He pulled back just enough to look at her face, his green eyes searching hers. “You’ve been crying.”
“My father left a message. Ari finally showed it to me.”
His expression shifted—concern mixing with something harder, protective. “What did it say?”
“That he loved me. That he never meant for this to be forever.” She touched his face, tracing the scar that cut across hischeekbone. “That he wanted me to live, even though he was too afraid to help me do it.”
“And now?”
She rose up on her toes and pressed her lips to his—a soft kiss, gentle, full of promise rather than passion.
“Now I’m going to stop being afraid too.”
Behind them, Pip chirped approvingly from his windowsill perch. The workshop’s windows showed the same endless view they always had—jungle and sky and the distant glimmer of the sea.
But somehow, for the first time in her life, Liora didn’t feel trapped by it.
She felt like she was finally waking up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Liora trembled in Baylin’s arms—not from fear, he realized, but from the aftermath of emotion. Whatever had passed between her and the AI while he’d been locked below had drained something vital from her.
He held her tighter.
“Tell me what happened,” he said quietly.
She pulled back, her blue eyes still glistening but steadier now. “My father left a recording. Ari showed it to me. He never wanted me to stay here forever—he just didn’t know how to let me go.”
“And the AI?”
“It’s thinking. Processing. Whatever it does when new information doesn’t fit its existing parameters.” She glanced towards the sensor cluster in the corner of the room. “It agreed to let you back in, but the outer doors are still sealed.”
Baylin followed her gaze. The small eye of the monitoring system stared back at him, unblinking and impassive. He’d spent thelast hour studying the tower’s infrastructure, mapping security nodes and power conduits, preparing for the moment when he might need to tear the whole system apart.
Now he wasn’t sure that was the right approach.
“ARIS,” he said, addressing the sensor directly. “You heard everything Liora said?”
“I hear everything within the tower’s perimeter. That is my function.”
“Then you know she’s not asking to throw herself into danger. She’s asking for the chance to learn how to face it.”
A pause. The lights flickered almost imperceptibly.
“The Vultor makes an interesting argument.”
“My name is Baylin.”
“I am aware. However, species designation provides more relevant context for threat assessment than individual naming conventions.”
Liora made a frustrated sound. “He’s not a threat, Ari. I’ve told you that.”
“Your assessment is noted but not necessarily reliable. Emotional attachment compromises objectivity.”
Baylin felt his jaw tighten. The AI wasn’t wrong—not entirely. Emotional attachment did compromise objectivity. He’d seen it happen to soldiers who fell in love during wartime, to pack members who let their bonds blind them to obvious dangers.
But he’d also seen what happened to people who never formed attachments at all. The emptiness. The slow erosion of everything that made life worth protecting in the first place.
