Chapter 25
Selena
Islipped away while no one was watching.
Or while everyone was watching and pretending not to—which, in this family, amounted to the same thing.
V’dim had the kitchen in a state of controlled siege, four tentacles conducting the household staff through the evening meal preparations while two more kept Nocrez from climbing into the spice stores.
Z’fir had disappeared toward the greenhouse an hour ago, carrying pruning shears and the particular silence he wore when he was saying goodbye to things that grew.
Kaede was running a final perimeter check with Eshe—his third of the day, which told me everything about how little he trusted tomorrow’s departure plan, even if he’d been the one to design it.
Xylo was sorting medical supplies again.
Odelm was playing something low and repetitive in his music room, the sound drifting through the villa, his velishra carrying a melody I didn’t recognize but felt in my sternum.
Everyone busy. Everyone bracing. The villa hummed with the energy of a family preparing to fracture, and every room I entered held someone who needed me to be steadier than I was.
So I went where none of them would follow. Not immediately.
The northern balcony caught the sunset full in the face.
It was the one part of the villa I hadn’t shared with anyone during these last three days on Destima—not V’dim’s observation deck, not Z’fir’s greenhouse, not the eastern balcony where Kaede and I had stood in the pre-dawn dark and made promises neither of us could guarantee.
I leaned against the railing and let the warmth hit me.
Destima’s sun hung low, swollen and amber, bleeding copper light across the ocean.
The salt air moved against my skin with a gentleness that felt deliberate—as if the moon itself knew what tomorrow held and was offering what comfort it could.
Below, the villa grounds stretched in long shadows.
The training yard stood empty. The gardens Z’fir had coaxed into abundance glowed in the dying light.
One more night.
The thought settled on me like weight.
One more dinner. One more gathering in the nestbed. And then we scatter.
Tomorrow morning, V’dim and Z’fir would board their vessel first, heading out to patrol Destima’s perimeter and the corridor between here and Liskta. Close enough to reach us in hours. Far enough that the bonds would stretch thin.
And then I’d board the Abyss. Kaede, Ryzen, Zyxel, Eshe, and the Royal Guard at my side. The CEG Space Station. The Chamber. The trap the Quaww had laid, wearing the face of galactic diplomacy.
I pressed my palms flat against the warm stone railing and closed my eyes. Through the bonds, I could feel all of them. Every thread in my constellation vibrating with the particular tension of people who were about to be pulled apart but hadn’t let go yet.
I pressed a hand to my belly and breathed through it.
We’re okay. We’re still okay.
I wasn’t sure who I was reassuring.
The footsteps behind me were nearly silent.
Nearly. Not quite. Oeta moved with the careful precision of a species that had spent millennia perfecting the art of presence—arriving without startling, existing without imposing.
But I’d learned her sounds over many nights of shared meals and late-night research sessions and the particular way she placed her weight when she had something to say.
She stopped beside me at the railing. Didn’t speak. Didn’t ask if I wanted company or if I’d rather be alone. She simply took the space to my left and turned her face toward the sunset, her fuchsia aura dimmed to something quiet and steady.
We stood in silence for a long time.
The sun continued its slow descent, painting the ocean in shades of amber and rose that would have been beautiful if I’d had the capacity to appreciate beauty right now.
Instead I tracked it with the clinical awareness of someone counting down hours.
Sunset meant dinner soon. Dinner meant the last meal as a complete constellation.
After that: the nestbed. After that: dawn. After that—fracture.
Oeta’s presence was never accidental.
I’d learned that early. She didn’t seek people out for casual company.
Didn’t make small talk, didn’t fill silences because they made her uncomfortable.
If she’d come here, she had a reason. She’d calculated the timing, weighed the approach, and determined that now—this precise moment on this particular balcony—was when she needed to speak.
So I waited.
The sun touched the horizon. The light shifted, going deep and golden, and Oeta’s sharp features caught it in a way that made her look older.
Not aged—ancient. The difference mattered.
