It takes me two tries to finish the message.
Once I'm done, D'Rett assigns one shuttle to stay behind and prepare for evacuation. Drev and Joln need time in a healing pod, and our team needs to get back to base. The remaining two transports lift off with the drones, heading south, my message already broadcasting from their hulls.
I watch them go and feel a strange, dissonant weight settle in my chest.
Cody stands beside me, close enough that his arm brushes mine. His face is a mask of controlled emotion, but the scent rolling off him tells a different story. It's fury and grief and a complicated, painful empathy that makes my chest ache.
"You okay?" I ask him. The reversal of our usual dynamic feels significant.
He looks at me, and the mask cracks slightly. "Those guys," he says, nodding toward the Ostium males. "They remind me of—" He stops. Swallows. "When I found you. In that cell. You looked?—"
"I know." I take his hand, threading my fingers through his in full view of everyone. I do not care who sees. "I had the same thought."
He squeezes my hand so tightly it almost hurts.
"We're going to find the rest of them," he says.
I leave the 'if they're still alive' unsaid. It’s not a helpful thought, so I keep it to myself.
I lean into his shoulder, briefly, and I look out across the desert as I try to absorb the weight of what we have uncovered.
Diamalla did not just kill my people. She used my world. She would have hollowed it out like a carcass, taken what she wanted, and left the bones to bleach in the sun if she hadn't been stopped. And somewhere out there, scattered among the stars, there are civilizations that do not yet know how close they came to the same fate.
The suns are beginning their descent. The fading light catches the dark walls of the Ostium facility, softening its harsh edges, and for a moment, they almost look like they belong here.
But they don't. They never will.
I tighten my grip on Cody's hand and watch the search parties disappear into the golden haze.
CHAPTER 18
A’Vanti
The shuttle feels smaller on the return journey.
Not literally, of course. The cabin dimensions have not changed. But with the Ostium refugees huddled on the rear bench seats beneath foil blankets, and the medical team monitoring their vitals, the space feels crowded.
I sit across from Drev and Joln in the narrow cabin. It is a deliberate choice. I know what it is to be surrounded by strangers who tower above you, who speak a language you barely understand, whose intentions you cannot read. I know the particular terror of being transported to a place you have not chosen.
I will not let them feel that terror alone.
"We are going to the Cerastean military base," I tell them in Ostium, keeping my voice low and even. "You will receive food, water, and medical treatment. No one will harm you."
Drev nods. His luxen pulse with faint, exhausted waves of tepid green, which implies resignation more than fear. He has passed beyond fear into the numb territory on its far side. I recognize that place. I lived there for years.
His companion still has not spoken. He sits hunched beneath his blanket, staring at his own hands, his silver eyes vacant. The medic has cleaned and bandaged a nasty wound on his forearm, but he did not flinch during the treatment. That concerns me more than the wound itself.
Cody glances back at me from the pilot’s seat. Our eyes meet, and I see the question in his.Are you okay?
I incline my head slightly to let me know that I am fine.
He holds my gaze for one more beat, and the tenderness in those blue eyes steadies me. Then he turns back to the controls, and the desert scrolls past beneath us, golden and indifferent and vast.
The base is a controlledupheaval when we arrive.
D'Rett has mobilized every available resource. The medical bay has been expanded with field equipment, cots lining the walls, and supply cases stacked in orderly rows. Armed guards stand at the entrance. Their stance is not aggressive, but present, a quiet reminder that compassion and caution are not mutually exclusive. Warriors and scientists are working together to coordinate search grids for the scattered remaining Ostium survivors.
I stay with Drev and Joln as they are transferred to the medical bay, translating for the medics, explaining procedures before they happen, so the males are not startled.
