The scrape of chair legs.
The seat at the head of the table — where Vokar should sit, where he does sit, every f’n time — shifts. He doesn’t rise. He doesn’t lean. He doesn’t even move — but the room feels him. The weight of his presence cracks the shell of human lips like ice.
All eyes flick toward him. Doubt, fear, awe.
I try not to flinch. My heart rattles in my chest.
He grounds the stir.
He inclines his head — just a fraction. Just enough.
He speaks.
“Let the demands stand.”
The words land like cannon-fire in still air.
I don’t need to see his hands to know they rest on the table, bone-spurs pressed against wood and metal, fingers splayed like claws ready to tear. I don’t need to see his eyes to know they are burning with promise.
Around the circle, tension bursts — a crack in the hull. Papers flutter. Chairs clatter. Diplomats’ skin pales.
Kintar sputters. Rection’s jaw tightens — a mirror of buried rage and … something else. Recognition. Respect. Fear.
I lean forward. I peek. His eyes meet mine. The world tilts.
I don’t back down.
I can’t.
Because I know what I want.
Because I walked into this room not to bend, but to break the silence.
Because I told them what I want — not as a whisper, not as a plea — but as a demand.
Vokar sits back. Calm. The seat creaks under the weight of iron and patience and power.
No one interrupts. No one calls him insane. No one tries to bargain again.
The only sound is the hum of the ship — the warning lights flickering. The air tastes like stale plastic and recycled oxygen.
And I taste something sharper. Possibility. Reckoning. A future redrawn on my terms.
I swallow. My throat dry. My pulse too loud.
But I don’t step back.
Because I’m not just the girl who wipes the decks and hears whispers. I’m the girl who speaks.
I’m the girl who demands.
And right now…
I am the one holding the terms.
The room thins around us — the others filing from the chamber like dry leaves blown from a tree in autumn. Their footsteps echo briefly, then fade. The only sounds left are the soft hiss of systems going into standby, the distant murmur of corridor traffic, and the faint drip of coolant somewhere deep in the walls.
Vokar and I stand under harsh white lights — the same lights we stood under when I demanded what I wanted. Now their glare feels different. Hot. Exposed. Like glass against skin.
