Chapter 26
Selena
The landing pad gleamed under Destima’s first light.
I stood at the villa’s threshold, watching the crew run final checks on V’dim and Z’fir’s war vessel.
The dawn had barely cracked the horizon—thin gold bleeding into indigo—and the air still held the cool weight of the night.
My spots flickered in muted oranges and yellows, responding to the ache that had settled behind my sternum the moment I’d peeled myself out of the nestbed.
I hadn’t slept. Not really. I’d lain in the warmth of my family for hours, tracking their breathing, cataloging the texture of every bond in my web, and when V’dim’s tentacles had begun their careful withdrawal—slow, deliberate, designed not to wake anyone—I’d kept my eyes shut and pretended.
He knew. Of course he knew. V’dim always knew.
But he’d let me have the pretense, and I loved him for it.
Z’fir had been quieter still. His vines had retracted from my ankle with the careful precision of roots pulling free of soil—unhurried, achingly gentle, as though the act of letting go required more strength than holding on ever had.
I’d felt his turquoise thread thin in my web.
Not fading. Bracing. The bond knew what was coming, even before they’d slipped from the room.
Now their vessel sat on the pad like a promise waiting to be broken.
Sleek and dark-hulled, outfitted for patrol—for the long stretches of guarding Destima’s perimeter and the corridor between here and Liskta.
Close enough to reach us in hours if something went wrong.
Far enough that the bonds would stretch thin and sing with the strain.
The household had roused for the departure. No one announced it. No one needed to. This family operated on a frequency that transcended words—a shared awareness that hummed through the bonds and the bloodlines and the particular way Kaede’s footsteps changed when something mattered.
He was already at the pad. Arms crossed, armor locked, visor down.
Eshe stood three paces behind him, silent and watchful—the Royal Guard’s presence a comfort I’d stopped questioning long ago.
Kaede’s thread pulsed cold and steady in my web.
Not distant. Controlled. The deliberate calm of a warrior who had already filed this goodbye under tactical necessity and moved on to operational planning.
But beneath it—beneath the ice and the discipline and the flawless posture—I caught the faintest tremor. He didn’t want them to go either.
Xylo appeared at the vessel’s ramp, pressing a sealed medkit into Z’fir’s hands with the focused efficiency of a healer who was absolutely not going to let his nestbrothers down.
His restless fingers had already checked the kit’s contents three times.
I’d watched him repack it twice before we’d left the villa, moving supplies around with the quiet intensity of a male who couldn’t fix the galaxy but could ensure the nutrient ratios were correct.
“Nutrient supplements on the left side,” he said, his voice clipped and professional. “Wound sealant in the center compartment. And don’t—” His composure cracked, just slightly. “Don’t be stubborn about using them.”
Z’fir accepted the kit without argument. His root-rough fingers closed over Xylo’s for a moment longer than necessary—a squeeze that said everything his silence usually carried.
Oeta watched from the villa steps. She didn’t approach the pad or insert herself into the farewell.
She simply stood—arms at her sides, fuchsia aura dimmed to something watchful and resolute—and waited.
Her promise from the balcony hung between us.
She would be here. She would protect this place. And if I called, she would come.
I pressed a hand to my belly and crossed the threshold.
My family, gathering in the half-light to watch two of us fly toward war.
Tori brought the cubs out.
They came through the villa doors in a small, solemn procession—Nocrez first, rubbing sleep from his eyes, his little Circuli tentacles wrapped tight around the stuffed animal V’dim had made him during their first week on Destima.
Neazzos behind him, spine straight, tail rigid, wearing the expression of a child who had decided that discipline was the only acceptable response to heartbreak.
And Meti last—barefoot, calm, those still-water eyes already fixed on V’dim and Z’fir with an awareness that made my throat close.
Tori stopped at the edge of the pad, her Swynemi mates flanking her.
Celyze’s cosmic-touched wings tucked tight against her back, and Luwyn’s hand rested on Tori’s shoulder—a quiet anchor.
Tori caught my eye and nodded. I’ve got them.
The promise of a friend who knew what the next hour would cost and had already decided to carry whatever she could.
The cubs knew.
Even Nocrez, who was young enough that we could have softened it—could have turned this into a simple “see you later” instead of what it was—he knew.
