Chapter 47
TAKHISS
Earth is quiet in a way no world I’ve ever been on can match.
Three years. It feels like a lifetime ago that we were bleeding in an airlock, and yet the peace here is so absolute it sometimes feels like a dream I haven’t woken from.
The Nova Scotia sky spills soft gold at dawn—long days stretching into amber hours. The nights are deeper than ink, unreachable stars swallowed by low clouds. The forest basin around us holds silence like a blessing.
This is our new home. A backwater rock in the Sol system that the Coalition ignores and the Alliance forgot about decades ago. Perfect.
We tucked into a shady patch near the forest’s edge.
The little wood cabin we found—half-ruined when we stumbled on it—has become ours.
I spent weeks patching floors, sealing leaks, laying hearth stones.
Ella planted a garden. The air always smells like moss and damp earth and the faint smoke of her cooking supper.
I don’t care it took losing everything to land here. We’re free. She’s still by my side. That’s enough.
Morning light filters through the window as I stir from sleep. Ella’s beside me, propped up on pillows, reading a battered holobook. In the kitchen, Vex hums—barefoot, tousled hair—scooping oatmeal on the stove. The scent of simmering cinnamon drags me fully awake.
I slip from bed quietly. Feet bare on cold wood. I cross to the window, peek out—golden rays dancing on dew-drenched ferns.
Ella glances up, smiles. “Morning, lizard.” She sets the tome aside.
I come around and press a kiss to her temple. “Morning, fire.”
Vex’s voice squeaks, “Papa, watch this!”
He launches a spoonful of oats with telekinetic precision. I catch him mid-air before he makes a mess. He giggles, oats tumbling, and I lift him onto my shoulders.
“Hey, troublemaker,” I whisper.
Outside, I hear the soft thud of footsteps. Local kids—refugees mostly, human and hybrid alike—have drifted into the clearing. They giggle and wave. Vex spots them and shouts excitedly, “Friends!”
I carry him out the door. The kids dither at first, then rush forward. They surround us, touching the scales on his forearm—the flicker he sometimes lets show.
Here, no one bats an eye. They’ve seen too much to care about what you are. They care about who you protect.
I set Vex down. He races off into the meadow.
Ella follows, and I walk behind, hand in hers. Our cabin fades behind us, but I don’t look back. I look at what’s before me.
We stroll into the small town at midday. Dirt streets, wooden storefronts. No one stares. Women carry baskets; children squat by wells.
Ella leans in, voice a murmur. “This was worth it.”
I nod. “Every scar, every loss, every battle. Worth it for this moment.”
Evening falls slowly. The forest basin turns silver under moonlight.
Ella and I sit on the porch of the cabin. She leans into me, head resting on my shoulder. I wrap an arm around her waist.
She looks at me and murmurs, “You ever think about the future?”
I smile. “Every damn day.”
Her fingers stroke my chin. “Promise me something?”
I nod. “Anything.”
She says, “That you’ll never stop holding me.”
I pull her closer. “I won’t. Not as long as I breathe.”
I nuzzle her hair. In the silent dusk, with Vex asleep under a blanket between our knees, I vow to her and to him: as long as I live, no force in the galaxy will take us from each other again.