[Katherine's PoV]

  A long time ago.

  Katherine no longer felt her arms. The ropes had cut so deeply into her wrists that she could no longer tell where flesh ended and string began. Every breath made the coarse fibers bite deeper, the weight of her own body pulling her down until her shoulders screamed. Her circulation had slowed to a crawl. First her hands had gone numb, then her legs, then everything else.

  It was the only mercy this position offered.

  The numbness dulled the pain. The blows still came, but through the haze of blood loss and exhaustion, they felt distant. Echoes rather than agony.

  'I just want to black out,' she thought, her mind flickering between consciousness and the dark. 'Just let me stop hearing. Stop feeling.'

  But her body refused to give her that escape.

  The air cracked.

  The whip’s hiss tore through the silence like lightning, followed by the wet, meaty sound of impact. The smell of scorched flesh and iron filled the air. Blood sprayed outward in a fine mist.

  “GRAKH, SKARN! ZOGH-NAR!”

  The guttural roar of the Ork echoed off the stone walls, reverberating through Katherine’s skull.

  She shut her eyes tight. She didn’t want to see. She didn’t want to hear.

  But there was no escape.

  The yellow-skinned Ork loomed over them. His skin was a mottled pattern of scars and burns, his horns cracked and yellowed. Each breath he took came out as a growl.

  He would not let them die.

  That was his worst cruelty.

  Every time they slipped too far into unconsciousness, into that merciful dark, he’d drag them back. He saved them by injecting crude stimulants, forcing their hearts to beat again, their nerves to scream anew.

  They lived in a cycle of agony, trapped between life and death, day after day.

  “NAR!”

  The shout broke through the haze.

  Katherine’s eyes opened weakly, her head turning just enough to see him. Oliver.

  He was a ruin of a man now, his back a latticework of open wounds, his arms trembling. His voice was raw, broken, but still defiant.

  “NAR!” he shouted again, though the word meant nothing to her.

  “NAR!”

  Every time he said it, the Ork’s fury deepened. The creature’s eyes glowed with rage, and the whip in his hand crackled with energy. He brought it down again and again, each strike accompanied by a flash of light and the sound of flesh tearing.

  Katherine didn’t know what the word meant. Maybe it was a curse. Maybe it was a name. But whatever it was, it was Oliver's defiance.

  Above all, it made the Ork mad enough to forget about her and Isabela.

  The final blow came with a sound like thunder. Oliver’s body went still, his breath silent.

  Then came the sound, the heavy clang of the iron gate sliding shut.

  The Ork’s boots thundered against the floor as he walked away, each step fading until only the crackles of the torches remained.

  Ropes rattled, then loosened. The clamps that held them in place released.

  Oliver collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut, his body hitting the ground with a dull thud.

  “Water…” Isabela’s voice was barely a whisper, her lips cracked, trembling. She reached for the small bowl in the corner of their cell.

  Katherine crawled toward it, every movement sending sparks of pain through her body. Together, she and Isabela lifted Oliver’s limp form, his weight feeling heavier than it should have. His skin was hot to the touch, feverish, his back torn and bleeding.

  They shared what little water they had, pouring it over his wounds, wiping away the blood and grime with trembling hands.

  Katherine’s eyes lingered on the scars, on the red welts that crossed his flesh. Each one etched itself into her memory, branding itself there alongside the sounds of the Ork’s voice and the crack of the whip.

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  She memorized it all, the cruelty, the pain, the helplessness.

  And she made herself a promise.

  One day, she would repay it.

  They would learn what it meant to make an enemy of Katherine York.

  A few minutes earlier.

  Katherine exhaled sharply, lowering her head and muttering under her breath, “Not now.”

  But when she turned to look, Atlas was gone.

  All that remained was the rush of displaced air and the dull thud of impact reverberating through the floor. A crimson blur streaked downward, vanishing into the chaos below before her eyes could even track it.

  'He’s a Red Ranger?' The thought struck her like a jolt. 'That wasn’t in his dossier. What kind of synchronization level is that? To move like that… it has to be above forty percent.'

  Questions flooded her mind, but she didn’t have time to chase them.

  Another blur followed, a flash of bronze this time. Demi. Her armor gleamed under the light as she launched herself after him. While Atlas’s red silhouette veered toward Orion Vellor, Demi advanced toward Marco.

