Luna is latched and warm, and the room feels too quiet to be real.

  Lamplight sits low on the floor. The tavern below us is asleep—no boards complaining, no cups, no voices. Just her small swallow and the pull of her nursing, steady as a heartbeat.

  I never thought I’d be doing this.

  My body still does what it does—counts exits, listens for footsteps that aren’t there, waits for the cost.

  It doesn’t trust quiet. Quiet is just the moment before something reaches in and takes what you got used to.

  Don’t look for the exit while she’s breathing on you.

  I find the thread with shaking care.

  “Wolf,” I whisper, barely sound.

  My eyes stay on Luna. My voice doesn’t.

  Valicar gives me a thin, clean connection—like cracking a door without stepping through.

  Then his presence settles in my skull.

  "Sol."

  My throat tightens.

  “How long do I still have?” I swallow. “What’s the update on the galaxy?”

  A short pause—just long enough for my stomach to remember how to fall.

  “Worried you’re gonna lose your boytoy?” Wolf teases.

  “Answer the fucking question,” I spit in a whisper.

  “Alright, alright. Straight to the point.” He sighs in my head. “The Elders’ gate is active, but nothing’s come through yet. We can’t say why—maybe it’s because it’s anchored so close to the supermassive black hole at the core that time dilation’s buying you more room than we thought. Or maybe the ancient asshole civilization just isn’t in a hurry.”

  Relief slips through me anyway. Small. Stupid.

  “And Dad. And Lion?” I ask.

  “Captain says the fleet’s on track to crack ten million hulls soon—refugee ships, fresh builds, everything that can hold a gun or a body. The Citadel’s still scooping up loyal worlds of your Everkindled faithful. They make a hell of a workforce, since they still believe you’re gonna hand out immortality like candy. And your dad’s superweapons? Coming online. Some of them are bigger than planets now. The Jericho will rendezvous with your brother at the Citadel in a year or two, once he finishes his work. Then they move into the “final phase.’” Wolf’s voice goes flat. “Whatever the fuck that means.”

  He doesn’t stall. “And the Hive? Still chewing through what’s left of the Imperium. Devil on one side, Orion on the other—it’s still growing exponentially. Local traffic still hasn’t even noticed Haven.”

  A beat.

  “You’ve got a while. Yet.”

  The air leaves me slow—relief that still hurts.

  Yet. The word sticks under my ribs.

  Luna is still nursing, her fingers curled against me in that sleepy, possessive grip—staking a claim.

  I look down at her and try not to count how many ways a while can end.

  Her hair is pale and mussed from sleep. Her eyes—red, bright even in the low light—blink up at me, unaware she’s dangerous just by existing.

  I smooth her hair back with my thumb, too careful, and it catches on the edge of her ear.

  Round.

  Human.

  My hand keeps moving like nothing happened.

  “Do they know I have a daughter…” I ask, voice barely there.

  Wolf’s connection stays open just long enough to sting.

  “No shit they do.” His tone is all casual cruelty, as if that’s kindness. “Captain’s overjoyed—keeps talking like he’s her uncle already.”

  The line goes thin.

  “As for your dad…” He drags it out. “I don’t know. He doesn’t talk to grunts. But your brother let it slip—apparently he’s… glad you’re on Haven. For some reason.” Wolf exhales. “And that means he’s not rushing. He’ll wait. Until the last minute—like he did back on Earth, before we finally dealt with the Ju Wang.”

  “So enjoy it.”

  And he’s gone.

  Luna sighs and settles harder against me, safe in the only way a child can be safe—by not understanding what’s hunting her.

  For a moment I let myself believe I’m allowed to love her without consequence.

  Then I do what I do best when it comes to Dad and my brother.

  I don’t think about it.

  Time doesn’t land in neat pieces here. It smears into chores, weather, and whatever the village decided was “normal” long before I got here.

  Luna’s finally down for a nap upstairs—milk-drunk and heavy-limbed. I should be using it to rest.

  Instead I’m outside stacking wood, because my hands don’t know how to do nothing.

  The cold is nosing back in again—frost at dawn, breath turning white. It’s only been half a year since the last hard freeze—since Luna was born—and that’s what’s been chewing at me.

