Good. Let her be angry later. Let her live long enough to be furious. They could fight about it later, when she wasn’t standing exposed on a landing pad with half the galaxy hunting her.
But her attention had already shifted. Past them. Over the gathered crowd.
Aldawi females in battle harnesses. Warriors prepping to deploy. Civilians watching with terror threaded through stubborn pride. Thousands—waiting, watching, clinging to the shape of her as if she could hold the empire together by standing there.
Their Beacon.
“I need to address them.” That tone slid into her voice—the one Kaede had learned to dread. Not because it was wrong. Because it meant consequence. “They’re marching into war. They deserve words from their Beacon.”
His jaw clenched. “Selena—”
“Not here.” Z moved, massive frame shifting to block her path. He had patience Kaede didn’t have in his bloodstream right now. “Your words matter, Selena. But we can broadcast from theShadowClaw. A recorded address will reach everywarrior deploying from this port and a dozen others—both the males on the front lines and the females willing to join their forces. Standing in the open makes you a target.”
“They need to see me.” Her spots shifted toward an angry red, defiant as flame. “Not a recording.Me. In person. Standing with them before they—”
She started forward.
Kaede caught her wrist. Not rough. Just final.
“No.”
Her deep ocean eyes snapped to his, blazing. “I’m the Beacon. These aremypeople.”
“You’re pregnant withmydaughter.” The words scraped out of him, too raw, too honest. He didn’t care. Let her see it. “Your safety outweighseverything. Z’s right—we broadcast from the ship. Your message reaches more warriors that way. But you don’t stand exposed while enemies on two fronts hunt you.”
Silence cracked between them like a psydagger about to slice.
Through their bond, her anger hit his shields—hot, sharp, furious that he’d dared to draw a boundary around her.
Good.
Anger meant she was breathing.
“He’s right,” Z said, voice cutting clean through. “Both points. The broadcast reaches further, and you cannot be risked. Not now.”
Selena’s jaw clenched. For a heartbeat, Kaede felt her preparing to pull free anyway—stubborn, reckless, magnificent creature that she was—
Then her gaze snagged on something behind them.
The defiance drained from her face so fast it was like watching light die.
Kaede turned.
Ryzen stood near the landing strut, exactly where he’d been—but something in him had shifted. His posture was rigid,shoulders squared as he glared up at the sky like it had personally betrayed him. The emerald runes along his skin flickered like a failing power core, flaring bright enough to throw jagged shadows before dimming to nothing.
Seven spirit daggers circled him in a loose, unstable pattern, their movement stripped of any tactical logic.
The Verya warrior who had once faced down entire battalions without blinking stood unmoving now, fists clenched at his sides, fury and strain etched into every line of his body—as if the sky itself were the enemy he was barely holding back from tearing apart.
Kaede’s chest tightened.
He’d seen males break before. Had broken a few himself back in his darker days. But watching Ryzen fracture—this male who had fought and bled to protect his people, who carried regrets in his soul and secrets in his eyes—felt different. Wrong. Like watching a star collapse.
“His brother,” Selena whispered. “The Verya have his brother.”
V’dim and Z’fir flanked Ryzen from a careful distance, bodies angled in protective formation while still keeping enough space to dodge the daggers. The Circuli princes moved in perfect sync—lifelong bondbrother partnership written into every shift of weight, every read of trajectory.
“He’s been like this since the vision,” Kaede explained. “Won’t speak. Won’t eat. The daggers”—a blade whistled past Ryzen’s shoulder, close enough to slice his vest—“are getting worse.”
