Something inside me… cracks.
I look away first.
But I don’t stop eating.
CHAPTER 2
KENRON
Dawn hits Novaria Prime like a whisper through steel, not a sunrise like on the homeworld. The sky doesn’t burn here—it glows. Pale gold, smeared violet, a touch of green reflecting off the upper atmosphere like the city’s wearing warpaint made of light. I like it quiet like this. No vendors yet. No echoing traffic. Just the low thrum of life waking up slow.
My claws sink into pliant dough, folding and turning, working rhythm into breakfast bread like I’m shaping fate. The smell of it—yeasty, nutty, with a hint of that sweet-smoke spice we ferment in-house—wraps around me, settles into the scales of my forearms. It mixes with the simmer of bones in broth, the slow roast of morning meat slabs, and the tang of firefruit I just sliced open. The kitchen breathes like a second heart.
I hum. Quiet at first. One of the old songs. Not the marching ones—that’s for funerals. This one’s for keeping hands busy and minds still. The kind we used to sing in the mess halls before dawn raids. Not for glory. Not for honor. Just to drown out what came after.
Father doesn’t say a word. He never does about the humming. He just glances up from his spice rack, one eye ridgetwitching like a warning. His silence means: don’t bring the war in here. And I don’t.
But it’s hard, sometimes. Especially lately.
The breakfast rush is steady. Two humans, a Drevia couple with their tendrils wrapped together, a pair of Sereen traders who tip well and never speak above a whisper. We serve. We clean. We nod. Father doesn’t smile, but he gives respectful bows. I do the grinning, the banter, the flair. We play our parts.
Still, something feels... off.
Not in the kitchen. Not in the food. In the air.
I catch myself checking the door too often. Listening for a certain kind of boot heel. That human woman from yesterday—hair soaked to her scalp, eyes like glacial knives, posture military even if she never wore armor. She hated being here. Every twitch of her mouth, every dart of her gaze screamed it.
But she stayed.
She ate. She finished the tea.
She looked at me.
That last part stuck.
I don’t know why it’s rattling around in my skull like a lost round in a gun chamber. I’ve had plenty of humans in here—curious types, hungry types, even the brave xenophiles who want to be seen eating alien food like it’s a moral victory. But she was none of that. She didn’t want to be here.
And yet she sat through a full bowl.
She looked like a woman with knives under her skin and steel in her spine. But when our eyes met, something cracked. Not big. Not loud. Just enough.
“Your mind is wandering,” Father mutters, not looking up.
“I’m allowed to think,” I grunt back, hands rolling out more dough.
“You are allowed to work.”
I don’t argue. Mostly because he’s right. Also because arguing with my father is like shouting at a mountain—no echo, no give, and you’ll be sore in the throat before you move it an inch.
Still, I find myself slicing the firefruit a little thinner. Stirring the broth a bit longer. I catch myself staring too long at the empty booth she sat in. I don’t know her name, but I remember how she wrapped the towel around her hair like she didn’t want it touching her skin, how her fingers hovered over the bowl like it might bite her before she took the first bite.
She was waiting for the food to disappoint her. It didn’t.
And maybe that’s the thing that’s messing with me now. Not her face. Not her glare. But the way she stayed in spite of every instinct telling her to bolt.
I don’t want to be thinking about her. But I am.
Father doesn’t mention it. He never does. But I see the way his eyes flick to the empty seat. The way his jaw tightens.
