Chapter 17
LUNA
The morning starts with hope.
I wake slow, curled against warmth that still smells of him—spice, smoke, and something sharper underneath that’s always been just Kraj.
The sheets are tangled around my legs, the blanket kicked down to the floor.
The room is bathed in pale-gold light from the rising suns, and I don’t feel the weight of dread dragging me upright.
Instead, I hear it.
Giggles. High, bubbling laughter from the next room.
“Not like that!” Solie squeals, and then comes the clatter of something on the counter, followed by her delighted shriek of, “You broke it!”
And then his voice, rumbling, amused. “Not broke. Just… modified.”
I sit up, hair a mess, my heart thudding with something dangerously close to happiness. The air is warm with the scent of sweetroot tea steeping, sharp and honeyed, mingled with the sizzle of pan-fried bread. My stomach growls, but it’s not hunger that makes my chest ache.
It’s this. This fragile illusion of family.
I pad into the kitchen barefoot, the floor cool under my toes. Solie sits on the counter, swinging her legs, a smear of flour across her cheek. She beams when she sees me.
“Mama, he tried to flip the bread and it went whoosh all the way to the wall!”
Kraj shrugs, utterly unbothered, as he pours tea into chipped mugs. “I told her—improvisation is a skill.”
I lean against the doorway, watching them. My heart swells so full it hurts. For a fleeting moment, it’s everything I ever wanted. A home. A partner. A child safe and laughing in the morning light.
But illusions never last.
The sirens hit without warning. A long, piercing wail that rattles the windows, splitting the morning wide open.
I freeze. Solie clamps her hands over her ears, eyes wide.
Kraj reacts instantly, setting the mug down, pulling her into his chest. “It’s alright, little firefly,” he murmurs, his voice steady. But his eyes… his eyes are not steady at all.
The sirens fade into a voice over the emergency channel, bleeding through the old wall speakers.
“Attention, citizens of Wildwood. There has been an incident. A Combine executive traveling through our sector has been killed. Explosion. No survivors. Please remain calm and await further instructions.”
The words roll through me like ice water. My blood runs cold.
The holoscreen flares to life on its own, pulling from the central news net.
Images flicker—flames tearing through a transport, black smoke spiraling into the sky.
Security crews rushing. Panic rippling across the crowd at the crash site.
The announcer’s voice trembles as she repeats the facts: Combine official. Explosion. No survivors.
I can’t breathe.
I turn my head, slowly, too slowly, to look at him.
He’s standing stiff, Solie still clutched to his chest, his eyes fixed on the screen. And in those molten depths I see something that curdles my stomach.
Recognition.
Not shock. Not horror.
He knew.
“Kraj?” My voice is a whisper, raw.
He doesn’t look at me. His jaw tightens. His grip on Solie tightens.
The illusion shatters like glass, sharp and cruel.
The rest of the day is chaos. The colony is a hive of whispers and running feet, the panic spreading faster than the officials can contain it.
Shops shutter early. People huddle in doorways, passing rumors like contraband.
Alliance attack, some say. Sabotage. Others swear it was a Coalition strike, though no one dares speak too loudly.
I go through the motions—logging shipments, smoothing over nervous clients, keeping Solie close by my side—but my mind never leaves that moment. His face, caught in the holoscreen’s glow. His eyes that didn’t look surprised at all.
By the time night falls, I can barely hold myself together.
Solie is finally asleep, tucked beneath her blankets, her stuffed toy clutched in her fist. I linger by her bed longer than usual, watching the rise and fall of her chest, the small flutter of her lashes. My throat aches with unshed tears.
When I step into the living room, he’s waiting. Sitting on the couch, his broad shoulders hunched, his hands clasped together so tight his knuckles are white. The glow from the single lamp paints his scales in harsh shadows.
I stand in the doorway, my arms crossed against the chill crawling through me.
“Did you know this would happen?” My voice is steady, though it costs me everything to keep it that way.
His head jerks up. Our eyes lock.
Silence stretches, heavy, suffocating.
I wait. I need him to say no. I need him to deny it, to give me something—anything—to hold onto.
But he doesn’t.
