The greenhouse held its breath at this hour.
Z’fir moved through the dark between the planting beds, vines trailing slow along the moss-covered shelving, brushing the wide leaves of the night-blooming tessara that only opened after the second moon crested the ridge line. They didn’t need much attention at this hour. Neither did the climbing stellarvine he’d trained up the glass panes over the months she was lost to them, its silver tendrils reaching toward starlight with the same patient certainty he’d tried to teach himself.
Trying. That was the word that circled back every time his mind quieted enough to notice.
He’d spent the evening trying not to think about V’dim. Trying not to feel through their bondbrother thread the particular quality of his contentment once Selena had come to him on the observation deck—warm, muted, the kind of peace a male carried after saying the things he needed to say. Z’fir had felt it across the villa from three floors away and done thesensible thing: he’d come here. Where roots grew and leaves didn’t ask him to speak.
V’dim had words. Not the sharp kind meant to win a room, but the soft, deliberate kind that slipped under skin and stayed there.
Z’fir had seen it happen—Selena’s spots shifting, blooming pink and purple because V’dim had leaned in close and said something sweet like it was the most natural truth in the universe. Not grand declarations. Justhim, offering warmth in a sentence, gratitude in a tone.
And he didn’t stop at words.
He left braided flowers throughout her nestroom the way other males left weapons within reach—quiet signs of devotion placed where she would find them when no one was watching. On the bathroom vanity beside her oils. Tucked on her pillow like a promise waiting for her to come back to it. Resting near the edge of the hot springs bath, petals damp with steam, as if even comfort needed to be marked with love.
Simple things. Intentional things.
V’dim’s way of sayingthank youwithout ever making it heavy. His way of reminding her—again and again—how much he loved her, and how grateful he was that she was theirs. Their Nestqueen.
Z’fir had vines.
He touched the base of a climbing fern, coaxing a curled frond to straighten, and watched it unfurl under his attention with the quiet reliability that plants offered—no expectation, no interpretation required. Just response. Just need met by presence.
In less than two days, he would leave this greenhouse. Leave Destima. Leave her.
The tessara released its first bloom of the night with a soft, audible click—petals fanning open into pale violet cups thatcaught the moonlight pooling through the glass. Z’fir stood still and watched it. His petal wings, tucked flat against his back all evening, shifted once. Not quite unfurling. Just... remembering how.
He hadn’t gone to her.
He’d been standing in this greenhouse for three hours working up the kind of courage that felt embarrassing to need, and he still hadn’t moved. V’dim would have gone the moment the impulse struck. Odelm would have played something mournful from the corridor until she heard him. Even Kaede, in his blunt and efficient way, made his presence known when he needed to. The demi-human male had no difficulty in the direct approach.
Z’fir was still cataloging soil moisture levels.
He pressed his palm flat against the cool glass of the nearest pane. Outside, the villa’s gardens stretched into silver darkness, Destima’s twin moons painting the oasis grasses pale. The war was out there somewhere beyond Lunkai, beyond the last safe corridor, gathering weight the way storms gathered out of sight of the coast—imperceptible until they weren’t. He could feel it the way he’d felt every deployment before this one—not as fear, but as inevitability. A calculation completed. A door, sealing.
He had two days.
He was wasting them in the dark with his plants.
He turned back to the ferns and made himself stay.
The door opened.
He knew her step before she reached the first planting bed. The years of her feet crossing his floors at every hour had given him that without his intending to acquire it. The soft press of heel, the slight favor of the left side when she was tired. She was tired tonight.
He turned.
Selena stood at the entrance to the greenhouse, wrapped in a light sleep robe, silver hair loose just above her shoulders. She hadn’t brought a light. She’d navigated the path from the main corridor in the dark, which meant she’d made this walk before. Which meant she’d known to come here.
“I’ve had time with everyone else today,” she said. Her voice carried no accusation—just the direct, unadorned honesty that still caught him off guard, even now. “But I haven’t had you. Just you. And I wanted to.”
Something in his chest shifted. Not cracked—not yet—but moved. Like a root disturbed by water finding new ground.
“I was going to come to you,” he said.
“I know.” She stepped inside, letting the door close behind her. “You would have come eventually. But I didn’t want to wait.”
He hadn’t worked up the courage. She hadn’t needed it. The difference between them, distilled to something he recognized with a precision that offered no comfort.