  By the seasons, this should be her first birthday already.

  By the calendar, we’re not even close.

  Alkek works beside me, splitting and stacking, keeping the world honest by sheer rhythm. After a while he glances up and picks up the conversation we didn’t finish last night—cut off by Luna’s crying.

  “So,” he says, like it’s obvious, “when the second winter hits, we mark the year then. She’ll be one.”

  “Why the second winter?” I stop with an armful of logs. “Why not after a full cycle of seasons?”

  Alkek looks over, patient. “Because it takes eight to make a year,” he says, and the little chuckle in his voice makes it worse.

  “How does that work?” I ask.

  He shifts the bundle in his arms and nods past the fields. “Cold comes, bites hard, then backs off. Mud season. Warm stretch. Then it turns again.”

  “That’s… a year?” I ask.

  He snorts. “No. That’s the first winter.”

  I blink. “First.”

  “First winter,” he repeats, patient. “Then the rest of the turns—whatever you want to call ’em. And then the cold comes back and stays again.” He drops the logs onto the stack with a dull thud. “Two winters. That’s the year.”

  I stare at him. “So you’re counting… two loops.”

  He shrugs. “We’re counting the way we were taught.”

  “Why?” I press.

  Alkek hesitates like he’s never needed a reason that wasn’t just… a habit. “Tradition, I guess. First settlers kept the old calendar. Nobody changed it. Lines up clean with two winters here, so it stuck.”

  Earth’s year, stapled onto a planet that doesn’t move like Earth.

  He bumps his shoulder into mine, gentle. “Either way,” he says, “we’re still here.”

  And I let myself lean into we for the length of one breath—

  Damn. Only Dad would make a planet’s orbit that precise.

  The years start stacking before I notice. One birthday, then another. Seasons flipping too fast, Luna getting taller like she’s racing the world.

  She learns to walk and then she learns to refuse—refuse to be carried, refuse to be slowed, refuse to stay where you put her. Soon enough she won’t stay in her bed. You tuck her in, you turn your back, and a minute later you hear the floorboard complain like it’s tattling.

  On another Crimson Blessing night—both moons red—the tavern is louder than it should be. Packed tables, too much laughter, too many voices trying to sit on top of each other.

  Luna is supposed to be asleep upstairs.

  I put her down myself. Kissed her forehead. Told her to stay put.

  A stair creaks anyway.

  I look up and there she is in the doorway in her sleep-shirt, hair sticking up, blinking hard against the firelight. She stands there, weighing brave against stubborn.

  The room catches it. The whole tavern turns in that slow, warm way—as though they’ve been waiting for her without realizing.

  Old Tessa is planted in her usual spot with her cup. She looks up, sees Luna’s eyes catch the hearthlight, and pauses just long enough for the air to tighten.

  Then she snorts, annoyed at herself.

  “Little scarlet-eyed,” she mutters under her breath. Then, unable to stop herself, she adds, “Hard-headed as her grandpa.”

  Hano hears her and perks up immediately—she just handed him a new game.

  He hops off his stool and crosses the room before I can open my mouth.

  “Well, hey there, cousin,” he says, scooping Luna up—practice-smooth. He settles her on his hip, easy. “What do you think, huh?”

  Luna stares at him, then grins—wide and sleepy and proud.

  Hano tips his chin toward the window. Outside, both moons hang over the fields, stained red tonight.

  He looks back at her and says it, trying it on.

  “Little Scarlet.”

  Luna beams.

  The nearest table reacts—permission granted.

  “That’s her,” a man calls, lifting his mug.

  “Little Scarlet!” someone else echoes, and a few rough voices join in—more amused than drunk.

  Hano laughs and bounces her once. “Hear that? They like it.”

  He slips behind the counter and comes back with a sweet roll tucked in his palm. He crouches—making it a deal.

  I hear it before he even gets the words out—my ears catch the soft pitch of it through the room, through the crackle of the hearth and the clink of mugs.

  “Alright,” he murmurs to Luna, low enough it’s supposed to be just for her. “You take this… and you march those little feet back upstairs. Quiet as a mouse. Promise?”

  Luna stares at the roll, then at him, considering it like a serious negotiation.

