They lay in comfortable silence for a while, the earlier tension gradually easing from both of them. The room was still too warm, and somewhere in the settlement Rhyx’s presence still prickled at his territorial instincts, but it was easier to bear now that they had a plan. A direction.
“I should be scared,” she said eventually. “We’re planning to return to a hostile wilderness while being hunted by the most powerful corporation on Mars. We have almost no resources, no backup plan, and no guarantee that any of this will work.”
“And yet?”
“And yet I feel… hopeful.” She sounded almost surprised by her own admission. “I haven’t felt hopeful in a long time. Not real hope—the kind that actually believes good things might happen. I’d forgotten what it felt like.”
“Hope is a choice,” he said. “My people believed that. When we entered preservation, we didn’t know if we would ever wake. We didn’t know if Mars would recover, if there would be anything to return to. We chose hope anyway. Because the alternative was despair, and despair served no purpose.”
“Pragmatic hope.”
“Survival hope.” He tightened his arms around her. “The hope of beings who refuse to give up simply because the odds are against them.”
She laughed softly. “That sounds like stubbornness dressed up in fancy words.”
“Stubbornness is an underrated virtue.”
“Says the ancient dragon who refused to die even when his entire civilization collapsed.”
“Says the lone miner who refused to leave a wounded stranger in the snow even when it would have been safer to walk away.”
She was quiet for a moment. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”
“We are.” He pressed another kiss to her forehead. “We are exactly what each other needs.”
The words settled between them like a promise. A vow. Something more binding than any formal acknowledgment could be.
They were mates. They had chosen each other, against all logic and reason, in the midst of chaos and danger. And now they were choosing to build a life together—not the easy life, not the safe life, but the life that felt right.
“Sleep,” he said gently. “Tomorrow we’ll talk to Alina. Tonight, rest.”
“I don’t know if I can sleep. My mind is still spinning.”
“Then let it spin. But do so with your eyes closed, wrapped in my wings, safe from everything except your own thoughts.”
She made a sound that was half protest, half acquiescence, but she settled against him more comfortably, her body relaxing by degrees.
“Adjar?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. For understanding. For wanting the same things I want.” She paused. “For being willing to leave all of this to come back to the ice with me.”
“I’m not leaving anything,” he said. “I’m going home.”
Home.
The word resonated through him, awakening memories he hadn’t known he possessed. Images of the polar Vaults—not the cold storage chamber where he’d slept for millennia, but the living spaces that had existed before. Halls carved from living ice. Libraries that preserved the accumulated knowledge of generations. Gathering places where Keepers shared their wisdom and debated the future.
All gone now. All lost to time.
But perhaps… perhaps something new could grow in their place. Something smaller and simpler, but no less meaningful.
A home built for two. A sanctuary in the ice where a dragon and his mate could find peace.
Her breathing slowly evened out, her body growing heavy against his as sleep finally claimed her. he held her close, his wings wrapped around them both, and for the first time since arriving in this too-warm, too-crowded settlement, felt something approaching contentment.
The night stretched on around them. Somewhere, Rhyx stood guard over his own mate. Somewhere, GenCon plotted their capture. Somewhere, beneath the Martian soil, others waited to emerge—dragons who didn’t know what they would wake to, who would need guidance and protection and hope.
