I drop beside her.
She hands me the bottle without looking.
We sit in silence for a while.
Then I ask it.
The thing neither of us has said out loud.
“So now what?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Just sips from the cup again, mouth curling at the aftertaste.
“Gods,” she mutters. “Tastes like someone filtered wine through an old sock.”
“Because they probably did.”
She snorts, nudges my boot with hers. But the question still hangs there, unspoken, heavy between us.
Now what?
The weight of freedom feels heavier than the chains ever did.
I tilt the bottle, take a swallow. It burns in the throat, but not enough to distract. Nothing does lately.
Rynn sets the cup down beside her knee. Arms wrap around her legs. She stares across the dim corridor toward nothing in particular, eyes distant, haunted, thoughtful.
“There’s nowhere left to run,” she says finally.
“I know.”
“We could go anywhere.”
I nod. “We could.”
“And do what?”
That’s the question, isn’t it?
What do survivors become when there’s no war left to survive?
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, bottle dangling loosely between my fingers.
“You remember what you said on Relkarth Station?” I ask.
She side-eyes me. “I said a lot of things. Most of them laced with profanity.”
“You said Nessa was going to break something big one day. Something that needed breaking.”
A long pause.
“I remember.”
I look down at the floor between us. “She still might. But not without guidance.”
Her brow furrows.
“She needs more than hiding spots and impulse control,” I say. “She needs tounderstandwhat she is. What she can do. And how not to be afraid of it.”