  Then she takes it with both fists and bites down, sugar dusting her mouth.

  Hano nods, satisfied. “Good girl. Now—up.”

  I let out a slow sigh I didn’t realize I was holding. If it works, it works.

  Alkek doesn’t say anything. He just smiles—small, soft around the edges—and his eyes go somewhere far for a second. Same look he gets when he talks about his mother. Same quiet ache, like he’s seeing his father in the corners of the room.

  Luna chews, turns toward the stairs on her own, and the tavern watches her go, as if she just won.

  The red moons hang in the window, and I don’t look too long. “To Little Scarlet,” a drunk calls, and the room answers without hesitation.

  The name spreads—table to table, mouth to mouth—until it stops being Hano’s joke and becomes something the tavern believes.

  By five-ish, she’s got the run of more than just the tavern.

  We take the river path when we can—when the work is done and the sky isn’t doing that thing where it looks like it’s about to turn on us. The bank is all smooth stones and reeds and cold, clear water that pretends it isn’t dangerous until you’re in it.

  Luna strips her shoes off the second we hit the grass. Always. She shoves them at me, offended.

  “Ma,” she says, already halfway to the water, “watch.”

  I watch. I don’t blink.

  She crouches at the edge and starts collecting—pretty rocks, flat rocks, ones with veins like lightning, ones that shine when you turn them. She lines them up on the mud, important enough to deserve order.

  “This one’s a moon,” she declares, holding up a pale stone and squinting, deciding its fate.

  “That’s a rock,” I tell her.

  Luna frowns at me, offended on purpose. “It’s a moon-rock.”

  I huff a laugh. “Fine. Moon-rock.”

  She beams, victorious, and keeps hunting—bare feet hopping from stone to stone with the confidence only kids have.

  Then she wades in.

  The water hits her knees and she sucks in a sharp breath, but she doesn’t back up. She looks over her shoulder at me, chin up, daring the river to tell her no.

  “Cold,” she announces.

  “It’s a river,” I say. “Rivers are cold.”

  She takes another step. Water climbs to her thighs.

  “Ma,” she says. “Come.”

  I don’t want to. It’s just water. But the part of me that survived Knight’s needles hates cold water—too close to the lab, to being hosed down after tests, washing the blood away before Dad showed up.

  But she’s looking at me like I’m her whole map.

  So I roll my pants up and step in.

  Cold bites.

  Luna laughs when I flinch.

  “You’re dramatic,” she says, proud of the new word she stole off someone’s tongue.

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  I narrow my eyes at her. “I’m careful.”

  She splashes water with both hands. “Careful is boring.”

  Then she does it—leans forward, commits, lets her feet leave the bottom for half a second. Her arms windmill, panic flashes, and I’m there before she can swallow it.

  My hand clamps under her ribs and she coughs, sputters, then laughs again like almost drowning was just a prank the river tried.

  “I did it,” she gasps.

  My breath is still too high in my chest. My hand won’t stop shaking where it’s braced under her ribs.

  “You—” I start, then swallow it down. “You scared me.”

  Luna squints at me. “I was fine.”

  “You were going under,” I say, quieter. “Tell me before you do that again.”

  “But why, Ma?” she asks.

  Her eyes go wide—earnest, certain. “You’re fast. Fast enough to always be there.”

  Kids don’t know how close things get.

  She tries again. And again. Each time a little longer. Each time her body learns what to do with itself. She clings to my shoulders, kicks hard, furious at the water for not obeying her, and I keep my grip light enough to let her fight for it.

  “Ma,” she says into my collarbone, breath hot against my skin. “Don’t let go.”

  “I won’t,” I tell her, and it comes out too fast.

  That’s the problem.

  She’s learning to swim. She’s learning to trust. She’s learning that the world can hold her.

  And I’m standing in freezing water, letting her wrap a leash around my heart with one small hand.

  Later, when she’s shivering and smug and full of river, she sits on the bank and shows me her haul like she’s presenting offerings.

  “This one’s you,” she says, handing me a dark stone with a bright seam through it.

  I turn it over in my palm. “Me?”

  “Because you’re fast,” she says, like it’s obvious. Then she points at her own chest with a wet finger. “And this one’s me.”

  “What about that one?” I nod to a pale, round stone.

