Liara: Eyes of Ancient Suns by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Liara-Eyes-of-Ancient-Suns-1312369201?file=1

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The Geometry of Thirst

The air inside the research vault of the Aethelgard did not simply sit; it curdled. It had the metallic, sharp tang of a dying star, a scent that clung to the back of Commander Shepard’s throat like wet wool. Every step across the obsidian floor felt like treading on the surface of a frozen lake that was secretly, maliciously thin. At the center of the chamber, Liara T’Soni sat suspended four feet above the deck, her legs folded in a graceful, impossible lotus. She was no longer merely the Shadow Broker or a Prothean scholar; she had become a prism for a light that had no business existing in a three-dimensional universe.

Around her neck, the rogue biotic amplifier—a jagged, pulsing toroid of pre-Prothean origin they had dubbed the Chorus of Void—was singing. It didn't make a sound that ears could catch, but rather a vibration that rattled the marrow in Shepard’s bones. It glowed with a violet so intense it bordered on ultraviolet, casting shadows that moved independently of the objects casting them.

"Liara," Shepard said, her voice sounding small against the humming silence. "We have to shut it down. The station’s structural integrity is dropping. The Normandy’s sensors are picking up... ripples. Something is coming through the tear you're making."

Liara did not open her eyes, but her head tilted at an angle that suggested she was listening to a conversation happening three rooms away and two centuries ago. Her skin, usually the soft, dappled blue of a Thessian morning, was now translucent, revealing a network of glowing silver veins that pulsed in rhythm with the amplifier. She looked radiant, terrifyingly beautiful, like an ancient goddess carved from the heart of a nebula.

"It isn't a tear, Shepard," Liara whispered, her voice layered with harmonies that suggested a dozen Liaras were speaking at once. "It is an invitation. For so long, we have looked at the stars and seen distance. I am seeing the architecture of the 'in-between.' There are cathedrals of thought in the vacuum, and I am finally tall enough to touch the ceilings."

Shepard stepped forward, the gravity in the room shifting beneath her boots. "The people who built that thing didn't build it to touch the ceiling. They built it as a lure. You’re emitting a signal that’s dragging things out of subspace. Things that haven't had a shape in a billion years."

Liara’s eyes snapped open. They were no longer blue. They were twin wells of absolute, crushing darkness, rimmed with halos of dancing white fire. She drifted closer, her movement fluid and predatory. When she landed, her feet made no sound. She didn't walk toward Shepard; she seemed to simply subtract the distance between them.

"Do you feel it, Shepard?" Liara asked, her hand reaching out, not to strike, but to graze the line of Shepard’s jaw. Her touch was cold—not the cold of ice, but the cold of a vacuum that drinks heat. "The way the universe wants to be known? My mind has always been a library, but now... now it is the fire that burns the library to keep the night away. It feels... intoxicating. I can see the threads of your DNA, the flickering sparks of your intent before you even think them. You want to save me. How quaint. How beautifully, tragically human."

Shepard didn't flinch, though the shadows on the walls were beginning to grow teeth. "I'm not just here to save you, Liara. I'm here to save the rest of us from what happens if you don't let go. Look behind you."

In the corners of the vault, the geometry was failing. The right angles of the Prothean architecture were softening, turning into oily, iridescent curves. From the patches of absolute darkness, things were beginning to peel themselves away. They looked like silhouettes cut out of a reality that was darker than black—jagged, multi-limbed things that moved with a sickening, stuttering grace. They were the Inherent, the scavengers of subspace, attracted to the feast of dark energy Liara was radiating.

"They are hungry," Liara murmured, her gaze drifting to the entities. She didn't sound afraid. She sounded sympathetic. "They have been screaming in the silence for eons. They just want to be substantial. They want to taste the light."

"They want to eat the light, Liara! And you’re the buffet," Shepard snapped, drawing her sidearm, though she knew the thermal clips would be useless against a nightmare made of math. "That amplifier isn't a tool. It's a straw, and they're on the other end, sucking your soul into the v
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