I’ve always enjoyed. ‘It’s always darkest right before the dawn.’"
The Osiri stared at her. "You still believe in them."
"I do."
She would until the very end.
"You are foolishly naive. I will have to break that trait in you."
Panic flooded Kira as the Osiri reached around Elena for Jin. Her niece resisted, clutching the drone with both hands in an effort to protect him.
The Osiri tightened his grip on the back of her neck in punishment.
Elena made a pained sound, her grip on the drone loosening.
"What are you doing?" Kira asked.
The Osiri lifted the drone out of Elena’s hands, holding it up in front of him to study. "I've heard stories about your relationship with this soul bound. Did you know we weren't aware until relatively recently what he was?"
Kira aimed a pointed look at Thea. "What? Your spy never told you?"
The forty three knew. She still remembered Elise's expression the first time she’d realized what—and who—Jin really was. That meant Thea would have known as well.
The fact she’d never told the Osiri was something Kira could use to drive a wedge between them. Plant a seed of discord and doubt.
Thea lashed the briar at her, aiming for her throat. Kira sliced it in half with a quick move.
It looked like she was getting to her. Good.
Unfortunately, the Osiri didn’t respond to her provocation, more preoccupied with his study of the drone than the conversation.
"There you are," the Osiri declared.
He did something.
Pressure squeezed Kira's skull. The connection she shared with Jin roaring back to life. An onslaught of sensation poured down their bond. White hot and searingly intense as it blistered the nerve endings in her mind.
Kira fell to the ground, Jin's screams mixing with her own.
"Intriguing, isn't it?" The Osiri crouched in front of Kira, his fascinated expression the only thing she could see as her vision began to tunnel. "The things that can be done to you."