CEO of DaxCorp
The cantina pulsed with laughter, music, and the ever-present haze of Zeltros' intoxicating pheromones. To most, it was paradise, a place where inhibitions dissolved into the air itself.
Daxium Ryiah felt nothing.
His poisonous yellow eyes drifted across the room with slow, deliberate precision, dissecting every face, every conversation, every potential threat. A half-finished glass rested in his hand, untouched for several minutes as he sat alone at the bar, wrapped in a silence that seemed almost unnatural amidst the chaos around him.
A year.
Only one year since they had thawed him from his frozen tomb.
One year of agony.
One year spent confined to a hospital bed while his body waged war against centuries of cryogenic imprisonment. Every breath had been earned. Every step had hurt. Every doctor had doubted he would survive.
And somehow... he had.
He almost wished he hadn't.
The galaxy that surrounded him bore little resemblance to the one he remembered. Empires had risen and fallen. Entire generations had lived, loved, and died while he remained trapped in perfect stillness, conscious only enough to know the endless cold.
Everyone he had ever known was dust.
Lady Sinistra...
His jaw tightened around the thought.
She had sought immortality with an obsession bordering on madness. If anyone could have defied time itself, it would have been her. Yet even that hope rang hollow. Centuries were an impossible burden for anyone to bear.
She was gone.
She had to be.
And his sister...
His fingers unconsciously curled around the glass.
The bond between them had once been impossible to ignore, a dyad that tied their very souls together. He had searched for that familiar presence countless times since awakening.
Nothing.
Only silence.
Whether death or something stranger had severed the connection no longer mattered. She was gone from him.
Everyone was.
He took a slow drink, the liquor burning pleasantly compared to the frozen nightmare his body still remembered.
Who was Daxium Ryiah without his past?
Without his allies.
Without his enemies.
Without a purpose.
The question lingered heavier than the drink in his hand.
His gaze swept the cantina once more, cold and calculating despite the exhaustion hidden beneath it. A predator without a hunt. A relic wearing the face of a man who should have died centuries ago.
Eventually, someone would notice the solitary figure with venom-yellow eyes who seemed utterly immune to the charms of Zeltros.
Whether they approached out of curiosity, opportunity... or something far more dangerous...
...would likely determine how Daxium's second life truly began.
Braze
