I read it once.
Then again.
“It’s definitive,” I say quietly.
He doesn’t look at the screen first. He looks at me.
“You are certain.”
“Yes,” I say, meeting his gaze. “I’m pregnant.”
The word feels different aloud.
Real.
His hand comes to rest over mine, not gripping, not trembling—steady. His thumb brushes lightly across my knuckles as if confirming contact with something fragile and formidable at once.
“We continue as planned,” he says carefully.
“Yes,” I reply. “The treaty finalizes first. No disclosure until signatures are secured.”
He nods once. “The elders will be notified privately. Protective rites will begin quietly.”
“I don’t want spectacle,” I say.
“You will not have spectacle,” he answers. “You will have protection.”
The firmness in his voice leaves no room for doubt.
I look down at the confirmation line again, then place my hand lightly against my abdomen. It doesn’t feel different yet. No shift in gravity. No immediate transformation.
But it is there.
“You’re not afraid,” I say softly.
“I am,” he replies without hesitation. “But not of you. Not of this.”
That steadiness undoes something in me.
“We build carefully,” I say. “We don’t let this become leverage.”
“It will not,” he says.
He pulls me back against him, his hand resting securely over mine.
Outside the viewport, the stars burn on, distant and indifferent, but inside this room the future is no longer abstract. It has weight now. Shape. Direction.
Emergency alerts stand down.
The sabotage network is dismantled.
The corridors hold.
And beneath the quiet hum of a stabilized station, the next chapter of our lives has already begun.
CHAPTER 38
KAEL
