The heavy doors of the warehouse shut behind them with a metallic groan. It was cool once inside, stagnant, faintly smelling of solvent and sweat—but at least it was shelter. The warehouse still had remnants of its prior life, walls stained with oil and broken racking pushed away from the walls. Toric barely noticed. His eyes were already scanning the crates they’d secured in the Brannock raid.

He paced on the upper catwalk, focused, thoughts running a mile a minute,

There, behind his eyes, all he saw was Vox against a dark sky, hovering above him. Dressed in all white, but not as a savior. Something else entirely.

Vox had gift wrapped that victory for them.

Toric hated the taste of that. It didn’t feel earned. It wasn’t his. 

Beneath the layers of courtesy and civility something sinister was hiding. Toric knew that this win wouldn’t be free. Something would be expected in return. This had been a dowry. A crown shoved into unwilling hands.

There was a kind of seduction in it. The idea that someone with that kind of influence and sheer power, might be willing to align with him. Toric couldn’t deny the temptation of it. 

Even if just for a moment. 

Toric shook his head once sharply and muttered, “No,” to no one in particular. 

“You say something?” Kael called, craning her neck upwards to look at him. 

“No, nothing. Just keep working.”

Don’t let him get under your skin, he thought.

“The weapons cache,” he said, voice firm. “I want everything that’s still functional distributed by sunrise. Kael — pull three of your best to start mapping the safest supply routes. Get the heavy gear ready for transport. We’re moving it to our safehouses. I want it split across quadrants. Our focus is Sector Seven.”

She blinked. “You think someone’s coming for it?”

“I think...this win was too easy. And I don’t want to leave Vox’s fingerprints on anything we can’t use.”

Kael gave a low whistle from behind a stack of crates. “You trust him well enough to use the intel, but not enough to not steal it under our noses when we turn our backs? That it?”

Toric stepped out onto the catwalk, his boots clicking softly against the steel. He stepped up to the edge and rested both hands on the railing, fingers lightly gripping the cold metal as he stared down into the darkness of shadows beneath.

His people moved like clockwork. Faint laughter floated up from the loading floor, where the men were busy organizing the ammo crates.

“It’s not trust.” he said at last, his voice turning quiet. “But I’m not about to turn down a blessing when it lands in our lap.”

He stayed there for a while, watching the operation unfold with practiced detachment. They’d pulled more from Brannock’s compound than anyone had expected. It had been enough munitions to supply three full campaigns. Food rations, fuel, and even rows of sleek prototype rifles that hadn’t been on their radar beforehand. 

His eyes blurred out of focus as he watched his soldiers move, driven and efficient. 

He was locked into a trance, one absentminded hand drifting again to the crumpled note in his coat pocket. The paper was creased, and worn soft at the edges where his thumb had lingered too many times. 

Toric glanced back down at Kael. She was already back to work, hauling crates into a tighter line with two of the younger recruits with her sleeves rolled up.

“I’m going to step out,” he called down, forcing his voice to remain steady. “Quick patrol sweep.” He moved, and adjusted the rifle on his shoulder out of habit.

She gave a sharp nod, saluting without bothering to turn all the way. “Yes, Commander.”

Toric descended the gangplank in silence. And then he slipped into the dark, moving fast, with guilt gnawing at his gut.

He should’ve stayed behind and helped organize the transport. Instead, he found his feet drifting out past the barricades, until the skyline changed into something more clear. Sector Thirteen shimmered across the border in front of him, and in its place stood the sweeping shadow of that building. The one Vox had brought him to without warning or question — where the table had overflowed with fruit and luxuries like a mythic offering.

He moved at a fretful speed, his eyes flickering to every alley mouth, any half-shuttered windows. The street sat quiet, blanketed in that brittle silence that came in the stillness after a curfew. One too quiet to feel right.

Most civilians were behind locked doors by now, but that didn’t mean the Unified Government had fully disappeared. Patrols still swept the outer sectors randomly—he knew better than to feel safe.

