Chapter 32: Valkyrie — Summary, Analysis, and Study Guide

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

With Gaea Station tearing itself apart, Kyr sprints through the Victrix with only twelve minutes before the station's three shadow engines reach full power. She has spent days shadowing Jole and organizing a rebellion, leaving no time for Drill or cardio, but her Gaean training carries her through. She jumps into the tunnel leading to Gaea's core without a grapple, letting herself fall through the gravity shifts and shadowspace distortions, dodging cables and riding the pulses of the engines.

At the heart of the chamber, she finds a temporary platform of greenish unreal light where the three engines' forces cancel each other out. Jole stands there with his hand around Yiso's wrist—not restraining them, but clinging to them as his only chance of escape. Jole offers a deal: his dreadnought for Yiso. Kyr refuses. She tells Yiso to let go of their shadowspace manipulation, and when they do, the storm of spacetime distortion roars back. Kyr throws herself around Yiso, kicks Jole into the path of the Ferox engine's wave, and watches him get smeared across fifteen dimensions.

She carries Yiso back up the tunnel, but the ceiling has collapsed. Avi's voice booms over the stationwide comm, telling her to go around. The Victrix launches with nearly two thousand people aboard—all of Nursery, the cadets, the Sparrows, Avi, and Mags. Mags gives the Victrix toast over the comm: