The thought settled on me like weight.
One more dinner. One more gathering in the nestbed. And then we scatter.
Tomorrow morning, V’dim and Z’fir would board their vessel first, heading out to patrol Destima’s perimeter and the corridor between here and Liskta. Close enough to reach us in hours. Far enough that the bonds would stretch thin.
And then I’d board the Abyss. Kaede, Ryzen, Zyxel, Eshe, and the Royal Guard at my side. The CEG Space Station. The Chamber. The trap the Quaww had laid, wearing the face of galactic diplomacy.
I pressed my palms flat against the warm stone railing and closed my eyes. Through the bonds, I could feel all of them.Every thread in my constellation vibrating with the particular tension of people who were about to be pulled apart but hadn’t let go yet.
I pressed a hand to my belly and breathed through it.
We’re okay. We’re still okay.
I wasn’t sure who I was reassuring.
The footsteps behind me were nearly silent.
Nearly. Not quite. Oeta moved with the careful precision of a species that had spent millennia perfecting the art of presence—arriving without startling, existing without imposing. But I’d learned her sounds over many nights of shared meals and late-night research sessions and the particular way she placed her weight when she had something to say.
She stopped beside me at the railing. Didn’t speak. Didn’t ask if I wanted company or if I’d rather be alone. She simply took the space to my left and turned her face toward the sunset, her fuchsia aura dimmed to something quiet and steady.
We stood in silence for a long time.
The sun continued its slow descent, painting the ocean in shades of amber and rose that would have been beautiful if I’d had the capacity to appreciate beauty right now. Instead I tracked it with the clinical awareness of someone counting down hours. Sunset meant dinner soon. Dinner meant the last meal as a complete constellation. After that: the nestbed. After that: dawn. After that—fracture.
Oeta’s presence was never accidental.
I’d learned that early. She didn’t seek people out for casual company. Didn’t make small talk, didn’t fill silences because they made her uncomfortable. If she’d come here, she had a reason. She’d calculated the timing, weighed the approach, and determined that now—this precise moment on this particular balcony—was when she needed to speak.
So I waited.
The sun touched the horizon. The light shifted, going deep and golden, and Oeta’s sharp features caught it in a way that made her look older. Not aged—ancient. The difference mattered. Nyaviel didn’t age the way other species did. They accumulated. Centuries of observation and calculation layered behind those fuchsia eyes like sediment in stone.
“I will remain here while you are away.”
Her voice carried no preamble. No softening.
I turned to look at her.
“On Destima?” I hadn’t hidden my surprise well enough. “I assumed you’d return to Nyaviel space. Be with your people while—”
“No.” Firm and final. Oeta didn’t look at me, her gaze fixed on the sinking sun. “If the Verya make a move against Destima, someone must be here to meet them.” A pause, measured and deliberate. “And my research is here. I will not abandon years of work.”
The words landed with the particular weight that Oeta gave to things she’d already decided. Not a request for input. Not a proposal open to discussion. A statement of fact, delivered with the same tone she used when presenting research findings—calm, certain, already past the point of debate.
“You think they’d come here?”
“I think they are capable of anything.” Her chin lifted. “Better to be prepared than to discover the cost of assumption.”
She was right. I knew she was right. The Verya didn’t operate on predictable logic—they operated on hunger. On the drive to acquire, to collect, to consume anything that caught their attention. And Destima held things that caught attention. My cubs. My healing mates. The research Oeta had spent years building—reproductive work that could change the future of many species if she ever cracked it.
The Verya would want all of it.
“But if you need me at the Chamber—” Oeta turned to face me, and the last of the sunset caught her eyes, turning them from fuchsia to something closer to dark wine. “Call out. I will come.”
“How would you even—”
“Kaede left instructions.” The faintest trace of approval entered her voice. “One of the remaining Fab Five can make the transit. He was thorough.”
