He doesn't speak. Doesn't sleep. Doesn’t stop.
Just fights.
And wins.
Every match.
Every opponent.
He moves like something with nothing left to lose.
Like a myth made flesh, forged in vengeance and sharpened on grief.
He crushes another challenger to the dust—bigger, louder, cocky—and when the crowd screams, he doesn't bow.
He kneels.
Brushes the sand with his fingers.
And whispers one word.
Soft.
Like a prayer.
Like a promise.
“Rhea.”
CHAPTER 14
RHEA
Three years is long enough to bury a past.
Not erase it, no—ghosts like mine don’t go easy. But time dulls the sharp edges. Turns agony into background hum. Gives you a thousand tiny distractions to fill the spaces where pain used to live.
Like sticky fingers stealing fruit from the kitchen bowl.
Like the wild giggle of a toddler tearing through the garden in a pair of too-big boots, tripping on weeds and laughing like she invented gravity.
Like mornings where I forget, for exactly thirteen seconds, that I ever lived another life.
My name is Sera Tallen now.
I live on Kaeltris VI—a lush, quiet colony world at the far edge of the Vellari Expanse, known mostly for exporting medicinal moss and having exactly one bar worth walking into. The seasons here shift like moods—slow, wide, full of color and storm and heat. The people are kind in a mind-your-business kind of way, which suits me fine.
And my daughter?
Ripley Hart Marn is a supernova.
Blonde, feral and fearless. She climbs everything. Eats nothing green. Asks too many questions. Laughs with her whole body. Gets into brawls at school and then hugs her enemies until they cry.
She’s gothiseyes.
That same cutting gold. That same way of looking at the world like it’s a puzzle she’s already solved but is letting you try anyway, just to be nice.
I tell myself she’s my heart walking outside my body.
