The vine pulses again, brighter now, responding to her emotional state in ways that make me wonder how muchconscious control she actually has versus instinct she's never been taught to master.
Dangerous. For her and for anyone close enough to catch the backblast when her gift decides to act without permission.
"The accounts," she says slowly. "My mother's private funds. How much are we talking about?"
"Enough to buy a small moon. Or fund a revolution. Or disappear so completely that even Apex intelligence won't find you."
"And a new identity."
"Complete documentation. Biometric masking. Genetic markers scrubbed from every database. You'll be a ghost. Whoever you want to be, wherever you want to go."
She studies me, eyes sharp and searching, looking for the trap because she's smart enough to know this sounds too good to be true. That monsters don't offer fairy-tale bargains without teeth hidden in the fine print.
"I want to see them," she says finally. "The people. The children choking on bad air. The stations falling apart. All of it."
"Why?"
"Because if I'm going to sell myself to a warlord and betray everything my mother raised me for, I need to know it's worth it." Her voice doesn't waver. Doesn't soften. "I need to see what I'm saving before I agree to be your miracle worker."
Smart. Tactical. Absolutely refusing to operate on blind faith or accept my word alone without verification, without seeing the truth of what I'm offering her with her own eyes.
I respect the hell out of that calculated caution even as it complicates my timeline and adds layers of risk I didn't account for when I walked into this greenhouse tonight.
"Agreed," I say. "I'll arrange transport to Station Epsilon tomorrow. Worst conditions. You'll see exactly what you're bargaining for."
She nods slowly, then stands in one fluid movement, dirt streaking her clothes and hands still glowing faintly with bioluminescent residue. Small and fierce and surrounded by impossible flowers like some ancient goddess rising from a garden she just spoke into existence.
"One more thing," she says, and her voice carries that same unshakeable steadiness, solid as foundation stone and twice as immovable. The kind of tone that suggests this isn't a request or a negotiation, it's a condition, non-negotiable and absolute.
I wait, watching the way the bioluminescence plays across her features, highlighting the determination in the set of her jaw and the unflinching directness of her gaze. Whatever she's about to demand, it won't be simple. Nothing about this woman is.
"Name it," I say, keeping my own voice level despite the instinctive tension coiling through my muscles. Bracing for impact, for whatever new complication she's about to introduce into an already precarious situation.
"Remove your armor." The demand hangs between us, sharp-edged and uncompromising. "All of it. I need to see the man, not the machine."
Every tactical instinct screams refusal. The armor is more than protection. It's identity, it's authority, it's the barrier between Lord Haid the warlord and whatever remains of who I used to be before war and necessity burned away everything soft.
But she's watching me with eyes that see through bulkheads and lies and carefully maintained masks. Waiting to see if I'll meet her honesty with my own or hide behind technology and reputation.
"Why?" I ask, stalling, needing to understand what she's really asking for.
"Because," she says simply, flowers blooming brighter around her like punctuation, "I don't make deals with armor. I make them with people. And I need to know which one you are."
The challenge sits between us like drawn steel.
Show her. Prove I'm more than weapons and threat and calculated violence. Let her see the flesh underneath and whatever humanity I have left after everything I've done to survive.
Or refuse. Keep the armor. Maintain the distance that keeps me safe and her contained and this transaction clean.
My hands move to the first seal before conscious thought catches up to decision.
7
Ksara
The seals release with hydraulic sighs, metal parting from metal in a sequence that sounds almost ceremonial. Each click and hiss drops another layer of defense, another piece of the carefully constructed barrier between Lord Haid and whatever he keeps locked underneath all that matte-black composite plating.
I should look away. Give him privacy while he strips down to skin and vulnerability. That's what polite society would demand, what my mother's endless etiquette lessons would dictate as proper behavior for a daughter of Apex elite.