Children always did. They read the silences between words, the way adults held their bodies when they were trying not to fall apart.
And my cubs, raised in this constellation of warriors and scholars and healers, had learned to read those signals with devastating accuracy.
Nocrez broke first.
He hit V’dim at full speed, his arms wrapping around his clanfather’s torso, as high as he could reach. The sob that tore out of him was raw and uncomplicated, the grief of a child who didn’t yet know how to package pain into something manageable.
“Promise.” His face was pressed into V’dim’s chest, the word muffled and wet. “Promise you’ll come back. Promise!”
V’dim gathered him closer. All six tentacles folding inward, creating a cocoon of warmth and pressure that I could feel through our bond—the fierce, desperate protectiveness of a father holding his child for what might be the last time.
His turquoise thread vibrated with it. His eyes glistened, but his voice held.
“I promise, little one.” Steady. Certain.
V’dim would hold himself together with sheer force of will until he was out of Nocrez’s sight, and then he would shatter in private, the way he always did—quietly, completely, where only his lifelong bondbrother Z’fir could witness. “I will always come back to you.”
Nocrez clung harder. V’dim held on.
My chest cracked watching them. The bond between clanfather and cub wasn’t something I’d woven—it had grown on its own, the way V’dim’s love always did. Abundant and patient and rooted so deep that ripping it out would destroy them both.
Neazzos approached Z’fir with military precision—shoulders back, chin lifted, tail coiled tight against his leg.
He stopped two paces away and executed a salute so crisp it would have made Kaede proud.
His Aldawi heritage showed in every rigid line of his small body, the warrior’s posture he’d been perfecting since the day Kaede first showed him how to stand.
Then his face crumpled.
The salute dissolved into a fierce hug, his arms locking around Z’fir’s waist, his tail wrapping around the Wudox’s leg as if he could anchor him to the ground through sheer force of will.
“Fly safe, Clanfather Z’fir.” His voice cracked on the name.
“The Shield never breaks. I’ll guard everyone until you’re back. ”
Z’fir’s hand settled on the back of Neazzos’s head.
He didn’t speak. He rarely needed to. The gesture—palm pressed to skull, fingers threading through the boy’s short mane with the slow deliberation of someone memorizing texture—said more than any words could have.
Through his thread, I felt the echo of it: pride and anguish and a love so quiet it almost disappeared beneath the surface, the way deep water hid its depth.
Meti was last.
She walked to them without hurrying. Took V’dim’s hand in her left and Z’fir’s in her right. Stood there, small and barefoot on the landing pad, holding on to two males who towered above her, and looked up at them with those impossible eyes.
“We’ll be here when you return,” she said. Simple. Certain. “The Eye, the Heart, and the Shield. Guarding until you come home.”
No tears. No trembling. Just that steady calm that made my skin prickle every time I encountered it—the sense that Meti was operating on information the rest of us couldn’t access. That she saw threads we couldn’t see and trusted them absolutely.
V’dim’s composure fractured. Just for a second—a hitch in his breathing, a tightening of his tentacles around Nocrez, a look at Meti that held so much love it bordered on reverence. Then he rebuilt himself, piece by piece, and kissed the top of her head.
My children. Already warriors in their own way. Already learning the cost of goodbye.
Tori stepped forward and gathered the cubs with the gentle authority of a woman who had survived her own wars.
Nocrez went reluctantly, his tail still reaching for V’dim.
Neazzos straightened his spine and marched back to her side, chin trembling but held high.
Meti went last, one final glance over her shoulder—not at V’dim or Z’fir, but at me.
A look that said something I couldn’t quite parse.
Something that lingered in the space behind my ribs long after she stood by the villa doors.
The mates moved in next, each goodbye carrying its own weight.
Kaede reached Z’fir first. No words—just a grip on his forearm, warrior to warrior, the kind of contact that communicated respect and trust and the particular bond forged between males who would die for the same female.
Z’fir returned the grip. They held for three seconds, eyes locked behind Kaede’s visor, and then released.
Everything that needed saying had been said in the training yard, in the tactical briefings, in the months of shared meals and shared burdens and silent understanding. This was the seal on it.