  Katherine’s instincts screamed.

  'Too late.'

  She saw it. The faint shimmer of Energy gathering in Orion’s hands, a ripple of raw power that distorted the air around him. The pulse of his Boon was unstable, wild.

  'He’s going to hit the guests!'

  The realization froze her for a heartbeat. The blast was already forming. A searing surge of white-blue light that flared outward, cutting through the smoke and debris like a blade.

  The red blur moved again.

  Atlas.

  He changed course mid-jump, the ground quaking beneath him as he accelerated. The crimson streak tore through the air, intercepting the blast before it could reach the crowd.

  The explosion hit his back.

  A blinding flash consumed the field. The shockwave rippled outward, scattering debris and light, shaking the very walls of the stadium. Katherine threw up an arm to shield her face as the roar of the detonation drowned everything else.

  When the smoke finally began to clear, she lowered her arm and froze.

  Atlas was still standing.

  He had taken the full force of the blast.

  His armor, once brilliant red, was cracked and blackened. The plates warped and shattered in places. Energy flickered weakly along the seams, struggling to hold form. And yet, he remained upright, his arms still outstretched where he’d caught the explosion.

  Katherine’s breath caught in her throat. Her pulse spiked, her heart hammering against her ribs. She blinked, half-expecting the vision to vanish, but it didn’t.

  As the smoke thinned, she saw his back.

  And her blood ran cold.

  The armor had fractured enough to reveal the skin beneath. It was scarred, marked with hundreds of long, parallel lines running from shoulder to waist.

  Each one a memory carved into flesh.

  Katherine’s knees weakened. Her vision blurred for a moment.

  There were only two people she had ever seen with scars like those.

  Two who had endured that same hell.

  One of them wasn’t a man, and she was nowhere near Tros.

  The other one—

  Darkness.

  That was all there was at first. An endless, weightless black. Katherine floated in it, her mind blank, her body numb. Then, slowly, sound began to return. A faint, rhythmic beep-beep-beep, steady and mechanical.

  Her eyelids fluttered. Light stabbed at her vision, forcing her to squint. The ceiling above her was pale, illuminated by the soft glow of med-bay panels. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic.

  Her head throbbed. Every heartbeat pulsed behind her eyes.

  She shifted, the crisp sheets rustling beneath her as she pushed herself up, her muscles weak and trembling. The weight of her body felt wrong.

  “Princess, please. You should rest.”

  The voice came from her left. She turned her head slowly to see two officers standing by her bedside. One was checking a datapad while the other adjusted the medical monitors beside her.

  “No, I’m fine,” she said quietly, her voice hoarse.

  “You collapsed,” the first officer reminded her. “Probably from the shockwave after the explosions.”

  Katherine frowned, shaking her head. “No… it was after.”

  The memory was fragmented. Some images without context. Smoke. Fire. The sound of glass shattering. And then… him.

  Her mind buzzed, trying to piece it together.

  'How?'

  That single word echoed in her thoughts. How had he survived? How had he hidden himself so completely?

  But the question didn’t stop there.

  'Why?'

  Why was he pretending to be someone else? Why hadn’t he said anything? Why hadn’t he reached out to her—to them—after everything that had happened?

  Each question dug deeper, sharp and unrelenting.

  She clenched her fists, the faint sting of the IV lines in her arm grounding her back to reality.

  'I have to find him.'

  The thought came like a command, clear and absolute.

  Katherine swung her legs off the bed. The floor was cold under her bare feet, and her balance wavered for a moment before she steadied herself. The officers stepped forward instinctively, concern flashing across their faces.

  “Send a message to the NEA and to my brother,” she ordered, her tone leaving no room for argument. “I’m relinquishing command of the Red Rangers. Effective immediately.”

  The officers exchanged startled glances.

  “Are you certain, Princess?” the second asked carefully. “You should rest first. At least until the medics—”

  “No.” Her voice cut through the room like a blade. She straightened, her posture regaining its authority even as her body trembled. “Tell everyone to return to the ship. We’re leaving.”

  They hesitated. “Where to, my lady?”

  Katherine’s gaze hardened.

  “Atlas,” she said. “He won't escape from me.”

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