1
IRIS
The Grand Library of M’mir should feel like paradise.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamt of places like this—a whole planet packed full of knowledge, where the books hum with quiet, alien magic, where stories stretch endlessly through polished corridors of light and shadow.
Here, wisdom isn’t just kept. It’s alive.
The shelves rise in sweeping spirals, curling toward floating lanterns that cast a warm, golden glow. Hidden glyphs pulse beneath the bindings of tucked away tomes, whispering secrets and waiting to be catalogued—books from every planet, every known world, every far corner of the galaxy.
I should be happy. I should feel whole.
But something is missing.
Even after six months, this doesn’t feel like home.
I sigh, cracking open the next book to be catalogued and put away. The script glows faintly–that’s a new one–and I gingerly place my fingertips on it to skim them across the words. I have to be careful; the last time I touched a mystery book like this, I passed out for a second when it basically carried out a psychic attack on me.
It doesn’t–not this time.
I just still feel that nagging sense of ennui.
I press my lips together, focusing on the words instead of the past, but today especially, I can’t get those days out of my head–days on Convergence Earth. I think I might miss the sense of urgency, the danger, even though I really shouldn’t. Maybe that makes me crazy. Maybe—definitely—I need therapy. Or maybe it isn’t the danger I miss, but the camaraderie.
My squadron of fellow preservationists, racing to protect books from the Borean Empire. My friends.
One friend.
I shake my head, pushing the thought away. I have a job to do, and standing here like an idiot lost in nostalgia isn’t going to make this place feel like home.
I close the book and load it into a little hovercart, the soft golden glow of energy underneath it. I press a button and it lifts up—then I move through a curtain of vines and into the Grand Library proper.
The sight still takes my breath away.
The towers of shelves…books of every size and color, rising up up up. Golden glow lamps hover all over the place, scholars of myriad species talking quietly in so many languages.
The scratch of pencil on paper…the tap of claws on marble, heartbeats, growls.
I smile to myself, even as it makes me a little lonely. My cart hovers beside me as I walk through the stacks, searching for the section on Ka’reth cuisine?—
—and I nearly run right into someone…into him.
A giant of a man—quite literally. My eyes are at waist level when I come just inches away, finding a spun gold tunic and a ridiculously muscular leaf green arm. I stumble back, my cart abruptly dropping to the floor, and I look up into a familiar face.
“Iris?” he says.
My face breaks into a huge smile. “Garrik?”
It’s been months since I last saw him, but something about the sight of him shakes me. He looks…the same, I guess, but not. Whereas he used to wear armor and traveling clothes back on Earth, he’s now wearing a golden tunic that stretches across his broad shoulders, the soft fabric tucked into a dark leather belt slung low on his hips. His leaf-green skin glows warmly under the lantern light, dark emerald hair messy and tousled and framing two short antennae. They’re pink at the tips, like he’s blushing.
And those eyes—deep, impossible gold—are locked on me.
I don’t think. Maybe I should, but I don’t.
Instead, I just…fling myself at him.
Garrik bends to catch me, grunting slightly as he hauls me into his arms in a bear hug. His arms close around me, solid and warm, one massive palm spreading across my back, the other settling just beneath my thighs as he lifts me up like I weigh nothing. I grip his shoulders, and for a moment I let myself sink into him, into the warmth, the familiarity of him.
