Chapter 30
RYNN
Inever thought quiet could feel so loud.
Every morning now, I wake up to it—the hush of saltwind drifting through the woven reed vents, the distant murmur of the surf, the occasional chirp from some bug-lizard hybrid Vael says is harmless but keeps trying to steal my boots.
It’s peaceful.
Which is terrifying.
There’s no alarm. No crackling intercom orders. No pulse rifles propped by the bed. Just the sound of Nessa, giggling in her sleep across the room, tangled in blankets like she’s already learning how to fight in her dreams.
I watch her sometimes, before the sun’s all the way up.
The way her lashes twitch. The way her fingers curl into fists even when she’s resting.
She’s not small anymore. Not like when I first carried her in that smuggler’s hold, her body limp with fever and the whole galaxy on our heels. She’s still little—still mine—but there’s something big inside her now. Something vast.
And it scares the hell out of me.
The first day she trains with the village’s younglings, she clings to my leg like I’m walking her into a warzone.
“I don’t wanna,” she mutters, half-hiding behind my hip.
I squat beside her, brushing a curl out of her eyes. “You said you wanted to learn how to jump like Vael.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to fall.”
I grin. “Fair. But you’re not gonna fall. You’re gonna fly.”
She scowls. “Don’t lie, Mama.”
“Alright. Maybe you’ll trip. Once. But then you’ll fly.”
She thinks about it, chewing her lip, then nods like she’s made a great and terrible decision.
When Kevari gestures her forward—same matriarch who worked Rynn ragged on her first patrol—Nessa steps up like she’s being summoned to a throne. Back straight, chin up, bottom lip still trembling just a little.
I sit cross-legged on the stone ledge that wraps around the practice ring.
It’s elevated—overlooking the coast—and all the kids move through drills like it’s a dance. Slow, deliberate. Not flashy. Vakutan style is about control first. Showoffs get humbled fast.
Nessa doesn’t try to show off. Not yet.
She watches. Mirrors. Fails.
And when she flubs a movement and lands flat on her back, the entire ring stops—not to laugh, but to acknowledge.
That’s the thing about this place. No one hides from failure here. They meet it. Then move past it.
Kevari offers her a hand.
Nessa slaps it away and stands on her own.
That’s my girl.
The days fall into rhythm.
She trains in the morning, naps after midday meal, then pesters Vael with questions at dusk.
“What’s the word for ‘storm’ in Vakutan?”
“How do you punch without hurting your thumb?”
“Can the ocean really remember things?”
He always answers. Patient. Even when she interrupts herself halfway through. Even when she breaks off to chase a drifting shell through the sand.
She still throws tantrums.
Still yells when she’s frustrated.
Still breaks things without meaning to.
Two nights ago, she crushed one of the dinner bowls trying to carry it with both hands.
She cried when she realized what she’d done. Big, heaving sobs.
“I didn’t want to,” she kept saying. “I didn’t want to.”
Vael just picked her up, carried her outside, and held her while she calmed.
I watched from the doorway, heart twisted up tight.
Because she wants to be good. She wants to do right.
She’s just still learning how to be.
Like me.
Some mornings, I sit beside Kevari during drills.
She doesn’t talk much, which I appreciate.
But once, while watching Nessa struggle through a breathwork stance, she muttered, “Fire doesn’t ask permission before it burns. But it can be taught where to spread.”
I nodded.
Didn’t cry until later.
A week into training, Nessa punches a target post so hard it snaps clean at the base.
There’s a beat of silence—everyone frozen, eyes wide.
Then Nessa gasps, steps back, and blurts, “I’m sorry!”
She looks horrified.
Like she broke the moon, not a training dummy.
Kevari lifts a brow.
“Well?” she says. “Did you mean to do that?”
Nessa shakes her head so hard her curls whip her cheeks.
“Then next time,” Kevari says, “do not let yourself.”
And that’s it.
No yelling. No punishment. Just truth.
And gods—Nessa just nods. Face red. Mouth trembling. But nods.
I feel tears sting my eyes before I can stop them.
Because it’s clumsy.
It’s awkward.
It’s so damn beautiful.
___________________________________________________________________________
The sea smells like salt and firelight this time of night. Like all the day’s memories curling out into the wind, asking to be let go.
I sit on the flat of a warm stone just past the rise, where the cliff crumbles into driftrock and the ocean laps at the base like it’s whispering secrets only the moon gets to keep.
The tide glows.
It’s not even fair, how beautiful it is.
The bioluminescence pulses with the waves, dimming and flaring like breath. Like the whole planet’s exhaling slow.
I’m not sure I’ve taken a breath all day.
I pick up a piece of broken shell near my boot—smooth edge, burnished silver with a pinkish ripple. I roll it between my fingers.
Nessa would love this one.
Probably try to feed it to a sea beetle.
I smile.
Then wipe my eyes, because I hadn’t noticed they were wet.
He finds me like he always does—quietly, and right when I need him.
“Didn’t mean to sneak,” Vael says, voice low. “You weren’t exactly hiding.”
“Didn’t think I had to,” I mutter.
He settles in beside me, close enough for his thigh to press against mine. Warm, solid, familiar.
We sit there for a while. Not talking. Just watching the water.
The second moon’s out tonight—the pale one. It hangs lower than the amber one, like it’s eavesdropping.
Finally, I break the silence.
“She broke a post today.”
He nods. “I saw.”
“She cried.”
“So did you.”
I make a face. “Shut up.”
Vael grins, just enough to crease the corner of his eyes.
I nudge him with my shoulder, and he doesn’t lean away.
“Kevari says she’s ahead of where most kids her age are,” I murmur. “But still behind on some of the… emotional stuff.”
“She’s five.”
“She’s ours.”
He leans back on his elbows, face tilted toward the stars.
“That she is.”
The wind lifts the edge of my shirt. It’s not cold, just persistent. Like it’s trying to remind me I’m still here. Still breathing.
“I keep waiting for it to end,” I admit. “For someone to show up. For the other shoe to drop.”
He doesn’t say anything. Just waits.
“It’s like part of me thinks peace is just the hallway before the next execution.”
Now he turns to me. Face calm. “And what’s the other part think?”
I shake my head. “That maybe this is real. And I have no idea what the hell to do with that.”
He chuckles. “That makes two of us.”
We lapse into silence again, and it’s not heavy. It’s soft. Worn-in.
Comfortable like an old jacket you forgot you still had.
After a while, I ask the question I’ve been circling for weeks.
“What comes next?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. Just lets the wind speak for him.
Then:
“Work, maybe. Teaching. I could help with training, or scouting. They’d want me for the east range patrols, I’m guessing.”
I nod. “They’d be stupid not to.”
“And you?” he asks.
I snort. “I dunno. Maybe I’ll become a fisherwoman. Learn how to tie those complicated shell traps the elders use. Or grow moss tea.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You hate moss tea.”
“Exactly. Keeps me humble.”
That earns a laugh—real and deep and warm enough to scrape some of the tension out of my spine.
We fall quiet again.
The sea keeps glowing.
The wind keeps tugging.
Time feels like it’s moving sideways.
“I didn’t think we’d make it,” I say suddenly.
It just falls out. No ceremony. No build.
But it lands like truth.
Vael’s hand finds mine.
He threads our fingers together.
“No,” he says quietly. “We didn’t.”
Then he looks at me, and there’s a light in his eyes I’ve never seen before.
“We rebuilt it.”
And gods help me—I believe him.