“Then rebuild it,” she murmurs. “Make it stand by more than breaking.”
I nod. I pull her hand into mine again. The bone-spurs on my gauntlets shift, metal murmuring. The wind carries smell of earth, distant forest, and the distant hiss of the compound’s engines — reminders that we live in two worlds now: one of blood and spurs, and one of fragile trust, of skin and breath and living flesh.
I lift my head, eyes fixed on the distant ridge-line. The first glow of Storder’s gas-giant dawn lights the horizon. Pale lavender and silver, bending sky and forest into shape. I taste hope on the air — bitter, electric, unfamiliar.
“Tomorrow,” I rasp. “We begin again.”
I release her hand. I reach up, press fingertips to my lip — damp, warm from blood. The wound’s shallow — nothing a heal-salve can’t fix. No scar, maybe. No broken bone. Just memory.
I glance at her — uniform dirt-smeared, eyes sharp, stance firm.
She meets my gaze. Quiet. Steady.
She doesn’t flinch.
I don’t need to roar.
Because she already knows what kind of warlord I can be.
Because she already knows what kind of mate I choose to be: not just conqueror. Protector. Teacher. Partner.
And maybe… just maybe… something better than steel ever was.
I close my eyes. Let dawn break across my vision. The smell of earth, of blood, of hopeful rain whispers against my skin.
I whisper a vow — not in a war-tongue, but in claw-bare bone, in breath, in life.
“I learn fast.”
CHAPTER 15
FREYA
The ache in my muscles pulses like a slow drum — hip bones, thighs, shoulders, even my fingers tingle with aftershock. I wake in the bunk before the alarm, goose-flesh crawling where the sheets rub against skin. I roll over, pull the thin blanket tighter, and for a moment I feel… powerful. Not just alive. Strong. Real.
I trace the line of a bruise forming beneath my ribs — the one from when I knocked him off balance, and he laughed while blood slid over his lip. I remember the heat of our breath, the sting of bone-plate sliding past skin, the way his chest rose and fell under his own armor.
I sit up. Push the sheets away. I stand — slow, steady, aware of every fiber, every joint, every scar I’m remaking. I stretch — tendons pulling, the distant hiss of the ship’s life-support the only sound besides my own breath.
When I walk out into the corridor, my shoulders are straight. I don’t look at the floor, don’t shrink under the glances. Iwalk.
The air smells of recycled metal and stale coffee from the mess hall just ahead. I carry a mop to start my shift, but theinstrument feels lighter than usual — as if the dust I sweep up holds less weight than the burden in my bones.
Vakutan officers pass me — tall, imposing, sharp eyes flicker across me — but they don’t turn away. Not now. Their stares are balanced: recognition. A shift. Not quite respect. But no dismissal either. That’s new. A ripple, subtle.
I chalk it up to training. To the cloak. To the fact that now I move like I own the air I breathe. Maybe.
But inside — inside my head — the whispers never stop.
On a break, I pass near the galley entrance. Two enlisted soldiers — younger, lean — their voices low, barely hushed. I hear them.
“There she is — the Reaper’s pet,” I catch the words.
My palm tightens on the mop-handle so hard my knuckles go white. I force myself not to turn. Not to answer. Not to crack.
But their laughter follows me down the corridor. Hollow, nasty.
I take a deep breath. The recycled air tastes metallic, stale. I exhale slowly.
