“It was an exhale with resonance.”
“That’s alaugh, Tatek.”
She sits back, triumphant. “I win.”
“You did not know we were competing.”
“We always are.”
I watch her smile like it’s a new data point, one I don’t want to file away. It stretches into her cheeks, lights her eyes. Not forced. Not self-conscious.
“Gav’ora,” she says again, slower. “What does it mean?”
I stare at the space between us.
“It is a form of guardianship,” I say. “But not assigned. Claimed. Chosen. Not through order. Through recognition.”
She goes still.
“Recognition of what?”
“The self. In another.”
Her breath catches. Just for a moment.
I do not look away.
The tension doesn’t break.
It lingers.
She goes back to eating, slower now. The room feels warmer, though I know it isn’t. The station hum is softer. The lights less cruel.
I do not touch her.
But I feel closer than I have ever stood to anyone outside my clan.
And the space between us?
It doesn’t feel like distance anymore.
It feels like a promise we haven’t spoken.
Yet.
CHAPTER 5
MARA
The station hums through the walls like it always does—low, mechanical, pulsing—but today it sounds different. Not louder. Not quieter. Just more... noticeable. Like it knows I’m off-kilter.
Like everything does.
I move through my morning motions in a haze. Sanitation. Fabric shift. Ration check. All rote. All performative. It’s the journal that gets me.
I didn’t mean to open it.
Didn’t plan to write anything.