He just sits there, jaw clenched, eyes burning with something I can’t read. And in that silence, I hear the truth clearer than any words.
The damning truth.
I turn away, my heart cracking like dry earth underfoot.
I don’t sleep. I can’t.
Kraj lies beside me, his breaths slow and even, the heat of his body radiating against my back.
To anyone else, he’d look like peace itself.
But I know better. I can feel the tension in him, the way his arm stayed heavy across me for longer than usual, like he was holding on to something—maybe me, maybe a lie.
I stare at the ceiling until my eyes burn, the faint glow of the moons bleeding through the window. Every time I close my eyes, I see the Combine executive’s face in the holo-broadcast, the fireball erupting behind him. I see Kraj’s eyes, not shocked, not broken. Expectant.
When his breaths deepen into the rhythm of true sleep, I slide carefully out from under his arm. My legs tremble as I stand, the floor cold beneath my bare feet. I wait a beat—two, three—holding my breath, afraid he’ll stir. He doesn’t.
The living room is dark, shadows stretching long across the walls. His field kit sits by the door where he always leaves it, half-hidden beneath his jacket. My hands shake as I crouch beside it.
I tell myself I won’t open it. That I’ll put it back down and crawl into bed, pretend none of this exists. But my fingers are already unfastening the clasps, peeling back the flap.
It looks ordinary—rations, tools, a folded data slate. But Kraj has never been ordinary. I search deeper, feeling for anything that doesn’t belong. My hand brushes the corner of something hard, a seam that shouldn’t be there. My stomach clenches.
With trembling fingers, I press along the edge. A faint click echoes in the silence, and a false panel slides free.
My throat closes.
Inside are dossiers, crisp and official, stamped with the Coalition’s insignia. The paper smells faintly of ozone, of chemicals that burn my nose. I flip through them, each one worse than the last—schematics, code strings, names I don’t recognize.
I freeze.
The Combine executive’s face stares up at me from the top file, a black Coalition seal stamped over it. Target.
My knees buckle. I stumble back so fast I nearly knock the field kit over. My hands shake violently, bile rising in my throat. I slap a hand over my mouth to keep from crying out.
He did it.
He’s still doing it.
Everything—the warmth, the laughter, the kisses, the way he touched me like I was the only thing that mattered—it was built on lies. Again.
I drop to the floor, my chest heaving, tears burning hot down my cheeks. My nails dig into my palms until they sting, but it doesn’t cut through the hurt hollowing me out from the inside.
“Why?” I whisper into the dark. My voice breaks. “Why can’t you ever just be mine?”
A sound stirs from the bedroom—Solie shifting in her sleep. I push myself up on shaking legs and stumble toward her room like a drowning woman reaching for shore.
She’s sprawled across her little cot, her toy clutched tight, her golden eyes fluttering beneath closed lids. Her hair spills across the pillow, soft as silk. I sink down beside her, pulling her into my arms. She murmurs, half-asleep, “Mama?” before nestling against me, warm and trusting.
That trust guts me.
I press my lips to her hair and rock her gently, silent sobs wracking my chest. I weep not just for me—for the betrayal that feels like fire eating through my veins—but for her. For the father she doesn’t know, the truth I’ve buried, the storm bearing down on us faster than I can shield her from.
I don’t know how long I sit there. Minutes. Hours. Time collapses under the weight of my grief.
At last, with my hands still trembling, I ease her back into her bed, brushing her hair from her forehead. My legs feel like they’re made of stone as I stand and move to my desk.
The old compad waits, its surface cold and familiar under my fingers. I open the encrypted channel, one I swore I’d never touch again. My last shred of clearance, buried in a dormant beacon like a ghost of the woman I used to be.
The screen flickers. A prompt glows: Input Message.
I stare at it, tears blurring my vision. My fingers hover over the keys. My heart pounds so loud I swear it’ll wake him in the next room.
Slowly, I type:
Watch him. He’s not done.
The cursor blinks. My breath shudders.
With one final surge of strength, I press send.
The beacon hums low, faint, a whisper of light fading as the message vanishes into the net.
I shut the compad, my hands shaking so violently I almost drop it. My chest aches so hard I think it might split open.
And then, in the silence of my darkened home, I fall apart.