  Luna grins. “That one’s Da.”

  I let her have it. I close my fingers around the dark stone and slip it into my pocket.

  Like it isn’t going to break my heart later.

  And I hate how much I want it anyway.

  We go to the capital for a supply run and take her for the first time.

  The road in is a ribbon of churned mud and wagon ruts, the air thick with smoke long before you see the walls. The city rises out of it—stacked roofs, tight streets—and behind it Angel rears up like a black ribcage against the sky, so huge it makes the capital look like something built at its feet.

  Luna sees it and stops—caught mid-step.

  Her mouth opens. Her fingers find mine without thinking.

  “Ma,” she breathes—small, stunned.

  “I know,” I whisper. “From the village it’s just a shape on the horizon.” My thumb rubs her knuckles once. “Up close… it’s—”

  “Hugeeeee!” she yells, delighted—fear cracking and spilling into wonder.

  Inside the market it’s worse—too many lives pressed together. Frying fat, wet wool, horse sweat, sweet fruit split open on boards. Noise everywhere. Voices stacked on voices, too close, too fast.

  Luna turns in a slow circle, trying to hold all of it at once—bright scraps of cloth, brass pots, cages of clucking birds, vendors calling prices as if they’re calling storms.

  “Stay close,” I tell her gently. My hand settles on her shoulder and stays there, not as a leash—just a promise.

  She nods, serious. Then she drifts anyway, pulled toward a table of little carved things: animals with springs, tiny wooden wheels, painted faces with chipped smiles.

  A carved rabbit skitters when the vendor winds it and sets it down. Click-click-click, legs moving—almost alive.

  Luna freezes.

  Her eyes go wide and bright—she just found a new law of the universe.

  She looks at me like I decide what kind of childhood she gets.

  I guess I do.

  The vendor catches it right away. He turns his little table into a stage—tugs a cloth up, winds the rabbit again, and sets it loose so it skitters right to Luna’s toes.

  He taps the wood once, twice. The rabbit “bows.” The rabbit “runs.” The rabbit “hides.”

  A couple people chuckle.

  Luna does too—small and surprised.

  Then, when he’s sure he’s got her, he slides something else forward—smaller, softer.

  A little doll wrapped in scraps, cloth face stitched simple, pale yarn hair tied in two messy knots. He pinches it and makes it wave once.

  “She’s pretty,” Luna whispers, reverent—church-quiet.

  Of course she picks the one that looks like her.

  I pay before I can change my mind.

  Luna takes the doll first. Holds it carefully, as though it might break—then hugs it hard anyway, determined not to let the world take it.

  “Mine,” she says, satisfied.

  My chest aches—quiet and sharp.

  Be her mother.

  Not her watcher.

  Not like Knight.

  We keep moving—salt, oil, dried beans, lamp wicks, needles, rope thick enough to matter. Alkek does the bargaining with that steady voice of his, patient enough to talk prices down.

  Luna stays tucked between us, clutching her doll so tight the yarn hair frays under her fingers.

  Then the crowd shifts.

  And we run into none other than Garos—still Keeper-clean.

  Alkek stills beside me.

  “Garos,” Alkek says, and there’s real relief in it—like he didn’t know he’d been carrying the absence until it lifted. “Good to see you.”

  Garos’s gaze drops to Luna—white lashes, pale hair, red eyes catching the light wrong.

  He lifts an eyebrow. “Good to see you too, Alkek.” His eyes stay on Luna. “And who’s this?”

  Alkek straightens, stubborn in the best way. “This is Luna. My daughter.” Then, because he can’t help himself, “She’s blessed. Born under a Crimson—”

  “Superstition,” Garos says, flat. Not unkind—just certain. “Albinism is rare. Not holy.”

  Luna stares up at him, quiet. Her hand tightens around the doll’s waist.

  Garos’s mouth shifts, almost a smile. “Hello, Luna.” His gaze flicks to the doll. “Nice one.”

  Luna doesn’t hide behind me. She lifts the doll a little, like she’s showing it off. Pride, not fear.

  “How about a quick check?” Garos asks, calm as weather. “Just to be sure.”

  Alkek nods immediately—too quick. “Good idea.” A crooked breath. “My family ain’t the healthiest.”

