“No,” he says quietly. “We didn’t.”
Then he looks at me, and there’s a light in his eyes I’ve never seen before.
“We rebuilt it.”
And gods help me—I believe him.
CHAPTER 31
RYNN
It starts with a knock.
Not a frantic one. Not the kind that screams run.
Just a slow, deliberate rhythm—three even taps against the woven frame of our dome’s entry panel.
Vael answers it.
I’m still at the table, half-dressed, fingers sticky with sea fruit pulp. Nessa’s asleep in the back, curled around that patchy synthfur monster she won’t name but insistsisn’t a toy.
The visitor is Kevari.
Which means this isn’t a casual check-in.
She doesn’t enter. Just leans into the threshold with a weight that makes the whole space feel smaller.
“There’s news,” she says, tone flat as iron.
Vael tilts his head. “Good or bad?”
Her eyes flick to me.
“Complicated.”
Turns out,Vakutan diplomatic channels still run hot—even out here.
Kevari hands over a data slate, eyes not leaving mine. “Courier from the High Consul’s cultural archives. Took the long way, so you’re not in breach.”
“Breach of what?” I mutter, already scanning the first lines.
Vael reads over my shoulder. I feel his breath catch halfway down the first paragraph.
The Alliance is initiating aformal inquiry into wartime orphan records.
Specifically, they’re auditing all undocumented adoptions, surrogate claims, and untraceable children during the blackout years of the conflict.
Paperwork ghosts.
Like Nessa.
Like me.
I set the slate down like it might catch fire.
Vael speaks first. “It’s probably standard.”
I nod, but it’s empty. “Right.”
