My Shard Bearer System - Elias's Legacy-Chapter 247: Mess in the Gold

He took a breath. The fabric across his chest tightened with the motion, pressing back like it didn’t care what he had to say.

"For now," Elias added, "do you happen to know the time?"

Marcus sighed.

It wasn’t angry—just worn out. The sound of someone trying to make peace with the shape of a day gone wrong.

"They shoved me into this orange thing about four hours ago," he said. "I’d guess it’s around one, maybe. But that depends on where we even are."

Elias nodded slightly, just enough to shift the muzzle.

"Fair."

A pause.

Then Marcus again.

"So you want to tell me what’s going on?"

His tone had cooled, but the edge still lingered—less fury, more demand.

Elias tilted his head, eyes narrowing in mock thought.

"What, they didn’t tell you either?" he said, voice light despite the steel wrapped around him.

The chains didn’t rattle when he moved—but the humor did its job.

Just enough to cut the tension.

"Nope," Marcus said flatly. "Like I told you—they yanked me off the stage, told me I was handpicked, and said you would explain everything once you woke up."

A beat.

"Which raises the question—why were you even asleep?"

Elias blinked against the overhead light, the memory snapping into place before he could reach for it.

"Oh. That."

He shifted slightly, the restraints pulling against his chest as he breathed in.

"I got hit with a sleep dart," he said. "Geras fired it himself after I agreed to this whole thing."

He could still feel the click of the trigger. The soft hiss. The weightless second before the fall.

Across the hold, Marcus exhaled—short, sharp, but not angry this time.

"Alright. That’s... good. I thought maybe they’d done something worse. But okay."

Another pause.

"Then what are we doing, exactly?"

Before Elias could answer, the ship lurched again.

The jolt wasn’t violent, but it was deliberate. A course correction or a descent—enough to send the restraints clanking, enough to remind them both that neither of them controlled where this was going.

The hum of the engines deepened. The familiar vibration of shard-powered flight crawled up the walls, through the steel floor, into Elias’s spine.

His eyes drifted to the hold’s edges.

Panels lined the walls—dull gray, scratched with wear, etched faintly with numbers and notations no one bothered to clean. The air hung heavy with the stench of scorched copper and something sharper beneath it—cleaning agents, sterile and bitter.

That scent always lingered in Federation transports.

Always just strong enough to burn the back of your throat.

In the corners, surveillance drones hovered.

Their lenses glinted red as they tracked movement—or maybe just watched in case there wasn’t any. Blinking rhythmically. A mechanical presence designed to say nothing, but promise consequences anyway.

They weren’t alone.

And they wouldn’t be for long.

"Since they didn’t bother to tell you," Elias said, his voice steadier now despite the muzzle, "we’re infiltrating the Primed Epics."

He let that hang for a second.

"You know—the bloodthirsty group of seven."

He paused again.

"Well. Six now. Elara took out the one with the Spine Ikona."

Across the hold, Marcus shifted in his restraints.

"Uh... no," he said slowly. "I don’t have an Ikona like you do, remember? I’m not even sure what a Spine Ikona is."

Elias gave a slight nod, though the motion pressed the muzzle tighter against his jaw.

"Right. About that."

His tone flattened—just enough to carry the weight underneath.

"I don’t have an Ikona anymore. Not really."

He blinked once, the name flickering in the back of his mind like a missed signal.

"Dot’s with Kikaru now."

"Kikaru..." Marcus echoed. "Isn’t that the general’s daughter? Or... something like that?"

"Maybe," Elias replied. "She said something about not wanting to disappoint him. Sounds about right."

For a moment, the only sound was the buzz of the engines and the low click of drones shifting in their stations.

Marcus exhaled.

The breath came slow, dragged down by the shape of the conversation.

"Alright, then," he muttered. "So let me get this straight."

He leaned back slightly, the restraints groaning under the shift.

"You’re throwing yourself at a group that’s already killed a Warden. Took down a Federation mech. Publicly called for the dismantling of human leadership."

His voice flattened.

"And you’re dragging me with you to do what, exactly?"

He didn’t sound angry anymore. Just exhausted.

"What’s the goal here?"

Elias’s jaw clenched.

The interrogation room flickered behind his eyes—Geras’s voice, the cold table, the weight of two futures laid bare. His own words came back to him, reshaped in this echo chamber of steel and drone hum.

"The first goal," he said, voice low, "is to make it look like we betrayed the Federation."

He didn’t dress it up.

"They think we handed over classified tech. Biosuit data. Advanced targeting protocols. We sell that narrative hard."

Marcus didn’t speak. Elias kept going.

"We use their egos against them. Make them think they’ve won something big. Enough to pull us in close."

His hands shifted against the bindings, metal scraping as his shoulders tensed.

"Once we’re inside, we plant distrust. Quietly. We chip at the cracks already there. Make them question each other. Break the unity they’re trying to build."

He glanced toward the blinking red eyes of the drones overhead.

"And while they’re too busy turning on themselves, the Federation gets time to prepare. To strike if it comes to that."

The hold went quiet again.

Not the kind of silence that offered peace—just absence. The ship’s hum filled the gap, steady and loud, pressing against Elias’s chest like it wanted to squeeze the conviction out of him.

His thoughts slid sideways.

Giselsin rose from the background—bonewood groves rustling in that slow, unnatural wind. The chain around his wrists during the ritual had been smooth, not coarse like these. The blue-face emissaries had watched him without blinking, their eyes catching the gemlight like the drones here caught his breath.

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