Chapter 13
FREYA
Iwake to the hum of the ship’s life-support, the low-tone warning bells indicating the start of a new shift. The blankets are too warm, heavy against my skin — the cloak gone, replaced by standard-issue sheets. I lie still, listening.
Outside the bunk hatch, the corridor pulses with footsteps and recycled-air hiss. I close my eyes and pretend sleep might return, but it’s gone. The moment I shut my eyes I see last night’s stars. I smell moss and earth and water. I taste fear and longing together, sharp and bitter.
When I finally pull myself up, I realize something’s different: I’m not invisible. At least, not anymore.
Jorko corners me in the mess-hall corridor before I reach the cleaning supplies — the ladder-belt whines, the hum of his hoverbelt heavy in my ears. His eyes flick to the cloak still draped across my shoulders, even during the day.
“You look like hell, kid,” he says, tone soft but laced with concern. “Spike-boy in your head again?”
I force a dry laugh. “Maybe just the draft from the vents,” I lie.
He shakes his head, knock of limp-belt echoing. “Listen. If you’re getting tangled up with a Reaper warlord because you think it’s romance or rescue or whatever fairy-tail you’re building, you better be sure. You’ve got friends, you’ve got pride. Don’t throw them away ’cause you feel… spark.”
His words hit harder than I expect. I swallow. The rag I carry trembles in my hand.
“I know what I’m doing,” I say, voice firmer than I feel.
But even as I say it, I taste uncertainty.
Later that day, I’m dragged into a conversation I didn’t ask to have.
General Hugh Rection stands at the top of the stairs in the negotiation wing — his old skeleton-frame hunched, eyes sharp as broken glass. He doesn’t greet me. Doesn’t ask pleasantries. Just cuts straight to business:
“McDonnell.”
My throat seizes.
“You’re becoming… important,” he says, slow, deliberate. “To certain parties.”
My spine tightens. I swallow.
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
He smirks, the kind of sick-thin twist that smells of greed and calculation. “Don’t play coy. The Reaper warlord doesn’t stake a claim like… like you without expecting something in return. Influence. Leverage.”
The words chill me, colder than recycled air, colder than the nights on Storder.
“Are you threatening me?” I whisper, voice barely above hiss.
He leans forward, the metal bolts on his chair groaning under his weight. “I’m warning you.”
He turns — as if expecting applause. Diplomats shuffle. Reaper officers behind him shift, bone-plates rattling faintly. I can smell the tension: sweat, fear, ambition, and something darker. Possibility. Danger.
I step back, rag dropping. Plastic clatters to the floor.
“I’m not some token to be traded,” I say, louder this time. “I’m a person.”
Rection laughs — low, ugly. “Person? Sentiment doesn’t pay tariffs. Doesn’t sign treaties. Don’t forget that, girl.”
I don’t argue. I don’t defend. I turn and leave — as fast as my legs will carry me.
I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t care. I just need to get away from the weight around my throat.
I end up in my bunk, cloak shoved into a corner, sheets twisted around me. I press my forehead into the thin pillow, hot tears burning my cheeks, rage and fear twisting together like serpents.
I think of Vokar — his bone-spurs, his red eyes, the way he said I learn fast. I think of his promise, the moss under starlight, his hand waiting.
And then I wonder: does he see me as a possession? A bargaining chip? A demand to be met?
I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to.
My fingers ghost over the seam of the cloak — rough fabric, warm, real. I trace the stitches with calloused nails. I close my eyes.
I remember the field of moss, the soft press of his hand in mine, the hush of the waterfall. I remember the way the night tasted alive, not metal and smoke.
But I also remember Rection’s words. I remember Jorko’s warning.
I whisper aloud, though there’s no answer but the hum of systems: “I didn’t ask for this.”
The next few hours blur — cleaning quotas, supply checks, corridor rounds. I move in autopilot, numb. Everywhere I go people look. Some with pity. Some with speculation. Some with thin-lipped curiosity.
I catch snippets in hushed tones: “Did you see how the warlord glared at her today?” “Rumors say she might influence the resource deal.” “IHC’s playing a dangerous game meddling with Reapers this close to home.”
Each whisper lands like a stone in my gut. I try not to wince. I try not to listen. But the sound clings.
When I slide into the locker room after shift, I realize I’m shaking. Not from cold — though the recycled air is always too cool — but from rage, fear, and grief.
I scrub my face raw. I dump the bucket. I stare at my reflection — green eyes rimmed in red, cheeks pale, jaw clenched.
I’m tired. So tired.
I sigh and realize I need to see Vokar. Now.
I find him readily enough. The corridor lights hum overhead, a dull wash of white across metal walls, but nothing feels steady anymore — not the floor beneath me, not the recycled air, not even my own breath.
My hands shake when I push open the door to the small side-corridor where Vokar’s cloak is draped over the metal railing.
I half-expect him to step out, armor clinking, claws gleaming — but instead he’s silent. Just waiting.
He turns slowly when I step inside. No guards. No bluster. Just his dark bulk shifting softly in the glow, the cloak wrapped around his shoulders like a shroud. His red eyes catch me as though I’m the only thing in the world, and the world tilts a little sideways.
