“No.”
The word was clipped, a door slammed shut.
Aelanna studied him — his rigid posture, the way his eyes stayed fixed on the stars instead of her, the tension in his shoulders. There was something he wasn’t saying.Something heavy.
“Darren…” she began softly.
He didn’t look at her. “We should return to your quarters.”
The shift in him was sudden, like a wall rising between them. She felt the loss of his earlier warmth like a physicalache.
She nodded, though her heart beat faster with questions she didn’t dare ask.
He stepped aside, gesturing for her to walk ahead. She did, but not before glancing back at him — at the man who had held her steady during take-off, who had chosen the quietest table for her, who had said she was safe.
Now he stood in the starlight, expression unreadable, shadows carving sharp lines across his face.
Something was wrong.
Something he didn’t want her to know.
And as the door to the gallery slid shut behind them, Aelanna felt another layer of fear lay on top of the ship and of the journey into the unknown; that of the secrets Darren carried like armor.
Chapter 13
Past lives
The corridor outside felt colder than it had when they entered the observation gallery. Darren walked a half-step behind Aelanna, not close enough to touch her, but close enough to catch her if she stumbled. She didn’t. She moved with quiet grace, though he sensed the questions simmering beneath her calm.
Questions he couldn’t answer.
Not without tearing open wounds he’d spent years stitching shut.
They reached the junction where the corridor split toward the living quarters. Aelanna slowed, glancing back at him. Her eyes were soft, searching.
“You don’t like talking about Ohiri,” she blurted.
He kept his face neutral. “It’s not relevant.”
“It feels relevant,” she murmured.
He inhaled through his nose. He was a shadow-blinded fool, she was perceptive. Too sharp-witted. “It isn’t.”
A lie. Or half of one. Ohiri wasn’t his home. It never would be. But it was the place he was forced to survive when everything else had burned.
Aelanna’s steps grew quieter. “Is it your planet?”
“No.”
The word came out sharper than he intended. She flinched — not visibly, but he felt it, like a shift in the air between them.
He forced his voice steady. “My planet is gone.”
She stopped walking.
He hadn’t meant to say that.Not here, not now. But the words had slipped out, dragged from a place he kept locked behind bone and discipline.
Aelanna turned to him slowly. “Gone? How?”
