Closing my eyes, I feel the world’s edges blur. I feel the pain in my back, the lump of blood-stained cloth beneath me, the ache in my ribs. I smell ash, sweat, metal. I taste survival. I taste him.
I don’t say anything. I don’t need to. I just stay.
Because for tonight — after fire, after betrayal, after death and loss — to stay alive together, skin to skin, heart to heart, is more than victory.
It’s home.
Outside, through the cracked window, I catch the first light of dawn. Pale. Fragile. Golden in its mercy. The sky over the ruins turns first from black to indigo, then to violet, then to soft apricot. Light spills across broken metal, across scorched walls, across the dust that still floats in flickering beams.
The dawn smells of pine and damp earth and fresh rain somewhere far off. The ashes in the compound stir when the breeze sweeps through cracked doorways. Embers drift like fireflies rising from rubble.
I move my head against Vokar’s chest and open my eyes to watch the light wash across him. The glint on bone-plates. Thescars. The raw lines of muscle. The strength that doesn’t come from armor, but from flesh. Worn, wounded, but unbroken.
I press my lips together. I taste morning. I taste salt and sweat and more than that — I taste hope.
I whisper again. Barely audible.
“Maybe this is the beginning.”
He sighs — soft, rough, real — and pulls me closer.
“Then we survive,” he says. “Together.”
And in the quiet after fire, as dawn leaks gold across the ruins of everything we once were, I believe it.
We survived. We loved. We will heal. We will rebuild.
Because right now — in this ruined room, in the gold light, in the steady thump of two hearts in unison — we’re alive.
And for the first time in forever, I trust tomorrow.
CHAPTER 27
VOKAR
The wind coming off the forest-moon is soft tonight, a whisper between trees that smells of pine resin and cold earth turned damp by the ashfall. I hold Freya to me by the campfire light — her cheek pressed to my collarbone — as loyal ones bustle around, patching metal, sending others to haul supplies, small flames flickering across broken armor and scorched cloth alike. The compound still stutters: repairs, rebuilding, the slow rhythm of survival in the wake of fire and betrayal.
But in this moment, in the ember-glow and quiet, there’s a stillness I haven’t felt in years. A peace carved out of violence, blood, and bone.
Freya lifts her head, rubs at the ash on her cheek with a fingertip. Her eyes catch the firelight — green and bright, soft as forest moss, but sharp with humor. “You know,” she says, voice low and playful, “we could skip all this — go somewhere beautiful. Beach planet. Warm surf. No bone-spurs. No screams. Just waves and sand.”
I nearly grin — until I notice the look in her eyes: not mocking, but hopeful. Real. My throat tightens. I can tastecopper in the air; perhaps it’s from too much adrenaline still coursing through my veins, or old scars reminding me how close we came to losing it all.
“Beach planet, huh?” I murmur, voice rough. My fingers tighten involuntarily on the ragged cloak draped across my shoulders. “I’m ready.”
She blinks at me — surprise, warmth, disbelief all tangled in her expression. Then she smiles. Soft. Sad. Beautiful.
“You mean it?”
“No more running, not unless you want it,” I say. “No more fear. Just…” I pause, searching her face. “Just us.”
Her smile widens, a tremble in her lips. “Then let’s make this night ours.
When we get back to what’s left of our quarters, I shut the door behind us softly. The wood frame groans, protesting the damage, but holds. The air inside is thick with dust motes, the faint stink of burnt circuits, and the lingering metallic tang of old blood. I taste it on my tongue — a memory that shouldn’t linger.
I crouch beside the collapsed bedframe, and signal for her to join me. The floor is cold beneath my bare feet; the mattress cushioning half-collapsed, spring-coils bent and bent again. Flames still flicker faint through broken panels — a ghost of light from burning debris outside. The room smells of ash, sweat, damp stone, but also of home — fragile, ragged, but ours.
Freya sits in front of me, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. Her uniform is torn, fabric singed, armor shards clinking softly with each breath she takes. I reach out, brush her hair from her face — loose strands dusted with soot.