Nyaviel didn’t age the way other species did.
They accumulated. Centuries of observation and calculation layered behind those fuchsia eyes like sediment in stone.
“I will remain here while you are away.”
Her voice carried no preamble. No softening.
I turned to look at her.
“On Destima?” I hadn’t hidden my surprise well enough. “I assumed you’d return to Nyaviel space. Be with your people while—”
“No.” Firm and final. Oeta didn’t look at me, her gaze fixed on the sinking sun. “If the Verya make a move against Destima, someone must be here to meet them.” A pause, measured and deliberate. “And my research is here. I will not abandon years of work.”
The words landed with the particular weight that Oeta gave to things she’d already decided. Not a request for input. Not a proposal open to discussion. A statement of fact, delivered with the same tone she used when presenting research findings—calm, certain, already past the point of debate.
“You think they’d come here?”
“I think they are capable of anything.” Her chin lifted. “Better to be prepared than to discover the cost of assumption.”
She was right. I knew she was right. The Verya didn’t operate on predictable logic—they operated on hunger.
On the drive to acquire, to collect, to consume anything that caught their attention.
And Destima held things that caught attention.
My cubs. My healing mates. The research Oeta had spent years building—reproductive work that could change the future of many species if she ever cracked it.
The Verya would want all of it.
“But if you need me at the Chamber—” Oeta turned to face me, and the last of the sunset caught her eyes, turning them from fuchsia to something closer to dark wine. “Call out. I will come.”
“How would you even—”
“Kaede left instructions.” The faintest trace of approval entered her voice. “One of the remaining Fab Five can make the transit. He was thorough.”
Of course he was. Kaede didn’t leave gaps. He built contingencies into his contingencies and then ran threat assessments on those. The fact that he’d coordinated with Oeta separately, without telling me, meant he’d been planning this before I’d even considered the possibility.
My strategist. Always three moves ahead, even when I thought I was the one setting the board.
“Thank you.” The words felt insufficient for what she was offering—not just protection, but presence. Staying when she could have left. Guarding what mattered to me when I couldn’t guard it myself.
Oeta acknowledged this with a single nod. Nothing more needed to pass between us on that point. She’d made her decision. I’d accepted it. We were both women who understood the economy of clarity.
But she wasn’t finished.
I felt it before she spoke—the subtle shift in her bearing, the way her shoulders squared by a fraction. The posture of someone transitioning from personal matters to something larger. Something that carried the weight of history.
“I have spoken with my father.”
I went still.
Mwe. Head Chairman of the CEG. One of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, in both mental strength and political influence.
Oeta rarely mentioned him in personal contexts—their relationship was complicated in ways I didn’t fully understand, shaped by centuries of Nyaviel politics and the particular expectations placed on a daughter carrying her mother’s unfinished legacy.
When Oeta invoked her father, it meant the conversation had shifted from the personal to the galactic.
“About?”
“The Verya.” Her gaze cut back to the horizon. “He will bring it before the Nyaviel leaders. A formal discussion of alliance with the Aldawi.”
The words hit me like a blast wave—silent and devastating.
“Alliance.” I repeated the word because I needed to hear it from my own mouth to believe it.
“The Nyaviel have stayed neutral for centuries, Oeta. Your people wouldn’t interfere in the Aldawi-Quaww war—you told me that yourself.
Your exact words were ‘the mathematics of extinction don’t care about noble intentions. ’”
“This is not about the Quaww.” Something hardened in her voice—not anger, but the steel that lived beneath her careful composure.
“This is about the Verya. They are a threat to all of us. Nyaviel, Aldawi, every species in this quadrant. My father understands this. The Verya don’t conquer borders—they consume civilizations.
If they are not stopped here, in this galaxy, they will not stop at all. ”
I let that settle. Turned it over. Examined it from every angle the way Kaede had taught me to examine strategic intelligence—not just the words, but the timing. The motivation. The cost.
“Your father is risking his political position to push for this.”