His footsteps whispered softly on the cracked asphalt, his boot swishing through the refuse of a city pretending to sleep. 

Block by block the warehouse fell out of focus behind him, and the memory completely faded away into darkness.

In front of him, that same elaborate and magnificent building drew closer between broken rooftops and arched windows. Just a shadow against the fading skyline.

And then—with no warning, the air suddenly changed. A few degrees chillier, decaying leaves kicking up around his boots. 

A figure dropped silently from above, landing in his way without more sound than falling ash.

Toric froze in his steps.

Before him stood Vox, white tunic gleaming in the low light, cape dissolving into shadow.

Maybe he’d been waiting. Or, just watching.

Vox seized him by the front of his coat, fingers wrapping around his lapel in one smooth motion, and then, without a word—lifted him into the air. 

The world fell away beneath Toric’s feet, wind roaring past his ears as the horizon spun. He didn’t fight. He’d done this before.

Vox didn’t bother disarming him this time.It made Toric feel uneasy, whether it was by confidence or arrogance or both. All were disarming possibilities.

They flew like a shadow over the sceptered city, the window lights gleaming faintly below them. The enveloping night and clouds a distance between them and this world.

Vox set them down onto a rooftop ledge and opened the warped steel door with a twitch of his chin, the same door Toric had seen before. 

A ruin now repurposed.

Cables twisted through the floor. Half the wall was now covered in repurposed surveillance tech. A mix of humming monitors, blinking lights, stacked receivers rotating softly. Part government salvage, part rebel scavenging. A unity that Vox didn’t discriminate between. 

Toric’s eyes swept the room taking it all in. 

He could see all the pieces coming together. Quillan’s influence was unmistakable in the upgrades. 

Toric stepped further inside the shell of the building, scanning the setup. “The mission was a success.”

Vox moved past him, calm as ever, his cloak brushing his calf. “I saw.”

Toric didn't bother turning to look at him, he was still gauging the monitors, and the fruit piled on the table, and a half-open crate of stolen munitions in the corner. “How’d you get the intel?” 

His voice carried a suspicion heavy enough to smother.

He turned to face him, tone sharpening. “How, Vox?” 

Vox’s eyes remained neutral, but a soft twitch in his brow gave something away. He walked to the grand table, and plucked a dark plum from a bowl, turning it slowly in his hand. “Sometimes things fall into place.”

Toric’s jaw seized. “Don’t fuck with me.”

“I’m not,” Vox replied, casual, his eyes still on the fruit. “You needed a win. I gave you one.”

Toric’s gaze moved to the monitors, the half-coiled wires, the hum of salvaged equipment that filled the room with low mechanical breath. He glanced at Vox, who was idly rolling the plum in his hand—seemingly more interested in the plum’s weight than the man looking at him.

Toric stepped closer. “Brannock’s defenses were gutted. Half his men were already gone when we hit him. It was like… they’d been moved somewhere else.”

Vox remained focused on the plum. 

Toric’s voice dropped. “What did you do?”

Vox answered matter-of-fact. “I supplied a diversion. Quillan found a clustering of Brannock’s secondary bases in the eastern district of Thirty-Six—heavily fortified. We couldn’t hit them directly. So we made noise.”

“What kind of noise?”

“Explosives. Enough to make him shift the bulk of his militia east, to protect what he thought mattered.”

Toric blinked, heart lurching. “You bombed them.”

“We never intended to breach them. Just draw his eyes away.”

Toric stood silently for a beat, mind screaming.

“The east district’s residential. That’s a civilian zone.”

Vox’s eyes remained owlish, set and unblinking. “It was a calculated decision. We aimed for Brannock’s infrastructure. Strategic pain points.”

“There—are families there.” Toric’s voice cracked. “Kids. People hiding from all this fucking madness.”

Vox stepped forward again, calm and precise. “Brannock is dead. Your strike team entered and exited with little resistance. You suffered no losses. And you walked away with enough supplies to refit your entire battalion.”

