“They will not believe you.”
“No. But it adds doubt.” She looked up at the sky, calculating. “Forty-eight hours, they said. That gives us at least two days before they arrive.”
“What do you propose we do?”
She was quiet for a long moment, staring out at the endless white expanse. When she spoke, her voice was calm and decisive—the voice of a female who had spent years making impossible choices alone.
“First, we hide any evidence of your emergence. The crater from where you emerged—can you collapse the walls and make it look like a natural formation?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then we need to remove anything that might indicate a non-human presence. Your scales—do you shed? Leave marks?”
“My scales do not shed, but I have been injured.” He gestured to his side, where the wound was now nothing more than a faint silver scar. “If they have equipment to detect?—”
“They will.” She nodded grimly. “We need to clean the habitat. Thoroughly. And you…” She hesitated. “You need to not be here when they arrive.”
Her words actually knocked him back a step. “You wish me to leave.”
“I wish you to be safe.” She grabbed his hands, holding tight. “Listen to me. If you’re here when they come, nothing I say will matter. They’ll see you and everything else becomes irrelevant. But if you’re somewhere they can’t find you, then all they have is sensor readings and suspicions. I can deal with suspicions.”
“And if they do not believe you?”
“Then I’ll stall them. Lie. Misdirect. Whatever it takes.” Her grip tightened. “I’ve been dealing with GenCon’s bullshit since I arrived on Mars. I know how to handle corporate investigators. But I can’t do that if I’m worried about you being discovered.”
Every instinct screamed at him to refuse. To stand his ground and tear apart anyone who threatened his mate. But beneath those instincts was something older, something that whispered of strategy and patience and the long game.
Survive first. Fight later.
“Where would I go?”
Relief flooded her features. “There are ice caves to the north. They’re natural formations. I’ve mapped some of them for potential mining sites. They should be deep enough that their sensors won’t penetrate, especially if you stay still and mask your heat signature.” She paused. “Can you do that? Mask your heat?”
“I can go dormant. Not full sleep, but… quiet. My body knows how to conserve warmth and hide from detection.” Another fragment of memory drifted through his mind—lying motionless in snow while danger passed overhead. “How long would I need to remain hidden?”
“A few days at most. They’ll do their investigation, find nothing, and leave. They can’t maintain a presence this far out without significant logistical support.” She squeezed his hands. “Then you can come back, and we can figure out what to do next.”
“And if they do not leave? If they decide to establish a more permanent presence?”
“Then we deal with that when it happens.” She managed a wan smile. “One crisis at a time, remember?”
He studied her face, memorizing the determination there, the fear she refused to let rule her, and the stubborn hope that burned beneath it all. This small, soft, impossible female who had pulled him from death and demanded nothing in return.
“I will go,” he said finally. “But I will not go far. And if I sense any threat to you—any indication that they mean you harm?—”
“You’ll come back.”
“I will come back and I will end them.” He said it simply, as one might state that the sky was red or the ice was cold. “This is not a threat or a boast. It is truth. I do not yet know all that I am capable of or what powers I possessed before my long sleep. But I know that anyone who hurts you will learn exactly what an Ice Dragon can do when he is motivated.”
Her eyes widened. “Ice Dragon?”
The words had emerged without conscious thought, another piece of self-knowledge surfacing from the depths. “It is… what I am. What we were called. Keepers of memory. The guardians of the polar vaults.” He frowned, trying to grasp the fragments. “We preserved knowledge through ice and time. We were?—”
But the memories slipped away, leaving only the echo of purpose.
“Ice Dragon,” she repeated softly. “I’ve heard legends about them. I thought they were myths.”
“Perhaps some storytellers remember better than I do.”
