“Officially invisible,” I said. “Which is safer than being seen.”
She nodded slowly. “And you? How do you feel about that?”
I looked down at our colony—our home. The snow had begun to melt where the morning sun touched the terraces, revealing green shoots already pushing through the soil. Life didn’t wait for permission. It never had.
“Relieved,” I said. “And grateful.”
“For what?”
“For the kind of mercy that lets us keep building.”
Her fingers slipped into mine. “For the kind of love that makes it worth it.”
I turned to her, the wind catching her words and carrying them down into the basin. “That too.”
We stood there until the light shifted and the mountains threw long shadows over the valley. The hum of the vents blended with the pulse of the world outside, no longer a hiding place, but a heartbeat.
Peace, for however long it lasted.
Chapter Twenty-Three
New Beginnings
Lina
Spring came quietly to the mountain.
At first, it was just a change in the air—the frost no longer biting, the wind smelling of wet earth instead of smoke. Then the snow began to slide from the terraces, uncovering green shoots that had been waiting under the ice the whole time.
Eight years after the war, the world still didn’t know what peace was supposed to look like. But here, beneath the stone ribs of the Colorado range, we were teaching it how to grow.
Raven’s supply shuttle now comes and goes once a month, small and discreet. Each visit left behind something useful: a crate of power cells, a shipment of antibiotics, or occasionally a package of books salvaged from the old enclaves. He always said it was “excess inventory,” but I saw the gratitude in the way our people handled every crate as if it were treasure.
In return, we sent him data on the colony’s agricultural yields and environmental readings—proof that the mountain was learning to heal itself, that life could thrive even in the ruins.
It was strange to think of myself as part of that “we.” Once I had been a courier, a ghost moving between broken places. Now my hands build irrigation lines, catalog plants, and wrote reports for a cyborg commander who believed in us enough to risk his career.
Sometimes I wondered what my old convoy crew would think if they saw me now—working alongside aliens, falling asleepeach night to the hum of a mountain instead of the whine of an engine.
I thought they’d probably envy me.
Rygnar was in the southern gallery when I found him that morning, adjusting the flow of the new hydro channels. The sunlight from the upper vents slanted across his shoulders, catching the green sheen of his scales. He looked up as I approached, eyes warm.
“You’re early,” he said.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “The mountain’s too quiet.”
“That means it’s happy.” He turned a valve and listened for the pitch of the water. “You can tell by the echo.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” I watched him work, the small, careful motions of his hands. “You could have been anything,” I said. “A doctor, a scientist. Why stay here?”
He glanced at me, amused. “And miss this view?”
“The one of rocks and pipes?”
“The one with you in it.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “That’s not fair. You always win with honesty.”
