Chapter 26 Sable
SABLE
The courtroom smells like ozone, old money, and recycled air that’s been filtered too many times to remember where it came from.
I notice stupid things when I’m nervous.
The faint hum of the shield generators embedded in the walls. The way the floor reflects light just a little too cleanly, like someone polished it to intimidate people into behaving. The soft clink of restraints when Otto shifts in his seat, annoyed that the universe didn’t bend to him for once.
I don’t see him directly at first.
I’m standing behind a multi-shielded screen—layered hardlight and refractive privacy fields that blur me into a silhouette. The Alliance calls it witness protection during testimony. I call it a very expensive fish tank. I can see out. They can’t see in. Not clearly.
I breathe through my nose.
Slow.
In.
Out.
“You ready?” the court officer asks quietly, voice pitched low enough that only I can hear it.
“No,” I say. “But I’m here.”
She nods like that’s the right answer. “That’ll do.”
The judge enters.
Everyone stands. The room shifts. Weight redistributes. Power settles into place like gravity finding its center.
I sit when instructed, hands folded in my lap. They’re steady. That surprises me.
Across the room, the defense bench is packed with Otto’s people—expensive suits, expensive cybernetics, expensive expressions of outrage that they’re being made to endure this indignity. Saul isn’t with them.
Saul pled out.
That news broke two days ago, and I laughed so hard I scared Jacey.
“Are you okay?” she’d asked.
“No,” I’d said, wiping my eyes. “But Saul absolutely is not.”
He took the deal. Gave up names. Routes. Numbers. He’ll spend the rest of his life in a nice, quiet hole where the worst thing that can happen to him is boredom.
Otto didn’t look surprised.
He looks surprised now.
The disbelief on his face is almost impressive—like he genuinely cannot comprehend a reality where he’s sitting on the wrong side of the room. His pinstripe suit is immaculate, tailored within an inch of its life. His expression is not.
When his eyes lock onto the shield in front of me, his mouth curls.
Even blurred, even distorted, I can feel it.
The judge clears their throat. “Call your first witness.”
The prosecutor stands. Vakutan woman, silver-scaled, eyes sharp as glass. “The Alliance calls Sable Jackson.”
That’s me.
My name echoes through the chamber like a challenge.
I straighten my spine.
“Ms. Jackson,” the judge says, voice neutral, measured. “You are testifying under oath. Any falsehoods will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of Alliance law. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I say. My voice doesn’t shake. I’m proud of that. “I do.”
“Proceed.”
The prosecutor turns toward the shield. “Ms. Jackson, please state for the court where you were on the night of—”
I answer.
I keep answering.
I talk about Glindora. About the boutique. About the alley. About the sound a micro fusion block makes when it ends someone’s life. I don’t embellish. I don’t dramatize. I don’t soften it either.
I describe the smell.
That’s what gets people.
The way the room stills when I say it smelled like burned copper and finality. Like something that should never be undone, already gone.
Otto shifts.
Good.
The prosecutor walks me through the timeline, methodically, letting the facts stack up like bricks.
The screen in front of me flickers with evidence—transaction logs, comm transcripts, surveillance stills.
Saul’s plea agreement. Financial trails that wind back to Otto’s shell corporations like a noose.
Then the defense gets their turn.
Otto stands.
He doesn’t approach the shield. He doesn’t need to. He smiles like this is all a misunderstanding and he’s about to clear it up.
“Ms. Jackson,” he says smoothly. “You run a salon, correct?”
“Yes.”
“A hair stylist.”
“Yes.”
“Not law enforcement.”
“No.”
“Not military.”
“No.”
“So you expect this court to believe that you—a civilian—correctly identified a micro fusion block from a brief glimpse in a dark alley?”
I don’t answer right away.
I tilt my head slightly. “Do you expect this court to believe,” I ask calmly, “that people who grow up in cities don’t know what weapons sound like when they’re used near them?”
A murmur ripples through the gallery.
Otto’s smile tightens. “You’re evading the question.”
“No,” I say. “I’m contextualizing it.”
The judge raises a hand. “Answer the question directly.”
“Yes,” I say. “I identified it correctly. Alliance forensic teams confirmed residue consistent with a micro fusion block at the scene.”
Otto’s jaw flexes. “You were scared.”
“Yes.”
“You were running.”
“Yes.”
“So your perception could have been flawed.”
