Now, in my quarters, with the taste of wine still faint on my tongue and the warmth of real sleep still heavy in my limbs, I let it settle.
Not peace. That was too clean a word for what I felt. Just weight. The accumulated mass of everything I'd done and everything I'd survived, finally allowed to be set down, for now, instead of being pushed aside for the next emergency.
Grief was there. For the people I hadn't been able to save. For the version of myself that had existed before all of this, the one who'd had simpler fears and smaller hopes.
Pride was there too. Quieter, harder to accept. But real. I'd made choices that mattered. I'd held lines that others would have given up. I'd become someone capable of doing things I never would have imagined.
And exhaustion. God, the exhaustion. It went down to my bones, into the marrow, into the spaces between my cells. I was tired in ways that sleep wouldn't fix, not quickly, not easily.
But I was here.
The galaxy had shifted, and I knew where I stood in it. Not because someone had told me, or because I'd been assigned a position in someone else's hierarchy. Because I'd claimed it. Built it. Paid for it with everything I had.
I was ready to stop bracing.
Whatever came next, I would meet it. But not tonight. Tonight, I would stay in this room, in this bed, and let myself be.
The Starbreaker hummed around me, steady and patient.
Tomorrow, there would be more.
Chapter 18
A week without running. A week without fighting. A week where the most significant decision I made was whether to take my coffee in the mess hall or bring it back to my quarters.
It felt wrong, like wearing clothes that didn't fit. The newsfeeds kept reporting corporate collapses and liberation movements spreading through the outer systems. Voss had been stripped of his position and sent to an internment facility in a cold, forgotten place. The galaxy was healing, and I had nothing to do but watch.
The knock on my door was almost a relief.
A young crew member stood at attention, holding an envelope as if it might bite him. He saluted. I nodded back. I'd given up trying to return military gestures after the third crew member had to stifle a laugh. He handed me the envelope and retreated before I could embarrass either of us further.
The envelope contained an invitation printed on formal parchment. Actual paper, pressed with the Starbreaker's seal. Not a comm ping. Not Vaelix's voice crackling through the ship's speakers with some irreverent invitation. Torvyn's handwriting, precise and deliberate, requesting my presence in the Knights' den.
Requesting. Not commanding.
I turned the paper over in my hands as I walked, feeling the texture against my fingertips. When was the last time I was invited somewhere rather than being needed? The distinction mattered to me more than it should have.
The den's door was already open when I arrived, and warm light spilled into the corridor. But the light was strange. Softer than usual, red instead of the amber color it was the last time I was here. Someone had changed the settings deliberately. Torvyn, probably.
They were waiting. All four of them, arranged in loose formation around the low table at the center of the room. Not talking, not moving. Just present.
Torvyn rose first, his massive frame unfolding with surprising grace. "You came."
"You asked." I stepped inside, and the door slid shut behind me with a soft click.
"Are we having a party?" I asked.
Kaedren shifted on the cushions, two of his four arms crossed while the others rested on his knees. Firelight caught the scars that traced his jaw. "You could call it that. It's something we should have done before now."
On the table, a single bottle sat surrounded by five glasses. Crystal, not the usual ship-standard metal. The stems and bowls were decorated with hieroglyphs that glowed in the light. I leaned forward and studied them. They were ancient Zorathi. The kind I had only read about in books. The liquid inside was deep violet, almost black, catching light in ways that seemed to shift when I wasn't looking directly at it.
I sat down on the blankets next to my Knights. The warmth in the room wasn't just from the lighting. It was from all of us. It pressed against my skin like a physical presence, settled into my lungs with each breath. I could already feel something loosening in my chest, some tension I hadn't realized I was carrying.
"The wine," I said slowly, recognizing the sensation. "It looks different."
Torvyn's eyes met mine, steady and sure. "Aethervine. A Zorathi tradition for moments that matter. It opens pathways in the mind and body. Emotional, empathic, psychoactive. It helps lower the barriers we build to survive." His voice dropped. "We chose it deliberately. Not to take your defenses. To offer you ours. But we will not serve you until you understand what you are consuming. This will alter your perception of the world, and of yourself."
"Yep, I'm in. I consent, all that, give me the mind-altering wine, please," I said, reaching for the largest pour.
