Petra called for not one, but two cells. Variks finished his Ether, considering. Perhaps Cayde had finally found Fikrul—and for that, Variks would need every drop of strength he could muster.

His strides were long and slow as he allowed the Ether to course through him, his posture growing taller and more commanding with each step. At the top of the maxsec wing, his hands flew over the controls. He prepared the two empty cells and ordered extraction Servitors into place, all the while reveling in the thought of the judgment of Fikrul. Finished, he stepped back and waited.

Snarling, yelling, the prisoners entered the wing. One, an Eliksni, Petra shoved hard into one of the two cryo-cells. The Fallen landed, weak, and Petra sealed the cell door.

Variks was all too pleased to see the hulking, disgraced Fikrul—the lifeline of the Scorned Barons, his once trusted co-conspirator and great betrayer—seething as the extraction Servitors whirred to life, sapping the heretical Archon of his precious Ether. Variks and Fikrul looked deep into one another's eyes, centuries of history passing between them in the space of a heartbeat.

Fikrul laughed.

Unnerved, Variks stepped away as Cayde dragged a ragged, humanoid figure—head bagged, face unseen. Cayde unceremoniously tore off the hood and tossed the humanoid—an Awoken man—into the open cell.

"And stay there!" Cayde said. His joke fell flat.

On hands and knees, the stranger looked up at his captors to reveal a familiar mess of crow-black hair, blue skin, and piercing yellow eyes.

"Variks…"

It was the face of Uldren Sov—brother to the Queen, prince of the Awoken, and heir to the Reef.