Chapter 23 Aria
ARIA
Garma lifts the stool like it’s a feather.
Not a wobble. Not even a grunt. Just tiny fingers curling around the leg, eyes flashing with glee, and up it goes.
My heart stutters. I set the datapad down too hard.
“Sweetheart,” I say carefully, “how many times have I told you—?”
“I didn’t break it!” he says, grinning. “I’m strong now!”
I smile, tight and aching. “Yeah, baby. I see that.”
His eyes glow gold for a heartbeat, then fade.
I don’t breathe easy for hours.
He’s changing too fast. Growing like something forged, not born. It’s not unnatural—it’s just not human. And it’s starting to show.
I’ve cloaked his scans, rerouted every traceable biometric. But even Oxford’s aging systems will eventually flag anomalies. Kids aren’t supposed to lift furniture with one hand. They’re not supposed to glow.
My palms sweat just thinking about it.
I sit up that night long after he’s asleep. Naull’s voice echoes in my head like a pulse: You’re not alone in this.
But he doesn’t know. Not really.
Not what it means to carry fear in your blood. Not what it costs to lie every day just to keep your child safe. He says he’s here. Says he wants this. But wanting something and bearing it are different beasts.
I find him in the east wing. An old lab annex we used to test simulated Meld transitions. It smells like ozone and soldered wire. Dusty glass walls catch the moonlight. Empty workbenches line the room like forgotten altars.
Naull’s hunched over a terminal, shirt wrinkled, brow furrowed. I don’t say a word.
I just lock the door.
His head jerks up. “Aria?”
But I don’t answer. I step into the shadows and pull him to me. My fingers curl in his collar. My mouth finds his like it remembers the path by instinct. He groans—low, hungry—and I press him back against the counter, all breath and need and fire.
“Here?” he manages, voice already wrecked.
“Yes.” I push his shirt off his shoulders. “Now.”
His hands roam—ribs, hips, the back of my neck—and then he spins us, lifts me like nothing. My legs wrap around his waist. My back hits cold wall. I gasp.
“I missed you today,” he mutters into my throat.
“You saw me twice.”
“Not like this.”
It’s frantic. Clumsy in a way only desperation can be. I kiss him like I need to forget. He holds me like I’m the answer to a question he doesn’t know how to ask.
Clothes half-on, half-off, lost to the floor like they never mattered.
His skin is all heat and tension and reverence. My name breaks from his lips like a vow. I bite his shoulder. He swears.
“You ruin me,” I whisper against his ear.
“Then let me ruin all of you,” he growls.
And he does.
Over the desk. One hand buried in my hair. The other gripping my hip like he’s anchoring himself to the now. My breath stutters. His body moves like a hymn. A storm. A promise he’s been aching to keep.
It’s not pretty.
It’s real.
And when it’s over, we collapse onto the floor in a tangle of limbs and sweat and silence. The kind of silence that feels like church.
I don’t look at him right away.
My pulse is still erratic. My lips swollen. My bones boneless.
“I needed that,” I say quietly.
His hand finds mine, fingers lacing. “I know.”
It starts in the small things.
A half-second delay in the Meld. A twitch in the neural overlay. A pause between breath and thought that didn’t used to be there.
We move as one in the simulation chamber—but not together. It’s like dancing out of rhythm. Like reaching for a hand and finding air. No missteps, but no music either.
Naull doesn’t say it aloud. He never does. But I see it in his eyes after every test—confused, cautious, cracked.
The Meld is breaking.
And I think I know why.
Later, I lie beside Garma in his tiny bed, one arm curled around him, my nose pressed to the curve of his scalp where sweat still clings like dew. His breath is steady. Deep. Innocent.
My child.
Ours.
The apartment’s quiet. Too quiet.
Naull’s door is ajar. Light seeps beneath it, flickering blue. Probably studying Meld telemetry again. Trying to figure out why the sync won’t stabilize. Why our bond is fraying at the edges.
Because he thinks it’s something technical.
God, I wish it was.
I pour tea I don’t drink. Stand in the kitchen barefoot, chilled. My hands tremble around the mug.
Because the secret isn’t just heavy—it’s turning into something venomous. A virus in our code. Every time he touches me, I feel it spread. Every kiss tastes like guilt. Every look like a silent scream.
This isn’t just a lie anymore.
It’s a weapon.
I walk to the window and stare at the city lights.
Oxford looks softer at night. Less ancient. Less judgmental. The cobblestones blur. The spires disappear into the fog. The world becomes a suggestion.
And for a minute, I pretend I don’t have to say anything.
That I can just love him and keep this truth folded tight inside me like an old war map—worn, bloody, hidden.
But I know I can’t.
Not forever.
Not even soon.
Because it’s not just about me anymore.
I remember the way he looked at me last night. The way his mouth trembled when I whispered his name. The way his hands shook when they gripped my hips like he was afraid I’d dissolve if he let go.
“I’m not strong enough for this,” I’d told him after.
He’d pressed his forehead to mine. “You don’t have to be. Just don’t leave.”
And I didn’t.
But I lied anyway.