“No,” I say, and this time I let steel into my voice. “Fear sharpens some people. I am one of them.”
The judge makes a note.
Otto leans forward slightly, eyes narrowing. “Isn’t it true, Ms. Jackson, that you benefited from this situation? Fame. Attention. Protection from a… very large military escort.”
There it is.
I smile faintly.
“Isn’t it true,” I reply, “that I lost my privacy, my safety, my sense of normalcy, and almost my life?”
The prosecutor doesn’t interrupt.
Good.
Otto scoffs. “You’re exaggerating.”
I lean forward, hands still folded, posture relaxed. “You sent a shapeshifting assassin into my home disguised as a cat.”
The courtroom erupts.
The judge slams the gavel. “Order!”
Otto’s face goes purple.
“I survived,” I continue evenly, “because your assassin paused to talk about fashion.”
Laughter ripples through the gallery despite the judge’s glare.
Otto opens his mouth.
“Ms. Jackson,” the judge says, “focus on answering the questions.”
“I am,” I say. “He asked if I benefited. I’m clarifying the cost.”
The defense attorney jumps in, flustered. “No further questions at this time.”
Good choice.
The prosecutor calls the next witness.
Tugun.
He takes the stand like he’s stepping onto a runway.
I don’t know how he does it, but the blazer he’s wearing is… aggressive. Not in color—clean lines, deep sapphire—but in presence. The fabric catches the light in a way that makes the judge physically flinch when he moves.
I bite the inside of my cheek.
“State your name,” the judge says carefully.
“Tugun,” he replies. “Designer.”
A pause.
“…Formerly,” he adds.
The prosecutor clears her throat. “Mr. Tugun, do you acknowledge that you were contracted by the Nine to assassinate Ms. Jackson?”
“Yes.”
Gasps. Whispers. Otto stares at him like he’s been personally betrayed.
“And did you attempt to carry out that contract?”
“Yes.”
“And did you fail?”
Tugun considers this. “I would say I… pivoted.”
Laughter again.
The judge sighs. “Mr. Tugun, this is a court of law.”
“And fashion,” Tugun says solemnly, “is not a crime.”
The gallery loses it.
Otto slams a hand on the bench. “This is a farce!”
The judge bangs the gavel again. “One more outburst and you will be removed.”
Tugun finishes his testimony calmly. He admits everything. He corroborates timelines. He hands over design schematics and encrypted data caches like party favors.
When he steps down, he catches the edge of the shield and gives me the smallest nod.
I return it.
Then it’s my turn again.
Final statement.
I stand.
The shield hums softly around me, but I don’t feel hidden.
I feel anchored.
Because I know—absolutely know—that just outside this room, Voltar is waiting. Arms crossed. Jaw tight. Listening for my voice like it’s a signal flare.
I look straight ahead.
“Big Otto built his empire on the assumption that people like me would look away,” I say. “That we’d decide it wasn’t our problem. That survival meant silence.”
Otto glares.
I don’t flinch.
“I looked,” I continue. “I saw. And I refused to disappear.”
My voice carries. Clear. Unwavering.
“You tried to scare me. Intimidate me. Erase me. And I’m still here.”
The room is silent now.
“I am not special,” I finish. “I am not brave in some mythic way. I am simply unwilling to let people like you decide who gets to live without consequence.”
I lower my hands.
“That’s my testimony.”
The judge nods slowly.
Otto slumps back in his seat.
And for the first time since Glindora, I feel something inside me settle into place.
When the session adjourns, the shield dissolves.
The courtroom blurs.
I step out—and there he is.
Right where I knew he’d be.
Waiting.
The courthouse steps are warmer than I expect.
Sun-heated stone, faintly gritty under my palms when I sit, like the building itself has absorbed decades of tension and decided to radiate it back out into the world.
The air smells like ozone from the shield generators and something sweeter drifting in from a street vendor down the block—fried dough, maybe, or spiced oil. Normal city smells. Life smells.
Recess.
That word feels surreal after everything inside that room.
I step out into the light and for half a second my knees threaten to give out. Not because I’m scared anymore—because I’ve been holding myself upright on pure will for hours and my body finally noticed.
“Easy,” a familiar voice murmurs.
Voltar’s there instantly, one hand hovering near my elbow, not touching unless I need it. He learned that about me fast. I hate being steadied unless I choose it.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically.
He arches a brow ridge. “You say that a lot.”
“I mean it this time.”