  My hand finds Luna’s shoulder. I’m here.

  Garos pulls a small device from his sleeve—nothing flashy. A dull metal puck with a soft hum. He holds it near Luna’s ribs the way a Keeper checks a bridge before letting a cart cross.

  The hum lasts a second. Two.

  Garos’s eyes flick over whatever numbers only he can see, then he nods once.

  “Very healthy girl,” he says.

  Then he straightens, already putting the moment away. “I’m sorry to cut this short, Alkek, but I’ve got to be off.”

  His eyes flick up—past Alkek—toward me. He nods once, polite as a stamp.

  “Good day to you, Sol. And you too, Luna.”

  Then he steps away, and the seam in the crowd closes behind him as if it never opened.

  Luna watches him go for half a breath, then looks down at her doll, choosing something small and safe on purpose.

  She lifts it toward me, solemn as a priest.

  “Her name is…” A pause, thinking hard. “Pip.”

  “Pip,” I repeat softly.

  On the ride back she chatters the whole way—doll riding in her lap like royalty, Angel’s ribs still looming behind the city until the road bends and the capital finally lets us go.

  I keep my smile in place.

  This time it doesn’t hurt as much.

  But in the back of my mind, Garos’s words keep replaying anyway.

  Very healthy girl.

  Somewhere between toddler and kid, her questions sharpen.

  She learns tally marks from barrels and crates. Letters from labels. Words from the way Alkek circles things in the ledger.

  And on slow afternoons, when the tavern is quiet enough to hear the kettle think, I sit with her at a back table and teach her to read.

  I tap the letters on a label—SALT—and she squints hard, tongue caught between her teeth like she’s wrestling it into sense.

  “S… a… l…” Her eyes brighten. “Salt.”

  “Good,” I tell her, and the word tastes strange in my mouth—proud, simple.

  Behind us, Alkek’s in the kitchen with a slab of meat on a board, rubbing salt into it with steady hands. The whole place smells like smoke and spice and warm bread—safe enough that Hano’s sprawled in a chair wrong, making dumb jokes just to hear Luna laugh.

  Alkek tosses another handful of salt, works it in like he’s sealing a promise.

  Luna leans back in her seat, eyes narrowing—half stalling, half genuinely curious.

  “Da,” she says, pointing. “Why you puttin’ salt on that meat?”

  “Salt keeps it from turning,” he says, distracted.

  Luna swivels toward me again, dead serious, the way she gets when something doesn’t add up.

  Then she asks it—clear as a bell.

  “If salt keeps meat from turning,” she says, “why didn’t y’all salt Grandpa when he got sick… so I could’ve met him?”

  The room stills for half a heartbeat.

  Not the whole tavern—just us. Our little corner of it.

  Alkek pauses with his hands over the board. His face betrays him for a second.

  My chest tightens, and I can only imagine his does too.

  Then he exhales, and the moment softens instead of breaking.

  “Oh, Luna,” he says, a quiet chuckle trying to carry the weight. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  She frowns, unsatisfied. “Why not?”

  Hano opens his mouth like he’s about to joke, thinks better of it, and settles for a shrug. “’Cause… people ain’t meat, kid.”

  Right.

  Tell that to Garin…

  Maybe it isn’t cannibalism if I’m not really human anymore.

  My smile doesn’t move, but my stomach does—tight, sour.

  Luna glares at him like he’s being stupid on purpose.

  Alkek wipes his hands, comes over, and taps the page in front of her. “Alright. Sound it out. What does this one say?”

  Luna huffs, but she leans back over the letters anyway. Her finger tracks the line like she’s pulling meaning out of it by force.

  Later, when she laughs wide at something Hano says, my eyes flick—automatic—to her teeth.

  Normal.

  I look away and pretend I didn’t check.

  She catches me anyway one night.

  I’m fixing her hair by the window one evening—trying to tame it into something that won’t announce her as different from three streets away.

  She tilts her head and watches my hands like she’s studying a trick.

  “Why do you always do that?” she asks.

  My fingers pause.

  “What?”

  “My ears.” She touches her own, precise. “You always look at them.”

  A cold line runs down my spine.

