A new message pings—unfamiliar header, formal formatting.
REQUEST FOR PRIVATE MEETING — COALITION PROTECTORATE LIAISON
SUBJECT: OFFER OF PROTECTION AND SAFE RELOCATION
LOCATION: OFF-SITE SUITE — NEUTRAL TERRITORY
TIME: IMMEDIATE
My blood turns to ice.
Lonari sees my face shift. “What?”
I turn the compad so he can see.
He reads it, and the temperature in the room drops another ten degrees.
“Coalition official,” I whisper.
“On Gur,” Lonari says, voice flat.
“To offer protection,” I finish, and my laugh comes out tight and humorless. “How generous.”
Lonari’s eyes narrow. “You think it’s a trap.”
“I don’t think,” I say, voice low. “I know.”
Because protection doesn’t arrive like this. Not in my life. Not in anyone’s who understands power.
Protection is a leash with a velvet ribbon on it.
And I am done wearing leashes.
I look up at Lonari, heart hammering. “They want me out of the Nun.”
Lonari’s jaw tightens. “They want you isolated.”
“Yeah,” I say. “So they can either hand me to someone… or make me disappear clean.”
Lonari’s voice turns rough. “We don’t go.”
I nod once. “No. We don’t.”
But even as I say it, I can feel the trap’s edges—the way refusing might trigger something else, the way accepting might be the only way to learn who’s pulling the string.
My fingers tighten around my compad.
I meet Lonari’s gaze and the words come out before I can overthink them.
“We can use it,” I say. “We can makethemshow their hand.”
His eyes flare with warning. “Jordan?—”
“I’m not going alone,” I add immediately. “I’m not being brave-stupid. I’m being… tactical.”
He watches me for a long beat, and I can feel him weighing risk like a weapon.
Then he says, slow, “You want to force a public hearing. You want Morazin alive. You want the truth out where they can’t bury it.”
