“You don’t know me,” I continue, voice softer. “Not really.”
“I know enough,” he says.
“So do I,” I say. “I know I’ve spent my whole career masked behind lights and camera angles and filters. I know I’m a highlight reel with a broken reel backstage. And I know I also didn’t expect to be in a fungus graveyard with a war-scar monster who can kill a fleet. That was not on my sticker price.”
He shifts. The steel of his knee plaque squeaks faintly as he moves on the stone. He stands and steps closer. Each stride echoes soft in the quiet.
I watch his shadow approach, trailing along the moss-floor. My heart tries to spasm at the sound of his boots.
“Space wife,” he echoes, voice low. “Do you know what that word means?”
“I invented it,” I say, trying to lighten it. “It’s flippant. It’s a joke.”
He crouches. So that his height still looms and his face is level with mine. The firelight glints in his scar. “I have one word,” he says. “Jalshagar.”
I stiffen. The word again. The one I asked about yesterday. The one he still won’t explain. My stomach jumps.
“So what does it mean?” My voice wobbles. Fear, hope, and desire all tangled.
“It means what I cannot give you lightly.” He doesn’t move closer. But I feel him there. Blade still in hand, but lowered.
I look at my own hands. They’re clammy. My chest feels too tight. The vines hush. The fungus light pulses.
“Then don’t give it,” I whisper. “Give me something I can own. A moment. A memory. A breath.” My words spill, unfiltered, real. “Don’t give me out-of-budget, epic, fantasy hero partner that demands I get kidnapped weekly. Give me something normal. Something I can still hold when the cameras die.”
He glances away. The garden hums. I lift my head, meet his gaze. “You watch me sleeping,” I say, soft. “You guard me when I’ve been broken. You didn’t have to. But you did. That means something.”
He studies me. Doesn’t answer.
I shift closer to him. The moss below is warm. I feel safe and open at once.
“So,” I say louder now. “Space wife can wait. But you.” My hand moves unconsciously toward his knee. “You… you’re not safe.”
He looks at me, face drawn. “And you?”
“All I’m good at is making things dangerous look fun.” I smile fragilely. “But I want safe now.”
There’s a pause. Long.
Then he stands. Steps back two paces. Places his blade carefully across the stone floor. Picks up the cooking-pot lid. “I will watch,” he says. “And you will rest. Then when it is time—we move.”
“Thanks,” I say. “That’s fair.”
He nods. “You sleep. I’ll keep the shadows away.”
I lie back down. The glowing vines cast soft blue fingers across my skin. I close my eyes.
His presence stays. I feel it like a shield. The scent of metal and fire and moss drifts through the space. The distant hum of the ship’s guts throbs low, a heartbeat I share.
I drift again and feel safe. For now.
CHAPTER 9
GAROKK
Idon’t trust stillness. Not on this ship. Not after what it’s survived.
The arboretum hums with unnatural calm. Isolde’s breathing is soft behind me—slow, even. She sleeps like she belongs here, like the glowing fungus and whispering vines were made to cradle her. I stand at the edge of the clearing, blade gripped in one hand, watching the shadows for movement.
