After a tiny hesitation, she pulled a small, tightly wrapped package from a pouch at her waist, then came to join him. This close, he could smell her properly—that intoxicating mix of cold sea and warm honey that had been haunting his dreams—and hear the soft flutter of her heartbeat, faster than it should be.
She’s nervous,he realized.Nervous, but not afraid. Not of me.
Despite her nerves, her hands were surprisingly steady, as she unwrapped the package to reveal a length of pale bone, carved with holes and etched with patterns. Patterns he’d seen only once before in his life, in the archives of his grandfather’s house. He stopped breathing.
“Orath’kaan,” he breathed.
She gave him a startled look. “You recognize it?”
Recognize it. She had no idea. She hadno ideawhat she was holding. What she had brought to him.
“We call it an echo-pipe,” he said, reaching out with a hand that trembled slightly. “It’s a Vultor artifact. From before the Great Migration. From our homeworld.” He let his fingers trace the etchings, feeling the deep history in the simple lines. “This should not exist. Not here. Not on this planet.”
“It was in the trench, deep in the Maw,” she said softly. “It called to my Song. It seemed… lonely.”
A choked sound escaped him. “It is. We all are.” His people, scattered and broken, their history reduced to half-remembered stories and faded scrolls. And this… this was a piece of their soul, lost in the vastness of space and found by a human female with webbed fingers and stars in her skin.
She hesitated, looking down at the flute. “I think it’s supposed to be played by two people. Maybe more. The resonance is… complex.”
Before he could ask what she meant, she raised the flute to her lips and hummed a single, clear note into it. The sound that emerged was unlike anything he’d ever heard—a pure, crystalline tone that seemed to vibrate the very air around them. But he felt something else, a secondary vibration, an echo beneath the main note that resonated deep within his chest, a hum that spoke of ancient forests and starlit plains, of the pack running under twin moons.
His beast stirred, not with aggression, but with a deep, profound longing. A homesickness so sharp it was a physical pain.
Lilani appeared at the entrance to the main chamber, still half asleep. “Papa? What’s that song?” Before he could answer, she spotted Ariella and her whole face lit up. “Star Lady! You’re here!”
Racing across the short distance, she threw herself into Ariella’s arms hard enough that his female rocked back on her heels. Instinctively he threw out his arm to support her and froze, his bare skin pressing against the soft material of her diving suit. The contact sent another jolt through him, and he knew that she felt it too, her bioluminescence flaring violet for a brief instant.
“It’s like the star song!” Lilani chirped, completely oblivious to the tension thrumming between the adults. “The one you sang to me in the water. It made me feel warm and safe and not scared anymore.”
Ariella’s arms tightened around the little girl for a moment before she let out a low, gentle hum, her Song soft and soothing. Lilani immediately melted against her with a happy sigh.
She doesn’t even have to try,he thought with a mixture of awe and something he didn’t want to name. His daughter, who rarely responded to anyone but him, was completely at ease in the arms of this strange, luminous female.
“What’s like the star song, little one?” Ariella asked gently.
“The song that thing is making,” his daughter said simply, pointing at the flute. “It’s playing in your bones. And in Papa’s bones. Can’t you hear it?”
He stared at the flute. He couldn’t hear anything now that Ariella had stopped playing, but he could stillfeelit—the ghost of a resonance, a memory of sound that seemed to echo in the marrow of his bones. But how could Ariella feel it as well? She wasn’t Vultor. He tried to remember what his grandfather had told him about it, but it had been long ago and he’d always been more interested in more physical pursuits.
“Why would a Vultor artifact respond to me?” she asked, echoing his thoughts.
“Because you’re the Star Lady,” Lilani said cheerfully. “Are you staying for breakfast?”
“I… I…” She gave him an uncertain look and even though he knew he shouldn’t, he found himself nodding.
“You should stay. So we can talk about the echo-pipe,” he added quickly.
“All right,” she agreed, and his beast howled triumphantly. “If you’re sure.”
“It’s fine. We have plenty.” He led the way inside and added a few more pieces of wood to the firepit.
“I can help. Do you have any fresh water?”
“From the spring,” he said, indicating a small trickle of water running down the back wall of the cave to a carved basin.
She walked over to it with Lilani skipping along beside her, her movements so fluid and graceful that she barely seemed to touch the ground. She rinsed her hands, then her face, and he found himself staring at the slits of her gills, sealed against the dry air but still visible, a reminder of the world she came from. A world that was not his.
He turned away before she could catch him looking.
