“And the Alliance?” I ask.
“They want confession,” she says flatly. “Or justification.”
“And you want what.”
She holds my gaze for a long, measuring second. “Truth. Or leverage.”
That is at least honest.
“You suspect the speed of the forensic confirmation,” she adds quietly.
“I suspect narrative formation,” I reply. “Energy signature confirmation in under two minutes is not analysis. It’s choreography.”
Her jaw tightens, just slightly. “Then go see if the dancer sweats.”
I stand before I can overthink it.
The walk to containment is colder than I expect. The corridor lighting has been shifted to emergency settings, bleaching color from everything. Alliance security lines the walls at regular intervals, armor polished and controlled, rifles resting at ready positions. Their presence smells faintly of heated alloy and recycled air.
A Vakutan officer falls into step beside me as we approach the secured sector. His boots strike the floor in disciplined rhythm.
“You’ll have ten minutes,” he says without looking at me.
“I’ll have as long as I require,” I answer.
He stops. Turns.
“This is an Alliance matter.”
“This is neutral space under League arbitration,” I correct evenly. “You don’t dictate my time.”
For a second, something flares in his eyes. Then it shutters.
He gestures toward the door.
The holding chamber slides open with a hydraulic hiss that releases a breath of cold, filtered air.
The room is spare. Reinforced composite walls. A metal table bolted to the floor. Containment emitters embedded in the ceiling panels hum faintly, their frequency just low enough to feel along the skin like distant static.
And he is there.
Standing.
Even restrained, even contained, he alters the geometry of the space.
Energy cuffs glow faint blue around his wrists, casting soft light against the black of his skin. The overhead illumination catches along the silver bone spurs that arc from his shoulders and trace down powerful thighs. A line of dried blood marks his temple, dark against obsidian.
His eyes lift.
They find mine.
And something detonates.
It is not attraction in the conventional sense. It is recognition—violent, immediate, cellular. My breath stalls mid-inhale as if someone has struck me hard enough to knock the air loose. The room tilts, not physically but perceptually, as though the axis of my body has been recalibrated without my consent.
His pupils contract sharply.
There is no mistaking it.
