Epilogue #2
The creviks emerge from their hiding places in the maintenance corridors, their small bodies pressing against my legs, soft chittering rising in greeting. They remember me. They remember what we survived together.
Drazex's footsteps reach me before his presence does. He rounds the corner, silver eyes finding mine.
“Tomás came to you.” Not a question.
“You knew.”
“He asked for my approval before approaching you.” Drazex moves closer, each footfall eating distance until he stands near enough for his heat to reach me through the cool tunnel air. “He wanted to earn his own debt. I let him.”
I study his face, searching for the lord who navigated this arrangement without my awareness. The male who understood what my brother needed before I did. “You could have told me.”
“Would you have let him do it?”
The question cuts clean. No. I would have argued. Would have insisted the debt didn't matter, that I'd already chosen, that he didn't need to sacrifice years of his life for a contract that stopped binding me the moment Drazex claimed me as his.
“He needed to give you this.” Drazex’s traces my claiming bite. “I let him.”
I lean into his touch, letting the warmth of his palm anchor me here. The strays press closer, their small bodies witnesses to a conversation they can't understand but somehow belong to anyway.
“I'm free.” The word tastes different in my mouth now. When I walked into House Draven, freedom meant escape. Getting out. Surviving until the contract ended so I might drag my brother back to whatever life we'd build elsewhere. Now freedom carries a different weight.
“Yes.” His words drop to the register that lives in my chest. “And you're still here.”
I chose him when I was collateral, captive, claimed, and when his father tried to cage me in the dark beneath this compound. Now I choose him unbound. No debt or contract or obligation except the want that has taken root somewhere beneath my sternum and refuses to be uprooted.
“I'm where I want to be.”
His arms close around me, pulling me against his body. Possessive. Hungry. The grip I’ve stopped wanting to escape. Strays settle at our feet. Tunnels hold their ancient silence. Somewhere above us, a house rebuilds itself under new leadership while the old lord rots in a cage of his own making.
I came to Vahiri Prime in chains I chose to wear.
I stay in freedom I choose to keep.