Chapter 10 #2
“You’d better be.” Her voice was wet, thick with tears she refused to let fall where the crowd could see. “If you miss a single night, I’ll fly out there myself and drag you back by your ear.”
A sound escaped him—half-laugh, half-sob. “I don’t doubt it.”
He pulled back just far enough to press his forehead to hers.
The ancient gesture of Aldawi intimacy—sharing breath, sharing thought, sharing everything that mattered.
Through their weakened bond, he pushed all of it.
The love he couldn’t put into words. The regret for the distance he’d kept between them.
The vow to come back to her, no matter what stood in his way.
Her spots flickered—pink, purple, warm orange. Emotions she couldn’t hide, written across her skin for anyone who cared to look.
“I love you,” she whispered. “Stars help me, Zirene. I love you so much it terrifies me.”
“Good.” He kissed her forehead. Her cheeks. The tears she hadn’t let fall. “Then you understand exactly how I feel.”
When their lips met, it wasn’t the restrained touch protocol demanded.
It was fiercer. Deeper. A claiming in front of thousands. A promise carved into flesh and soul and the bond between them. She kissed him like she was memorizing the shape of his mouth, and he kissed her back like a male who knew this might be the last time.
The crowd fell silent.
Not from shock—from reverence. From understanding. Every warrior in that plaza knew what it meant to leave someone behind. Every parent knew the ache of missing their children’s milestones. Every bonded pair knew the terror of separation when death waited at the end of the journey.
This was the price of the crown. Putting duty above love. Always.
When they finally broke apart, Selena’s fingers traced his jaw—a featherlight touch that burned like fire.
“Win your war.” Her voice steadied, strength returning to it like a psyblade being drawn. “Then come home and win me back.”
The words hit him like a challenge. A reminder that their weakened bond was his failure, not hers. That he had work to do when this was over—not just rebuilding an empire but rebuilding the closeness he’d been too afraid to accept.
“I will,” he swore. “Both.”
The ShadowClaw waited at the end of the platform—sleek and deadly, her hull drinking light like living darkness.
B stood at the base of the ramp, his pilot’s stance patient but alert.
Q was inside, knowing how much tension it would cause if the crowd saw a Quaww escorting their Sovereign into war.
The leader of the Fab 5 was ready to carry Zirene to the front lines with all the speed he could coax from her engines.
Zirene looked at his clan one last time.
Kaede’s gaze met his—steel and promise, one warrior to another. The assassin didn’t need words. He simply nodded, and Zirene knew Selena would never be unguarded. Kaede would die before he let anyone touch her.
V’dim and Z’fir stood at attention, saluting his departure, even though they were his clanbrothers. They would leave soon too, under his command—deploying to the Sol system, another fracture in their constellation. But not yet. For now, they were here.
Xylo’s gentle presence radiated calm, his healer’s instincts already attuned to the grief rippling through the group. Odelm stood at his side, quiet and devoted, the empath’s awareness a steady anchor. Selena’s Primaries would make sure she wouldn’t be without during these trying times.
And Zyxel—the newest, the uncertain one—watched with something raw in his chartreuse eyes.
Fear and determination and the fierce hunger to prove himself worthy of the family he’d joined.
He would do well. Zirene sensed it in the way he positioned himself, protective and alert despite his uncertainty.
“Take care of her.” The words came out thick. Heavy. A command and a plea wrapped together. “Take care of them all.”
No one answered.
No one needed to.
Zirene turned. Walked toward the ShadowClaw. Each step felt like fighting gravity, like moving through water, like leaving pieces of himself scattered behind on the platform.
He paused at the ramp.
One last look.
Selena stood with their cubs pressed against her, the clan arrayed at her back, her spots glowing soft orangish yellow in the morning light.
The swell of her belly where his daughter grew.
The tear tracks drying on her cheeks. The way she held herself upright despite everything—his Nova, his Beacon, the center of his universe staying strong while he flew toward the darkness.
He memorized her.
Every line of her face. Every shimmer of her spots. The way her short silver hair caught the light like captured Starfire, wistfully blowing in the light sea breeze. The fierce, unbreakable love blazing through her gaze.
Then he boarded.
The ramp sealed behind him with a hiss of hydraulics. B was already moving toward the cockpit, her steps measured, giving Zirene a moment of privacy he hadn’t asked for but desperately needed.
Zirene pressed his palm flat against the viewport as the engines ignited.
Through the reinforced glass, he watched Selena watch him. Watched her hold their cubs closer—Meti’s silver fur, Nocrez’s and Neazzos’s dark striped forms pressing tight against their mother. Watched his clanbrothers close ranks around the Nova he was leaving behind.
The ShadowClaw lifted.
The platform shrank beneath them. The crowd became a blur of rainbow colors—both dark and light, all the shades of his people—Destima’s citizens—becoming one as distance swallowed them whole.
Higher. Faster. The atmosphere thinned, and the sky darkened from azure to indigo to the endless black of space.
His shadow curled around him, restless and mourning.
“We’ll see her again,” he murmured—to himself, to the shadow, to whatever Fates and Stars that might be listening. “In the dreamscape. Every night.”
Zirene stayed at the viewport until Destima was nothing but a distant moon—one light among millions, indistinguishable from the rest. His home. His family. His heart.
“Set course for the front lines,” he called to B. His voice came out steady. The voice of a Sovereign. “Maximum speed.”
“Already done.” B’s reply drifted back from the cockpit. “ETA: forty-seven hours.”
Forty-seven hours until he reached the war. Forty-seven hours of travel, of planning, of joining the frontlines of another war.
Zirene turned from the viewport. Straightened his shoulders. Let the mask of the Sovereign settle back into place, covering the cracks, hiding the breaks, presenting the face his people needed to see as he entered the royal war room.
Behind him, Destima vanished into the infinite dark.