“I didn’t see it at my own wedding.” She turns to look at me, and something in her expression has shifted. Not warmer, exactly, but... different. “Valorian bonds are calculated. Strategic. Love sometimes follows. Sometimes not.”
She’s quiet for a long moment.
“What you have with my son—” She studies my face like she’s seeing me for the first time. “That is not calculated. That is not strategic. That is... rare.”
My throat goes tight. “Lady Valorian—”
“I was prepared to disapprove of you.” She says it matter-of-factly, like she’s discussing trade negotiations. “You’re Fringe. Chaotic. Everything we trained him against.”
“I know.”
“But he looked at you during those vows—” Her voice falters, just barely. “The way his father has never looked at me. The way I’ve never seen anyone look at anyone.”
She turns fully to face me.
“How could I disapprove of that?”
I don’t know what to say. This is the woman who looked at me like I was something stuck to her shoe less than forty-eight hours ago. The woman who radiated cold disapproval from the moment she stepped off her shuttle.
“I... love him.” The words feel inadequate. “I know I’m not what you wanted for him—”
“What I wanted was for him to survive.” Her voice is fierce now, almost raw. “To complete his mission. To come home. You gave me all three.”
She steps closer.
“And you made him laugh. Genuinely laugh, in front of a room full of witnesses, at his own expense.” A pause. “I haven’t heard that since he was a child.”
My eyes are stinging again. This is ridiculous. I’ve cried more in the past two days than in the previous five years combined.
“Welcome to the family, Polly Valorian.”
“It’s still West,” I manage, trying to find my equilibrium. “Hyphenated maybe. We’re negotiating.”
Lady Valorian’s lip quirks. Just barely. The ghost of what might be a smile.
“I see why he likes you.”
She extends her hand—a formal Valorian gesture, the kind she’d offer to an ally. An equal.
I take it.
Her grip is firm, her skin cool against mine. And something passes between us—not warmth, not yet, but the beginning of it. The foundation of something that might become understanding.
“Don’t hurt him,” she says quietly.
“I won’t.”
“And don’t let him hurt himself. He has a tendency toward noble self-sacrifice.”
“Tell me about it.”
This time, the ghost smile actually materializes. Briefly. Gone almost before I can register it.
“We should return,” she says. “Before my daughter starts an interstellar incident with the Zaterran warriors.”
“Is that likely?”
“She’s been trying to arm-wrestle them for the past twenty minutes. Someone is going to lose a limb.”
