I look up at him finally, and the moment I meet his eyes my defenses wobble.
Because he’s not pitying me.
He’s seeing me.
It’s worse.
“I chose this,” I say, the words coming out too fast. “I chose exposure. I chose to broadcast. I chose to force this out into the open. And now—” My voice catches. I swallow hard. “Now people are dying in corridors because I couldn’t shut up and take the quiet option.”
Lonari’s expression shifts—something deep and controlled.
He doesn’t sayit’s not your fault.
He doesn’t saydon’t blame yourself.
He doesn’t give me pretty lies to wrap around my guilt like gauze.
He just says, “Sit with me.”
It’s not a request. It’s an anchor.
He moves to the edge of the bed and sits—slow, deliberate—leaving space between us like he’s giving me the choice to close it.
I don’t move at first.
Then I scoot an inch closer. Like that’s not an admission.
Lonari’s hand rests on his knee. Big hand. Steady hand. The kind of hand that can crush, but doesn’t unless he decides.
I stare at it. At the quiet restraint.
“You keep choosing the hard path,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says.
Not apologetic.
Not proud.
Just… honest.
I laugh once, bitter. “That’s not reassuring.”
“I’m not here to reassure you,” Lonari says. “I’m here to tell you what’s true.”
I swallow. “Okay. What’s true?”
He turns his head and looks at me fully, and the intensity of it makes my breath hitch.
“What’s true,” he says, “is that the Nine escalates whether you whisper or scream. They don’t tolerate variables. And you”—his gaze flicks briefly to my compad on the nightstand, then back to my face—“are a variable that refuses to die quietly.”
My throat tightens around a sound that isn’t laughter anymore.
“What’s also true,” he continues, “is that I have been paying the Nine—my whole life, in one form or another. Tribute. Fear. Compromise. Lies I told myself so I could sleep.”
He pauses, and his jaw tightens like he hates admitting any of this.
“Then you showed up,” he says.
