Because I don’t deserve this peace yet.
But I’ll fight for it like I know how.
And this time, it won’t be war.
It’ll be truth.
CHAPTER 50
JAV
The comm-link buzzes on the table—soft at first, then insistent, like it knows I’m trying to ignore it.
I glance at the screen, still half-asleep, the city lights bleeding blue through the orphanage windows. The night hums—low generators, the occasional hiss of a transport shuttle passing overhead. My body aches with the day’s weight: a hundred questions from kids, paperwork, a broken hydro-sink I promised to fix.
The name flashing on the comm nearly stops my heart.
Toran.
Redscale Command.
It’s a ghost calling.
For a few seconds, I just sit there and listen to it buzz.
When I finally pressaccept, the room dims automatically, privacy mode engaging. The holo sputters, and then there he is—Toran, exactly as I remember him. Thick neck. Rings on every finger. A scar down his temple that glows faintly in low light. Same smirk. Same voice—deep, syrup-slow, full of the kind of power you never forget.
“Jav Kuraken,” he says, like it’s a prayer he’s proud to have memorized. “It’s been too long.”
I lean back, the chair creaking beneath me. “Not long enough.”
He chuckles. “Always the charmer. I’ll get right to it. The Nine are making moves again. Redscale’s thin. Our fleets are in pieces, our captains half-dead or defected. The council’s looking to rebuild. They want you back. Your rightful place, Jav. Command. Title. Everything.”
His words curl through me like smoke—familiar, tempting.
He paints it in colors that used to mean something to me:
Legacy. Loyalty. Power.
“After all,” Toran adds, tilting his glass, “you built this empire once. It’s yours to reclaim.”
I stare at him. The screen light flickers across my hands, my scars, the veins that still remember how to grip a blade.
Once, that kind of offer would’ve hit me like adrenaline.
Now, it just feels like a test.
“You’re not calling about loyalty,” I say. “You’re calling because you’re desperate.”
He smiles. “Desperation and opportunity are the same thing, depending which side of the blaster you’re on.”
I let silence hang there for a moment. I think about Kairo’s laugh last night. Ben’s voice telling me he wants to be “both.” The smell of chalk dust from the classroom, the sound of kids shouting about planets and pretend pirate ships.
That world feels fragile, like glass. But it’smine.
“Toran,” I say slowly, “you said ‘rightful place.’ But maybe that place was never really mine.”
He leans forward, the hologram distorting for a second. “Careful, Kuraken. Don’t mistake guilt for wisdom. The Nine aren’t patient men.”
