He doesn’t answer.
“I’m Isolde Verrix,” I continue. “Public face. Holonet star. Famous for being fearless while absolutely terrified.” I laugh, short and sardonic. “I’ve been flying into volcanoes, diving into black-hole fragments, crashing moons. It’s what I do. Likes. Shares. Clicks.”
His hand tightens around his hilt. I feel the shift. The tension beneath the calm. “Stop.”
“Okay,” I admit. “But the truth is—I’m tired. I’m so tired of being media perfect. I wake up every morning and the first thing I do is check how many viewers I lost overnight. I’ve got brand deals, follower counts, filters, but I don’t have… real.” I sniff, looking away so he doesn’t see the moisture. “I don’t have someone who sees me and doesn’t want a selfie. Someone who just… sees me.”
He’s still. Watching the fire again. I wonder what he hears me say. If he even understands “brand deals”. Probably not. Doesn’t matter.
“I knew when I stepped on this ship that it would be big. That I’d blow up. That I would bethe one. But I didn’t think I’d be the one fighting for survival.” I trace a ring of soot around the bowl. “Maybe I just wanted a headline. Something daring so nobody could say I wasjust pretty.”
He nods. “You are more than pretty.”
I lift my gaze. “Thanks.” Then I pause. “If you don’t mind me asking—what’s jalshagar?”
He stiffens. The silence hollows between us.
I keep talking. “Everyone in my broadcast feed, they call you: Beast of the Hulk. Ghost king. Warrior legend. Vakutan. Jalshagar. They don’t know what that word means. I don’t either. But I heard it once. And it stuck.”
He looks at me—a long look. Not mocking. Not dismissive. Concerned. Guarded.
“I cannot explain,” he says quietly.
“Okay.” I nod slowly, although I hate it. I want him to explain right now. But I also recognize the weight behind the refusal. I respect it.
“Can I rest now?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
I lean back, resting my head against a vine-covered wall. The glow above is soft, the fungus light bathing me in pale green.There’s a breeze—cool—carried by the vents high overhead. I feel it in my hair, the low hum of the Hulk beneath my feet. The smell of blooming spores and metal and his watching presence swirls around me and I close my eyes.
I drift part-way into sleep, comforted by the fact neither of us leaves.
The last words I hear before the darkness claim me:
“Don’t wake unless it’s death or they arrive at the gate.”
And I think: he’ll kill for that.
The bioluminescent vines glow faint and steady in the arboretum-dome above us. I trace one with my fingertip—its luminescence pulses gently, like a heartbeat. Or like the start of one I don’t have words for yet. The air smells like warm moss, wet earth, and something metallic—a reminder of the ruin around us, of the ship we’re in. I’m lying on the patch of glowing peat while he crouches a little distance away, blade laid across his lap. His silhouette is steel and muscle and scars, wound tight from three days without rest—but not weakened.
I want to talk. But something bigger than conversation hangs in the air, and I’m not sure how to handle it.
“So,” I say lightly. “Space wife?”
I’m lying on purpose. Trying to break the weight of the moment. The phrase bounces around the dome like a dropped stone in dead water.
He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t even shift immediately. He closes his eyes for one slow exhale. The blade in his hands gleams dimly. The vines above stir with a whisper of static wind.
“Fate doesn’t joke,” he says.
I blink. “Excuse me?”
He says nothing at first. Just looks at me with those golden eyes so sharp they might cut light. “I am not your joke,” he finally says. “I am not your adventure. I am?—”
“Your dinner date? I know.” I sit up, flop awkwardly, trying to lean back but my ribs complain. “Look, I get it. I make a shitty fantasy. Glam-girl meets big scary alien warrior who broods so hard he looks like a volcano waiting to erupt. Clickbait gold, right?”
He doesn’t flinch. He just watches me. And in that watching there’s something raw. Something open.
