Page 250
His eyes warm. “I love you too.”
The words no longer feel like a flare launched against darkness. They feel like part of the architecture we are building, beam by beam, choice by choice.
I reach for his hand again. “This initiative is our future, isn’t it?”
“One foundation of it.”
“What are the others?”
“Us. Our friends. The home with sunlight. The shrine we build. The people who will argue with us when we are wrong.”
“That is a lot of arguing.”
“We will need it.”
I look at the empty chair where Merrow sat and sigh. “I hate that you’re right.”
He squeezes my hand. “You often do.”
“Watch it, security consultant.”
“As you command, provisional director.”
“Still don’t like it.”
“You smiled.”
“No, I winced optimistically.”
“Of course.”
The shard case hums softly from its containment field, holding fragments of truth too dangerous to worship and too important to bury forever. I do not feel ready for it. I may never feel ready.
That is probably for the best.
I stand and look at the authorization packet still glowing on the table. My name sits beneath the charter now, not as lone discoverer, not as reckless truth-seeker, but as someone accountable to a team, a board, a dead colleague, a dangerous enemy in hiding, and a future that deserves better than both panic and silence.
Ghar stands beside me, slower than usual but without hesitation.
Outside the windows, artificial sunlight lays gold across the floor between us.
CHAPTER 36
GHAR
The kitchen in our temporary quarters smells of toasted grain, burned oil, citrus tea, and something Anita insists is breakfast despite evidence to the contrary.
Morning light from the station’s artificial day-cycle spills through the wide viewport, bright enough to warm the table and turn the scattered documents across it into pale gold clutter. The room is small by Vakutan standards, which means I have struck my shoulder against the same cabinet three times in two days and now regard the fixture as a personal enemy. A soft ventilation hum runs beneath the sounds of utensils, boiling water, Anita muttering at a cooking unit, and Brakk shouting somewhere down the corridor about unauthorized requisition forms. Beyond the glass, civilian traffic drifts around the station in clean arcs, shuttles and cargo skiffs moving through ordinary space with ordinary purpose, and the sheer normality of it unsettles me more than battle once did.
There is no alarm.
No collapse.
No archive light.
No godlike echo peering through reality to announce our emotional development as an unexpected byproduct.
Only morning.