  Lie. Soft. Fast.

  “So it doesn’t tangle,” I say.

  Too quick.

  She accepts it because she still trusts me the way she’s supposed to—because I’m her mother.

  There’s a day—one stupid day—where I forget who I used to be.

  Hano’s posted up at the counter, watching me wipe the bar as if it’s entertainment.

  He says something stupid on purpose—something about how if I keep scrubbing like that I’ll rub the wood right off the bar.

  I try to hold my face steady.

  I fail.

  A laugh slips out—real one.

  Hano points at me, triumphant. “There it is. She does have one.”

  Before I can bite back a reply, I look out the window.

  Alkek’s in the yard with his horse, sleeves rolled, talking to it the way he talks to people. Luna’s there too—barefoot, fearless—patting the horse’s neck with both hands, certain the world belongs to her. Alkek lifts her, sets her up on the saddle for a heartbeat, and she squeals, pure joy.

  Something in me loosens.

  And then I realize I’m humming while I work—low, absent, in a room that doesn’t punish noise.

  It stops me cold.

  I’m happy.

  The thought lands heavy and bright.

  Then the kettle ticks. The room smells like ale and woodsmoke. Luna stomps back in with dirty feet and a stone in her fist.

  Life keeps going.

  And I let myself be loved without flinching.

  We still find each other in the dark sometimes—just… different. Close, careful. No more surprises.

  There are other ways to be intimate that don’t end with a cradle, and we got good at them.

  The seasons continue turning. Time blurs into work and weather. Luna grows like she’s trying to outrun it.

  By the time she’s six, that “very healthy girl” comment stops feeling like a blessing—and starts feeling like a warning.

  She falls hard—stone step, sharp edge. Real blood. Real sobbing.

  My body goes white-hot, ready to do something ugly.

  Alkek is there first. He scoops her up, turns her face into his shoulder.

  “Look at me,” he says, steady. “Look at me.”

  Luna hiccups and grips his shirt, trembling.

  I’m already reaching for Valicar out of instinct—

  I stop myself.

  No miracles. Not in front of anyone. Not in front of her.

  We clean it. Wrap it. Kiss it better like humans do.

  By morning the bruise is gone. The cut is gone.

  Luna is cheerful and hungry, asking for more stew like yesterday never happened.

  I stare too long.

  Alkek bumps my shoulder—small. Warning.

  “Hey,” he says quietly, just for me. “She’s okay.”

  That’s the problem.

  Alkek settles into fatherhood in a hundred small ways.

  He ties a too-big apron around her waist when she “helps” in the kitchen. She drags it like a cape, proud as a knight.

  He teaches her the bread flip—one palm under the loaf, quick turn, don’t hesitate.

  She hesitates. Drops it. Flour explodes across the floor.

  She looks up, waiting for anger.

  Alkek just stares at the mess, then at her face, then sighs like he’s talking to the sky.

  “Well,” he says. “Now it’s seasoned.”

  Luna howls laughing.

  So does Hano.

  So do I, even though I try not to.

  Later he attempts to braid her hair behind the counter, determined to win by sheer effort.

  It’s lopsided and tight in the wrong places.

  Luna wears it all day anyway—smug as sin.

  Around seven, she starts noticing me in the way that matters.

  “Why do you eat so much?” she asks, watching me finish a second bowl.

  “I’m hungry,” I say.

  “You’re always hungry.”

  Later, when the tavern’s finally quieting down and the lamps are burning low, she catches me by the door like she’s been waiting on purpose.

  “Where do you go at night?”

  “Outside.”

  She tilts her head. “Why? Are you going to visit your Da?”

  The question lands too clean.

  “No, honey, I’m not,” I say, and I try to make it sound simple.

  Luna doesn’t let it go.

  “Why haven’t I met him?” she pushes, chin up, brave in that way kids are when they don’t know what they’re poking. “Isn’t he my other grandpa?” A beat. “And you never talk about your Ma.”

  My throat locks.

  Because Alkek shouldn’t have said it out loud—one night when the bottle had my hands shaking and my head running circles, when I was spiraling and he was trying to pull me back. He’d let it slip that my dad was still alive, that he won’t come here, that I was okay.

  Luna heard. She hears everything.