“That’s not the point,” Toric bit out, the words tight in his throat. He took a step closer, holding his ground.

Vox’s voice lowered, even colder now. Almost robotic. “Isn’t it? You broke through one of their most fortified blacksites and gained it for your own. Now, you’re making the Unified Government start to sweat. That doesn’t happen by accident.”

Toric shoved him back hard, flesh and fabric meeting concrete with a dull thud. “You baited Brannock into dropping his defenses by setting civilians on fire.”

Vox didn’t flinch even as Toric knocked into him. His hands didn’t raise to defend himself. He simply adjusted his gloves slowly, unbothered, like he was smoothing out a crease. “You needed the win. You just didn’t want to pay for it.”

“You manipulated me.”

“I did what was required. You’re only angry because it worked.”

Toric’s dark, burning glare tightened. “You caused innocent people to die.”

Vox’s gaze didn’t waver. “And you’ll use what it bought without hesitation. Did you question the silence around Brannock’s border? You saw the open door, and you walked through it.”

“You planned this behind my back.”

“I didn’t need your permission. I needed your cooperation. Which I got.”

Toric growled, dark and low. Breath shallow now. But his anger had nowhere to go. Every part of him wanted to stay furious, to keep the line between right and wrong clean. But he couldn’t find the words.

He looked away for half of a second, just long enough for Vox to witness it. To confirm what he already suspected. 

Vox stepped closer. “You want to wear those colors and keep your conscience. You want to lead a war and walk away with clean hands. But you already know that’s not how this ends.”

Toric didn’t trust himself to answer.

Because he knew every word that Vox had said was true.

And the depth of the silence was heavier than his unwillingness to say what was staring him in the face.

Vox smoothed a hand down the front of his tunic with a single movement. “You needed what was in that warehouse.” Vox’s mouth set in a rigid line.

The only part of Toric that moved was his throat, that struggled to swallow around his own guilt. 

“And you didn’t have to make the dirty call to get it,” Vox added, logic infallible. 

He stepped even closer now, eyes still sharp, but voice softening into something unbearable. “You can't run a rebellion on virtue. Not for long. You're fighting an entire country, this isn’t a border skirmish. And all the idealism in the world doesn’t change the fact that your people are starving, your weapons are obsolete, and you’re running out of cities to hide in.”

Toric’s hands were shaking now, betraying his resolve. He tried to hide it by balling them into fists.

“You knew how valuable that warehouse was. You didn’t ask what it cost until it was already done. Because it was easier that way.”

Vox let the words settle. Toric couldn’t refute it.

“And you’ve come back to me,” he added, voice barely above a whisper, “because somewhere deep down… you’re grateful it wasn’t your decision to make.”

Toric’s mouth opened ready to bite back—but no words came.

Vox studied him with that same unbearable calm. “You’re not afraid of what I did,” he murmured, nearly a whisper. “You’re afraid it worked. That you’d do it too, if no one was watching.”

Then at a leisurely pace, with something like veneration, two pale gloved fingers traced the edge of Toric’s collar. A feather-light stroke.

“That coat suits you,” he said softly.

Toric blinked, as if waking from a spell, and shoved him — with more force than necessary. “You think this is a fucking game?”

Vox barely moved. Not even a flinch. Just kept his voice low and intimate. “I think you want me to stop talking… because you know I’m right.”

Toric’s chest hitched. His jaw locked. But he didn’t back away, he wasn’t a coward. 

Vox’s hand lingered, dragging down the seam of Toric’s coat like he was tracing the outline of a wound. He stopped just above the belt and didn’t touch — just hovered, inciting heat in the space between them.

“You’re holding on to your righteousness,” Vox said, quiet now. “It’s the last piece of armor you’ve got.”

“Don’t,” Toric breathed in a breath that tried to be angry, but couldn’t quite manage. It wasn’t even sure. It cracked on the way out.

Vox’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. But It held no cruelty. Just a quiet interest. A scientist studying something pinned under lights. Wanting him.

“Remove your armor, Toric.”