I close the hatch behind me. The hiss echoes. It feels like sealing a deal. Maybe a bad one. Maybe a dangerous one.
I draw in a breath — cold air, sterile metal, a faint tang of machine oil somewhere nearby. My heart thuds loud enough I’m scared he might hear it. My voice comes out soft, but steadier than I feel.
“What happens if this all falls apart?” I ask. “If you — if your people — don’t accept me when the shine wears off?”
He doesn’t shift. He doesn’t blink. For a moment I see the weight he carries: bone scars, death memories, moons burned, oceans spilled. I see the warlord. I feel the threat.
But then — something else. Soft. Determined.
“They’ll have to,” he says. Voice low, gravel-toned.
I let the words settle. They crack the air. But I don’t see anger. I see pain. Resolve.
I step closer. My boots scrape metal. The sound feels loud. Too loud.
“And what if they don’t want to?” I ask. “What if they see me — a human — as a weakness? As a blade against the clan’s honor? As a liability?”
He tilts his head — just slightly. I smell him: dark leather, cold metal, damp night-air outside. It’s so like danger I should shrink back. But I don’t.
He steps forward. Close enough I can feel the heat vibrating off his body. Closer than I thought I’d ever let a Reaper stand.
“Then they’ll see what they always needed to see,” he growls. “Strength isn’t only muscle, Freya. Strength is protection. Loyalty. Sacrifice.”
The word sacrifice rolls off his tongue like blood on steel. I taste it bitter, but not unwelcome.
I step in so close I can count the ridges of bonespur beneath his collarbone — harsh, jagged, alien. I know what those spurs have done. What those claws have torn. What those eyes have watched burn. I know what this man is.
But still — I meet him eye to eye. My own heart pounding, blood burning under my skin.
“We can’t just be about... us,” I whisper. “This isn’t just our foolish longing. There are people watching. Soldiers, officers, diplomats, clan rats ready to pounce on anything that smells like weakness. If you want to be a leader, then lead. Show them what we are isn’t weakness.”
The corridor hums. A distant alarm — shift change, maybe. The air tastes of metal, fear, insistence.
He closes his eyes briefly. I see the scar across his cheek flex. The bone-plate armor shifts tiny — like muscle preparing.
When he opens them again, his gaze is steady. He inclines his head — once. Slow. Intentional.
“You’re right,” he says. Voice low, fierce. “They’ll get nothing but strength — from me. From you. From what we build. Not just blood and spurs.”
He takes a step back, but I don’t. I stand under flickering lights, in the shallow hiss of ventilation, facing a warlord whose bones are built from death — and whose eyes are burning for something new.
I swallow hard. I taste fear again. Old fear. Human survival-fear. But there’s something else: a spark. A brittle flame trying to burn bright under night-ashes.
“What if I’m not ready?” I whisper. Not a question for him. A doubt. A warning.
He closes the distance again. His nearby presence folds the metal air cold warmth of danger and comfort.
“You will be,” he says simply. “Because I will carry you if you can’t walk. I will shield you if they try to break you. I will fight — with claw, with bone, with everything I am — to protect what matters.”
He reaches up, touches his own cheek — scarred, dented, jagged. “I’m not a pretty knight in some human dream. I’m Reaper. I’m scars and death-moons. But I swear to you: for you, I’ll be what they need. Or what they fear.”
My throat clenches. I blink back something — anger? Sadness? A memory of losing everything, fighting, hiding. A memory of orphanage nights, empty beds, silent halls. I fight to keep the salt in.
“You think that’s enough?” I challenge, voice small but steady. “Your threats, your armor, your spurs… Do you think that’s enough to change minds? To make them see I belong?”
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t shift. Just smiles — a savage, beautiful thing. His red eyes soften a fraction.
“It’s a start,” he says. “Because I don’t promise them you — I promise them me. And when they see what I guard, they’ll learn what it means to honor you.”
I stare at him. I smell his leather, the cold metal at his belt, the faint scent of earth and rain clinging to him from the fields outside. My chest burns.
“Promise doesn’t win wars,” I mutter.
“No,” he rumbles, “but it builds them.”
The silence after that feels heavy. Solid. Real.
I turn away first — not because I’m afraid. Because there’s too much shadow between us still. But as I walk, I feel his eyes on me. I feel the weight of what I asked for — protection, respect, acceptance. I feel the weight of what I gave — challenge, demand, truth.
My boots echo in the corridor. Lights blink overhead. The smell of metal and recycled air washes over me. My heart hammers slow, cautious, alive.
I leave him there — helmet off, cloak draped over his shoulders, as dark as midnight, bones carved by war — but for once, I don’t see the warlord. I see the man trying to be something else.
Across this cold, metal ship. Under harsh lights and harsher politics.
I wonder if I’m ready for what that means.
Because this isn’t about us anymore. It’s about something bigger. His clan. My past. Every compromise, every danger, every whisper waiting to ignite.
I brush my fingers across the seam of the cloak pinned under my arm. The fabric’s rough, real — mine. The smell of smoke and moss still lingers faint, like a memory I can’t scrub out.
I whisper to the corridor walls — to the hum of machines, to the chill of recycled air:
I’m not perfect. I’m afraid. I’m human.
But I’m standing.
And I’m not invisible anymore.