  I can’t pretend he doesn’t exist anymore.

  “Luna…” I whisper, and the name comes out softer than I mean it to. I try again. “He isn’t here.”

  She takes a step closer, eyes wide, all questions and trust.

  “He’s very far away,” I say, and my voice cracks on the last word. I swallow hard. “And I hope you never have to meet him.”

  Luna opens her mouth—one more question loading, one more push.

  Alkek steps in.

  “Hey,” he says, easy. He ruffles her hair—gentle, firm. “Come on. You can help me count the coppers in the jar. I need a sharp brain.”

  Luna hesitates, still watching my face, still trying to read it.

  Alkek keeps going, quick and casual, before she can wedge another question in.

  “And tomorrow,” he adds, “we’ll go down to the river and find you more stones. Maybe you can get me a new one from the sun this time.”

  Luna’s eyes narrow, suspicious and interested at once. “From the sun?”

  “Yeah,” he says, dead serious. “A proper one. Warm. Shiny. Powerful.”

  That hooks her—just enough.

  She huffs like she’s doing him a favor, but she lets him guide her away, still watching me—storing it for later.

  Because that last question landed too clean.

  It isn’t an accusation. It just lands like one because I’m guilty—caught by a kid up past her bedtime, seeing a pattern and naming it.

  She’s getting sharp. She’s getting old enough to notice what I am.

  It happens mid-morning on a day I’m running the tavern alone. Hano and Alkek took the cart to the capital before dawn for salt, lamp oil, needles, the boring things that keep a place standing.

  The room is slow and bright. Two regulars sit with weak ale, a traveler watches the door, and the hearth is ash.

  I’m wiping tables, when I hear Luna laugh outside.

  Not the loud tavern-laugh she does for attention—this one is small.

  I move to the window without thinking.

  Luna’s out by the fence line where the yard meets the path. Barefoot. Hair a mess. Pip tucked under one arm, held tight.

  And there’s another kid.

  A girl about her size—maybe a little smaller—with dark hair chopped blunt, uneven at the ends. Dirt on her palms. Same as any child.

  The girl’s staring at the handful of stones Luna lined up in the dirt.

  Luna notices—and for once, she doesn’t snatch them back.

  She lifts one instead.

  A pale, round stone. Smooth as a worry.

  “This one’s a moon,” Luna declares.

  The girl squints at it. “That’s a rock.”

  Luna’s chin tips up, offended on principle. “It’s a moon-rock!”

  The girl’s mouth twitches like she’s trying not to laugh. “Moon-rock,” she repeats.

  Luna beams anyway—victory earned.

  Then she does something that makes my chest pinch.

  She holds the moon-rock out.

  “Here,” Luna says, casual. “You can hold it. Just—don’t drop it.”

  The girl hesitates, unsure what the rules are for being offered something nice.

  Then she takes it carefully, turning it in her fingers.

  “It’s cold,” she says.

  “Moons are cold,” Luna informs her, with the certainty of a witness.

  The girl looks up. “What’s your name?”

  Luna pauses. “…Luna,” she says, finally.

  The girl nods once. “I’m Nyla.”

  Luna repeats it. “Nyla.”

  Nyla’s gaze catches on Luna’s eyes—red in daylight, too bright, too strange.

  For a second her face tightens—fear.

  Luna steps in, closing the gap, and I realize she didn’t notice at all.

  “You wanna see Pip?” Luna says, too loud.

  She shoves the doll forward like it’s a bribe.

  Nyla blinks at it. “That’s a dumb name.”

  Luna’s jaw drops.

  “It’s not dumb,” she snaps. “It’s important.”

  Nyla shrugs, but she takes Pip anyway.

  I can tell she likes it.

  Luna watches holding her breath.

  Then Nyla glances down at the stones still lined up in the dirt.

  “What’s that one?” she asks, pointing at the dark stone with the bright seam.

  Luna doesn’t answer right away.

  She picks it up instead. Turns it once in her palm.

  And then—another choice.

  “This one’s fast,” Luna says, quiet now. “Like my ma.”

  I blink—then I recognize the seam, the weight of it in my memory, the stone I swore I had tucked away. That little shit stole it off me at some point, and a grin pulls at my mouth anyway. I shake my head once. Sneaky girl.

