“Adjusting. Confirm when you see it.”
The number changed. “Confirmed.”
“Stay with me.”
“I’m here.”
“Keep talking. Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Anything. I need to hear your voice.”
I tried to think. Everything was fuzzy now, distant, like the world had wrapped itself in cotton. But she needed me to talk. She needed my voice in her ear the way I’d needed hers.
“Torek used to make me run the patience drill twice a day,” I said. “After I finally passed it. He said I’d learned the lesson, but I hadn’t learned to apply it.”
“Did he?”
“Every morning. Before breakfast. I hated him for it.”
“But you learned.”
“Eventually.” The readings blinked. I adjusted. “He said I was too fast. That I used speed as a crutch. He wanted me to understand that stillness was a weapon too.”
“Sounds like Torek.”
“He was right. He was always right.” My voice was getting hoarse. I couldn’t tell if it was the blood loss or something else. “I spent twenty years being fast, Anhara. Moving from mission to mission. Never stopping long enough to feel anything.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m standing in the station your father built, bleeding on his equipment, and all I can think about is getting back to you.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then: “He wasn’t my father.”
“Wasn’t he?”
Another silence. “Maybe. Yes.” Her voice cracked. “He was the closest thing I had.”
“He loved you.”
“I know.”
“I think he loved me too. In his way.”
“He did.” She cleared her throat. “The readings, Kallum. Stay with me.”
I looked at the console. Found the numbers. Made the adjustment.
“Still here.”
Dawn came slowly.
The sky through the station window turned gray, then pink, then gold. The light crept across the floor, reached my boots,climbed higher. I watched it the way a drowning man watches the shore.
Almost there.
The readings peaked. Held. Began to descend.
