“I’d like to try food from other cultures and species,” I said. “Human food, for instance. I’ve heard you have incredible variety.”
Iris shrugged, her eyes fixed on her bowl. “It’s not as good as this. At least, not where I’ve eaten.”
“Where have you eaten?”
“I haven’t eaten at many restaurants, and I’m no chef,” she said. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve only eaten at institutional cafeterias or group homes. Meals prepared for large groups. Nutrition and volume were more important than taste.”
The words were flat, matter-of-fact, but they were heavy enough to make my chest tighten. I set down my bread and looked at her, really looked, taking in the careful neutrality of her expression and the tension in her shoulders.
“Tell me about your background,” I said quietly. “If you’re willing.”
For a long moment, she didn’t speak, and I thought I’d pushed too far. Then she exhaled slowly, and a bit more rigidity left her posture.
“I’m an orphan,” she said. “From a mining colony on the Outer Rim. Poorly run. Dangerous. The kind of place that chewed people up and didn’t bother spitting them out.”
I nodded, encouraging her to continue.
“There was an explosion. Took out most of the workers, including my parents and my two older brothers.” She took another spoonful of soup, the motion mechanical. “The children who survived were gathered up and returned to their species’ original planet. Back on Earth, I was evaluated with the rest of the orphans. It was a long time ago, but I remember psychological and physical assessments. Then we were sorted into different outcomes.”
“Sorted?”
“Well, they had to do something with us. And, look—this isn’t that uncommon. Destructive events happen now and then, and large numbers of orphans need to go somewhere. The children who were little enough to not be completely traumatized went to adoptive families.” I didn’t miss the edge to her voice. “The smart ones ones with potential in science, math, or whatever, were sent to schools.”
“And you?”
She met my eyes, and for just a moment, I saw something raw beneath the surface. “Others, like me, were deemed ideal for military or intelligence training. We were physically able and had the right psychological profiles. Whatever that meant for a six-year-old…” She shook her head. “We had the right lack of attachments. So we were taken to training facilities and raised to be what we are now.”
“Operatives,” I said.
“With reconnaissance, espionage, and assassination skills.” She said it as calmly as if she were reciting a list of supplies. “We were well educated, too. Math, history, science. You know. All the basics. But I was made to be an operative. It’s what I’ve been for most of my life.”
I absorbed this, feeling the weight of it settle into my understanding of her. The neutral expressions. The controlled movements. The walls she kept around herself. They weren’t just personality traits. They were survival mechanisms, trained into her from childhood by people who saw her as a tool rather than a person.
“Is this the life you would have chosen?” I asked. “If you’d had a choice?”
She was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was quieter than before. “Choice was never going to be part of my life. Even before the training. If the mine hadn’t been destroyed, I would have become a worker there, like my parents. No one left, because no one knew any other way. We were trapped by circumstances, not walls.”
“But if you could choose now?” I pressed, for stars know what reason. “If you could do anything, be anything?”
The question seemed to catch her off guard. Her brow furrowed slightly, the closest thing to visible confusion I’d seen from her. “I can’t say. I’m not good at anything else.”
“I don’t believe that.”
She placed her spoon down with a clunk against the heavy stoneware bowl. “Baleck, I don’t know what else I’d do. I’ve never thought about it. There’s never been a point.”
I wanted to tell her that there was a point. That she was more than what she’d been made to be, that she deserved to want things for herself rather than just executing missions and following orders. But I could see that she wasn’t ready to hear it. Not yet.
“Enough about me,” she said, her voice firming as she regained her composure. “What about you? Your past. You fought in the Brakken war. Did you lose family?”
I shook my head, and something flickered across her face. Surprise, maybe.
“My entire family survived,” I said. “We were fortunate. Many weren’t.”
“All of them? Parents? Siblings?”
“My mother and father live on Lord Savair’s Sola. My sister and her mate are on Lord Scaron’s. We were separated during some of the worst fighting, but we found each other again when it was over.” I smiled at the memory of that reunion, the colors that had blazed across all our skins when we finally held each other again. “We’re a stubborn family. Too stubborn to die, my mother likes to say.”
Iris stared at me, and I realized that this was genuinely surprising to her. That she had expected tragedy, expected wounds that mirrored her own, and instead found someone who had emerged from horror relatively whole.