  Nyla stands there with the moon-rock in one hand, the other empty, watching Luna like she’s waiting for the rules to show themselves.

  Luna’s face stays hot, stubborn, and she does the bravest thing she can manage without admitting it—she presses the dark stone into Nyla’s open palm and closes Nyla’s fingers around it.

  “You can borrow it. But you can’t have it. It belongs to someone else already,” she mutters, as if it’s nothing.

  Nyla’s mouth twitches, then breaks, and Luna breaks with her—two quick, secret giggles that try to hide behind their hands and fail. Luna glances at me once, catches my smile, and pretends she didn’t. Then she turns back to Nyla, shoulders squaring like she’s about to do something dangerous.

  “Wanna play…” she asks, quiet and fast.

  Nyla nods.

  Luna drops to her knees in the dirt and sets Pip between them, a judge in the middle. She starts lining rocks up in a row—serious, careful—building rules out of stone.

  “Each one gives Pip a different power,” she says, as if it’s obvious.

  Then she points to the next rock in the line, eyes bright with it. “This one lets her throw fireballs!”

  Nyla laughs again, and Luna does too—proud, mortified, shining. My chest loosens. I turn back toward the tavern and let the sound fade behind me, letting her keep her secret little world for as long as the world allows it.

  By the time she’s eight, Nyla is a name I hear in the yard more often than Hano’s.

  Later—when the work is done and the light starts slipping—the little hill Alkek and I used to watch the stars from is still ours.

  It started as a place for two people to breathe without an audience.

  Now it’s a place for three.

  We climb it on a clear night. Luna runs ahead barefoot, clutching a stone like she’s carrying a piece of the world home.

  She wedges herself between us and talks too much, because she’s big now and she’s decided silence is a waste.

  Alkek sits on one side of her. I sit on the other.

  

  For a few minutes it’s only warmth—the grass, her voice, his shoulder against mine, the way my body forgets to be ready for impact.

  Luna leans into my ribs mid-sentence, warm and careless.

  Then Valicar pings.

  

  I still.

  My hand tightens on nothing—then finds Alkek’s without looking.

  Luna keeps talking.

  I stare past the hill, past the fields, into the dark where orbit hangs.

  I should close it. I should pretend I didn’t feel it.

  I open it anyway.

  Wolf’s voice slides into my skull.

  "Sol. I have an update."

  I breathe once. Don’t move.

  "It’s… bad. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. Elder probes got spotted a few thousand light-years off the core. Their FTL was faster than anything we’ve seen—and I’m not talking teleportation like the Citadel. Just warp. Raw speed. It crossed a thousand light-years in an hour."

  Luna’s finger traces a constellation in the air, chattering softly, like the sky is the only thing that’s ever been true.

  So they finally arrived... How many probes?

  "There were two. Now there’s one." Wolf’s voice stays casual, which is how I know it’s worse. "The Devil hit them first—because it couldn’t help itself. One probe erased thousands of Hive hulls like it was swatting flies when it ran into a tendril arm."

  My nails bite into my palm until something warm slicks between my fingers.

  "They only dropped it because the Devil’s got an Iron Blood dreadnought in its mind—one it ate off those rebels a few years back. That ship’s running hijacked ban-tech straight out of the Council’s vault." Wolf’s voice stays casual, but there’s a thin edge under it. "It tagged the probe with a Chrono-Lance—shoved it back a blink and made it collide with itself. Atoms trying to share a spot never ends well. The detonation was massive."

  I drag my hand through the grass, smearing red into green, and something ugly in my gut loosens.

  So they can be defeated.

  "Indeed. That’s your father’s plan, after all." Wolf’s tone turns faintly amused. "But the second probe watched its partner go up and bailed—straight back through the gate. So if this galaxy didn’t have their attention yet…" His voice flattens. "It does now."

  The wind keeps moving like nothing is happening. Luna laughs at something she says. Alkek’s thumb presses into my knuckle—anchor, warning.

  Then he makes it worse, because he’s honest—friend-honest and unforgiving:

  "Sol… the clock’s finally moving. The final war’s coming. Go hug your little girl—and be ready. Pickup’s within the year."