I’d known it would catch up eventually. The thing Torek had protected. The thing he’d made me promise to keep safe. All the ghosts he’d tried to outrun.
They’d found him anyway.
Found me.
I didn’t sleepthat night.
Every time I started to drift off, some small sound jerked me awake. The creak of the house settling. Wind moving through the crops. Turnip shifting in his spot by the door.
Each time, I checked the perimeter sensors. Each time, they showed nothing. Just the Vinduthi’s ship, dark and still.
He wasn’t trying to sneak past my defenses. Wasn’t trying to break in or take what he wanted by force.
He was just waiting.
I lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling. Thought about Torek. The way he’d looked at the end, gray skin gone ashen, breathing shallow and labored. He’d known he was dying. Had known for weeks, maybe longer. But he’d kept working. Kept teaching me. Kept making sure I could survive without him.
Promise me, he’d said. Keep it safe. Keep yourself safe.
I’d promised. And I’d kept that promise for three years.
Now a ghost sat in my field, and everything was about to change.
Morning came still and cold. Mist clung to the fields, turning everything soft and strange. I moved through my chores without thinking. Fed the grazers in the barn. Checked the irrigation lines. Collected eggs from what I called hens in the coop, the bright purple shells smooth and warm against my palm.
Normal things. The bones of a life I’d built from nothing.
I was hauling feed to the storage shed when the proximity alert chimed.
He was approaching again. Not sneaking. Walking straight up the main path, hands visible at his sides.
Turnip moved, positioning himself between the porch and the path. I set down the feed bucket and joined him.
“I told you to leave.”
“You did.” He stopped at a careful distance. Far enough that Turnip couldn’t charge without warning. “I’m not here to push. I just need to tell you something, and then I’ll go back to my ship.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“The Conclave might be coming.”
I went still.
“To find this place, my people had to run searches through old databases. Cross-reference property records, territory archives, anything that might point to where Torek disappeared.” He kept his voice level. No drama in it. Just information. “If the Conclave is running their own investigation into the Regalia, they could trace the same data I did. Different methods, but the same result.”
“Could.”
“I don’t know for certain. But I’ve stayed alive this long by assuming the worst.” He spread his hands slightly. An admission of uncertainty. “If I could find this place through recordsand cross-referencing, so can anyone else with resources and motivation. The Conclave has both.”
I studied his face. Gray skin, sharp features, black markings curving across his cheekbones. Red eyes that gave nothing away.
He wasn’t lying. I’d learned to spot liars when I was young, back before Torek found me. This Vinduthi believed what he was saying.
That didn’t mean I had to care.
“That’s your problem,” I said. “Not mine. You’re the one who came looking.”
“And if I hadn’t, someone else would have. Eventually.” He held my gaze. “The Conclave doesn’t give up. They don’t forget. Whatever Torek was protecting, they’ve been hunting it for a long time. I just got here first.”
