Idream of stars.
Not the ones I used to chase as a boy—cold and unreachable, scattered across the void like things you could map but never hold. These stars aren’t distant. They don’t hang in someone else’s sky. They burn behind my ribs, tucked inside the space where belief lives.
They burn because she’s here.
Because Mara is here.
I drift in that warmth for what feels like a lifetime. The kind of dream where you’re not running, not fighting, not searching for an exit. Just floating. Weightless. Whole.
And then?—
The world stirs.
Quietly.
Not with urgency. Just... change.
The air shifts.
The texture of fabric against my skin sharpens. The old floor beneath my spine stiffens. A sound—soft, rhythmic, close—resolves into breath. Her breath.
I open my eyes.
The room is still dark, but dawn’s edge is pressing faintly at the bulkhead seams, teasing the shape of things out of shadow.
Mara’s curled against my chest, one hand fisted in the front of my tunic like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.
I don’t move right away.
I just look at her.
Her hair is a mess of curls and tangles across my shoulder. Her mouth slightly open, breath feathering against my skin. The hand clutching my shirt tightens unconsciously as she shifts in her sleep, nestling in closer like she knows I’m awake.
And gods, the way that undoes me.
This woman. This fighter. This storm of a person who’s never let anyone in unless they bled for the privilege—she’shere. With me. Wrapped up like I’m the tether keeping her from floating away.
I lift my free hand, brushing a loose strand of hair from her cheek.
She sighs softly.
Not awake.
Not yet.
But I feel her. Every inch of her.
And I know—Iknow—I’ll never leave this. Never walk away. Not even if the whole system burns and every last protocol shouts me down.
I press my lips to her forehead, then her temple.
And finally, I move.
Carefully.
I lift her hand from my chest and bring it to my mouth, kissing her palm with a gentleness I didn’t know I was capable of.
She doesn’t wake.
