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Anik had known my name. My rank. My unit.

He had read after-action reports with my signature beneath them. He had stood beside commanders after operations and listened while we gave casualty counts.

He had known who I was before the Veil erased the rest.

If I walked into a room with him now, there would be no possibility of pretending Ghost was all that remained.

Anik would see me.

Not an operative.

Not an identifier.

Veyr.

Strike Commander.

Dead warrior.

Survivor.

The word lodged beneath my ribs.

Survivor.

I had hated it for years. Not because it was inaccurate.

Because it was.

There were pieces of that last operation I still refused to let settle into sequence. A voice through damaged comms. Emergency light through smoke. The memory of my arm going numb while I kept moving.

Fragments were manageable.

A story was not.

I looked toward the closed door.

Talia had seen the result anyway.

Too quickly.

Too clearly.

I had spent eight years calling my disappearance duty because duty was clean. Duty required no explanation. Duty had structure.

Survivor guilt did not.

Grief did not.

Shame did not.

Those were less useful.

So I had turned them into service.

One mission.

Then another.