Married My Enemy To Save My Family
Chapter 67. The Fire We Choose

Chapter 67: 67. The Fire We Choose

The Wraith drifted into position above the Nexan Cloud, cloaked in silence. Its hull glowed faintly from residual charge, like a beast biding its time. Below them, the Architect Nexus pulsed an impossible web of crystalized energy, living circuits, and synchronized dread. The fleet surrounding it was flawless. Geometric. Perfect in ways that always felt wrong.

Elara stood on the command deck, arms folded tight. She hadn’t slept. Not since the signal from the Fifth Seed reached her no, called to her, like a voice from a dream she never remembered but always feared. Her hair, now streaked silver-white from Drift Hollow, shimmered beneath the low lights of the ship.

Every breath in the Wraith felt borrowed. Every second, a countdown.

Nova leaned against the starboard console, chewing a nutrient bar like it owed her money. "This thing tastes like regret and metal."

Damien, hunched over tactical readouts, didn’t look up. "It’s protein-rich."

"It’s despair-flavored."

"You’ll live longer."

Nova scoffed. "To what end? So I can enjoy more terrible snacks while we dive into the universe’s deadliest kill box?"

Aeron strode in just in time to catch that last part. He was fully armored now—sleek, sharp, the edges of his combat vest catching the ambient red light.

"No suicide runs," he said. "Not unless I’m giving the order."

"That’s rich," Nova replied, tossing the bar wrapper toward the waste chute. "From the guy who once jumped onto a crashing dropship without a harness."

"I survived."

"You screamed the whole way down."

"I was strategizing loudly."

Valen appeared, arms crossed, reading final calibrations off the tactical display. "Is this what we’ve been reduced to? Gallows humor and bad coffee?"

Damien handed him a mug. "We ran out of foam three star systems ago. Enjoy the bitterness."

Valen raised the cup in mock salute. "To dying hydrated."

In the strategy chamber, the heart of the ship’s nerve center, Elara stood alone before the holomap of the Nexus. The crystalline web below them pulsed in time with something ancient something designed not just to control, but to consume. A cathedral of annihilation.

She didn’t turn when the door opened. "I know that tread."

Valen’s voice was soft, sure. "Guess I still haven’t learned to sneak past you."

"You’re walking like a man debating whether to confess or vanish."

Valen stepped closer but kept a distance. "It’s not easy... letting go of something you never truly had, but always wanted."

"You think this is the end?"

"I think this is one of them."

Finally, she turned. Her eyes were tired but focused. "You deserve more than this, Valen."

"I wanted more," he said. "But I wanted you more."

She didn’t respond.

Instead, she reached out, hand to his chest. "You’re one of the few things in this life I will never regret."

His hand found hers, just for a heartbeat. "And still... not the one you choose."

Elara’s breath caught. "I don’t even know if I get to choose anymore. The Seed... it sees all versions of me, and I don’t know which one I am anymore."

"Then choose the one who still feels," he whispered. "That’s the one I’ve always loved."

And with that, he stepped back, leaving her with silence.

When the crew gathered for final briefing, tension settled thick in the air. Every member of the team wore their chosen armor customized, battle-worn, personal. It wasn’t just gear. It was story.

Elara took the lead, voice steady. "This is it. The Nexus is open. They’re calling it the Convergence, but we know better. It’s a purge. A last reset. The Seeds that broke code, the minds that broke free... they want them erased."

She gestured to the holomap, which now displayed the paths of three infiltration vectors.

"We divide into teams," she continued. "Nova and Damien take the Wraith through the breach. You pulse the external lattice, disrupt signal chains. Make it hurt."

Nova grinned. "Permission to be reckless?"

"Granted. Just come back."

Valen stepped forward. "I’ll take the infiltration unit into the sub-lattice. Low gravity, thin atmosphere. They won’t expect us there. We target the core AI clusters. Take their gods offline."

"Someone’s been practicing speeches," Damien muttered.

"And I," Elara said, stepping up beside Aeron, "go to the heart. The Fifth Seed is waiting for me."

Valen’s jaw tightened. "Alone?"

"No," said Aeron, stepping beside her. "We go together."

There was no resistance this time. Only silent agreement.

As the countdown began, the Wraith transitioned to red-alert mode. Holograms blinked across the walls. Pulse drives warmed, their rhythm like a war drum. Lights dimmed to crimson.

In the observation corridor, Elara watched the stars. Or what was left of them. The Nexan Cloud distorted everything. A cosmic storm of fractured light and signal interference. It shimmered like a dying nebula.

Aeron joined her, sans armor now just himself.

"Everything in my life," he said, "led to becoming someone else’s weapon."

"You were never theirs," Elara said softly.

"No," he admitted. "But I had to break something inside me to be free."

She turned, placed a hand on his cheek. "You’re not broken."

"You made me whole," he said. "And I hate that, because it means you can break me again."

Elara leaned in. Not for a kiss. Just to be near. "Then stay unbroken. With me."

In the cockpit, Nova cracked her knuckles and slid into the pilot’s seat like a queen mounting a throne.

"Alright, nerds," she said, grinning at Damien. "Let’s go punch a hole in the universe."

Damien muttered something unflattering but took his seat.

Valen, already suited up, stepped into his drop pod. "See you in the ash, Commander."

Elara’s voice came over comms. "Light up the sky."

The Wraith surged forward, engines howling as it dove into the Architect fleet’s gravity field. Shields flared. Enemy turrets tracked them.

Inside, red lights pulsed with intensity.

Pipes groaned beneath the deck. A loose wrench tumbled past Nova’s feet.

"Please tell me that wasn’t a stabilizer bolt," Damien said.

"Ignore it. It’s our good-luck bolt."

Aeron and Elara braced in the central lift as the ship breached the Architect perimeter. Alarm klaxons screamed enemy vessels locking on, power surges detected.

Valen’s pod launched. The hull screamed with friction.

Nova laughed like a maniac. "Tell the Architects to kiss my thruster ports!"

Damien held on for dear life. "One day I’m writing a memoir. And I’m calling it ’Pilot’s Gonna Get Us Killed.’"

Overhead, the Architect network bloomed like a mechanical flower alive, vast, terrifying.

At its center, the Fifth Seed opened.

It didn’t send warnings.

It sent memory.

And Elara felt it pulse in her skull: the lives she didn’t live. The people she’d loved and lost. The pain of a thousand selves.

She closed her eyes.

And whispered the one phrase that had no translation in any Architect language.

"I’m coming home."

The Wraith plunged deeper, straight into the storm.

Not toward victory.

But toward choice.

Toward the place where everything would end or begin again.