“Every night.”
“Odelm.”I reached for him through our bond, letting him feel what I couldn’t say aloud—the fierce, aching love that swelled every time he picked up his velishra, every time he turned his pain into something beautiful.“You are not the weak link. You never were. Do you hear me?”
His jaw clenched.
“I hear you, nestqueen.”A pause, thick with emotion.“Always.”
He kissed my knuckles. Stepped back.
Oeta stood apart from the others, as she always did. Watching. Waiting. When our gazes met, I felt the echo of what she’d told me on the balcony the night before.
If you need me, call. I will hear you. And I will come.
A single nod. Precise. Final. Everything she’d promised compressed into one motion—defender, researcher, ally,sister, the female who’d chosen to remain on Destima not out of obligation but out of conviction. Behind that nod lived the Nyaviel-Aldawi alliance her father was building, the political earthquake forming in silence while the rest of the galaxy looked elsewhere.
I returned the nod. Held it.
Thank you, Oeta. For all of it.
The walk to the Abyss felt longer than it was.
Kaede fell in at my left, silent, his thread a wall of ice-wrapped determination.
“You’re always with me.”
The briefest flicker through his thread—warmth, sharp and unexpected, before the ice sealed back over it.“Always.”
Eshe and the Royal Guard had already boarded. The rest of my heart, my clan, my family and friends all watched us board.
At the base of the ramp, I stopped.
Turned.
The villa rose behind the landing pad, warm stone catching the morning light, the gardens a blur of green where Z’fir had coaxed life from Destima’s soil. My family stood grouped at the pad’s edge—Xylo with his arm around Odelm, the cubs pressed close to their sides, Oeta a still figure at the margin. Household staff clustered behind them. Everyone watching. Everyone silent.
I raised my hand.
They raised theirs back. Every one of them. Cubs and mates and the Nyaviel who didn’t do sentiment and the household staff who’d served this family through celebrations and catastrophes and the long, hollow months when I’d been gone and the villa had felt like a tomb.
Xylo’s thread surged—bright, almost blinding.“We’ll be here. Whenever you reach for us. We’ll be here.”
Odelm’s melody threaded through, layered beneath his bondbrother’s words. The hopeful song, given freely.“Listen for me,”he pathed.“Across any distance. I’ll be playing for you.”
“I know.”My chest ached with it—the love, the fear, the impossible weight of walking away from everything thatmattered.“Keep each other safe. Keep the cubs close. And if anything changes—”
“We’ll reach you,”Xylo finished.“Always.”
I carried them with me. Every bond a thread of light stretching across the void. My constellation, scattered but connected. My family, waiting for me to come home. And behind them all, an alliance forming—Nyaviel and Aldawi, preparing to stand together against the darkness.
I turned. Walked up the ramp. Kaede beside me, Ryzen and Zyxel behind.
Kaede’s hand brushed my elbow at the threshold—guiding, not pulling.“Don’t look back,”he pathed.“It makes leaving impossible.”
“Speak from experience?”
A beat of silence on the thread.“Every time.”
I didn’t look back.
