Her forehead rested lightly against my chest, her breath uneven. I could feel her heartbeat racing against the slower rhythm of mine.
“That was…” she began, then laughed softly. “Unexpected.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice rougher than intended. “But not unwelcome.”
She looked up at me, eyes bright in the starlight. “I didn’t think I could still feel this. Not after everything.”
“Neither did I,” I said.
We stayed until the sky darkened fully, the stars sharpening into brilliance overhead. The ridge shimmered with it—cold light against warm stone.
For the first time in years, I allowed myself to believe there might be something more than survival.
By the time we returned to the lower tunnels, the colony had settled into quiet hours. The lights had dimmed to soft blue, the hum of the mountain low and steady.
Inside our quarters, Lina hesitated.
“Good night, Rygnar.”
“Good night, Lina.”
She turned toward her pallet, then paused. “Thank you—for the stars.”
“They were always there,” I said. “You simply hadn’t seen them from here.”
She smiled. “Maybe I was waiting for the right company.”
Then she slipped behind the partition.
I remained by the doorway for a moment longer, my hand brushing the line of my jaw where her touch had lingered.
The mountain hummed around me.
For the first time in a long while, it did not feel like something I was holding together.
It felt… steady.
.
Chapter Eleven
Learning the Routine
Lina
In the basin, days folded into each other—slow and deliberate, shaped over time by what endured. Morning meant the gardens.
They were nothing like I’d expected. Not rows of soil under open sky, but terraces carved into the mountain’s inner skin, lighted by panels that mimicked dawn and dusk. Food grew among native grasses and fungus beds; vines trained along stone channels where water ran warm from the vents. It was efficient. Alive.
Rygnar showed me how to harvest without damaging the roots how to recognize the herbs used for wound gel and sleep tea. He never crowded me, never corrected me without invitation. When my ankle fully healed, he noticed before I did and adjusted his pace back to what it should have been—still matched to mine, just no longer slowed.
Afternoons were quieter. I helped in the medical wing, translating human injuries into Mesaarkan practice and back again. Some colonists watched me with caution, some with curiosity—none with hostility. Rygnar’s vote had carried more weight than I’d realized.
Evenings were when I noticed the change most.
He came back from patrol with dust on his boots and the weight of watchfulness still clinging to him. I learned the sound of his steps in the corridor, the way the door seal hissed when it was him and not anyone else. I learned to expect him.
We didn’t talk about the kiss.