He studies me anyway, golden eyes sharp but warm, then nods and sits beside me on the steps like this is the most natural place in the world for a walking war crime to park himself.
Up close, he smells like clean metal and sun-warmed air, armor scrubbed down but never fully rid of the battlefield. There’s a faint tang of energy discharge clinging to him, like static after a storm. It’s grounding. Familiar.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and stare out at the plaza.
People mill around below—reporters pretending not to stare, Alliance officers pretending they don’t see the reporters, civilians pretending this is just another day. The city keeps moving because that’s what cities do. They don’t stop to process your trauma.
“Hey,” Voltar says softly.
I glance at him.
“You were incredible,” he murmurs.
I snort. “I didn’t punch anyone or flip a table. I feel like I underperformed.”
“That’s restraint,” he says. “Terrifying restraint.”
I smile despite myself.
He leans closer, voice dropping. “You’d make a terrifying soldier.”
I tilt my head. “You say that like it’s a compliment.”
“It is,” he says easily. “You held your ground without armor. Without weapons. You didn’t flinch.”
I think of Otto’s glare. The way his disbelief curdled into rage when he realized intimidation didn’t work anymore.
“I flinched,” I say quietly. “Just not where he could see it.”
Voltar’s mouth curves into something softer than a grin. “That counts.”
I watch a pair of Alliance officers escort Saul across the far side of the plaza—head down, wrists bound, bravado long gone. He looks smaller without his uncle’s shadow to hide in.
“Did you see his face?” I ask.
“Saul’s?”
“Otto’s,” I correct. “When Tugun took the stand.”
Voltar lets out a low chuckle. “I thought Otto was going to rupture something.”
“Worth it,” I say. “Completely worth it.”
Silence settles between us, but it’s an easy one. The kind that doesn’t demand filling.
My hand drifts to my stomach without thinking.
Voltar notices immediately.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “Just… checking in.”
“With the tiny terror?” he asks solemnly.
I laugh. “Don’t call it that.”
“Too late. I’m already emotionally attached.”
I glance at him. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I contain multitudes.”
I shift slightly on the stone, feeling the ache in my lower back, the faint throb behind my eyes that says I pushed myself too hard and I’m going to pay for it later.
Voltar watches me like he’s cataloging every micro-expression.
“You did good in there,” he says again, quieter this time. “I know you don’t need to hear it. But I’m saying it anyway.”
I swallow. “I needed to do it. If I didn’t… if I let him make me smaller…”
He nods. “He doesn’t get to decide who you are.”
“No,” I agree. “I do.”
A breeze cuts across the steps, tugging at my hair. Voltar shifts closer without comment, his arm coming around my shoulders—heavy, solid, protective without being possessive. I lean into him, just a little.
“Hey,” I say.
“Mm?”
“You ever think about what happens after all this?”
“All the time,” he says. “I just don’t tell anyone because they start assigning me feelings.”
I smile faintly. “What do you think about?”
He considers. “Quiet mornings. Fewer explosions. You yelling at me because I tracked soot into the apartment again.”
“That is absolutely going to happen,” I say.
“I know,” he replies fondly.
I hesitate, then say, “You’d make a halfway decent husband.”
The words hang there.
I feel them land between us like a coin dropped into deep water—no splash, just weight.
Voltar goes very still.
I don’t look at him right away. I keep my gaze on the plaza, on the people moving below us, on the way the light glints off the courthouse windows.
When he finally speaks, his voice is careful. “You asking?”
I turn my head then.
Really look at him.
He’s not joking. Not deflecting. He’s serious in a way that makes my chest tighten.
“Not yet,” I say softly.
Something flickers behind his eyes—disappointment, maybe—but it doesn’t harden into anything ugly.
“But maybe someday,” I add.
That flicker changes.
Hope, raw and unarmored.
He exhales slowly, then nods once. “I can live with that.”
I smile faintly. “Good.”
He pulls me a little closer, his arm firm around my shoulders. The world narrows to the warmth of his body, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the knowledge that for this moment at least, we’re not being pulled in opposite directions.
“We’re not there yet,” I say quietly.
“No,” he agrees. “But we’re on the road.”
I rest my head against his shoulder.
The courthouse looms behind us, heavy with judgment and consequence. The city stretches out ahead, messy and alive and full of unknowns.
For the first time in a long time, that doesn’t terrify me.
It feels like a beginning.