Page 26 of Thexan

“Then tell me what you do have.”

He shifted his arm slightly, the movement controlled despite the strain I could feel through the connection between us.

“I left before they could remove this,” he said.

I followed his gaze to his forearm, narrowing my focus on the plated structure there. I had noted it before in passing—the way the surface differed slightly from the rest of his arm—but I hadn’t given it more attention than any other variation in his physiology.

Now I looked closer.

“What am I missing?” I asked.

“Observe.”

The word was quiet, precise.

I didn’t move.

There was no sudden motion, no dramatic shift. Just a subtle change beneath the surface of his forearm, a faint hum that I felt more than heard, followed by a narrow line of light that formed along the length of the plating.

For a moment, it held there, contained and controlled.

Then it extended.

The blade emerged cleanly, a projection of energy so stable it might as well have been solid, its edge defined with a precision that didn’t waver even slightly. It didn’t flicker. It didn’t flare. It simply existed, held in perfect alignment as though it had always been part of him.

I didn’t step back or reach for anything.

I just watched it, taking in the scale of it, the control required to maintain something like that, and the fact that it had been there the entire time without me recognizing it for what it was.

“That’s not external equipment,” I said.

“No.”

“It’s integrated.”

“Yes.”

I let out a slow breath, my gaze following the length of the blade before returning to his face.

“And you’re planning to use that against three of them.”

“I am.”

I considered it, not dismissing the idea, but not accepting it without working through the implications either. It was close-range. Precise. Lethal if used correctly.

And completely dependent on him being able to stay in control long enough to use it.

“You’ll have to get close,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And stay stable while you do it.”

“Yes.”

My attention shifted from the blade to the hand that still held mine, the contact between us steady, constant, the subtle alignment I had been trying not to name now impossible to ignore.

The connection.