28. Isolde
ISOLDE
T he halls are too quiet.
Not safe-quiet. Not still.
The kind of quiet that comes after screaming—after chaos tears through everything, and all that’s left is breath and blood and the tick of your own heartbeat ringing in your ears.
I push past the final door. Reflector doesn’t even warn me this time. He knows better.
There, on the bridge floor, curled under the folds of a black-and-crimson cloak too big for his tiny shoulders, is my son.
Pyramus.
He sees me and the fabric falls away like petals in slow motion. He doesn’t run—he leaps. Like he’s spent the last hour holding himself together by nothing but hope and the thought of my arms.
I catch him before he can fall.
He buries his face against my neck, his fists curled into my collar. “He saved me, Mama,” he whispers, voice broken and fierce. “He fought the bad man. He said I was important.”
I kiss his hair. I kiss every warm, solid inch of him I can reach. My legs give out beneath us both, and we land together on the floor, wrapped in his shaking limbs and my shaking breath.
“You are,” I murmur. “You are the most important thing in this galaxy.”
I hold him tight enough to hurt. I can’t let go.
Not yet.
Not again.
Across the deck, I feel his presence before I see him.
Garokk kneels in the shadows just beyond the main console, one hand braced against the metal like it’s the only thing holding him upright.
He’s bloodied—arm gouged, shoulder torn, knuckles split wide open.
His chest rises and falls like he’s been drowning and only just now remembered how to breathe.
But it’s his eyes that catch me.
Not wide. Not pleading.
Just… open.
Raw.
Waiting.
I rise—slow, careful, still holding Pyramus to my chest. My boots echo on the grated floor.
He doesn’t speak.
Neither do I.
Not at first.
He looks down. Not at me. At the boy. At the soft curls pressed to my shoulder, at the small hand curled in the fabric of my coat.
He knew. He knows. He’s always known.
But I haven’t said it.
Not out loud.
Not until now.
“He’s yours.”
The words aren’t loud. They don’t need to be.
And they’re not a confession.
They’re a release.
A truth that’s lived in my body since the day I realized I was carrying him. Since the day I thought I’d lost both of them.
It hangs in the air like smoke and starlight.
Garokk flinches.
Just once.
Then he nods. Slow. A breath hitching in his chest.
“I figured,” he rasps. “When he looked at me… I figured.”
I kneel beside him, still holding our son.
Pyramus stirs, lifts his head. Looks at Garokk. Then at me.
“Is he staying?” he asks.
His voice is soft.
Hopeful.
My throat tightens.
I look at Garokk.
At the war still written on his skin. At the grief and guilt and fury barely stitched together behind his eyes.
And I see something else too.
Something I remember.
Love.
Garokk reaches out.
Not to me.
To the boy.
And Pyramus doesn’t hesitate. Not for a second.
He slides into Garokk’s lap like he was born for it. Like every molecule in his little body has been waiting for this. His hands find Garokk’s face. His head rests against his chest.
And Garokk?—
Garokk breaks.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
But real.
Tears fall. Unashamed. Unhidden.
He wraps both arms around his son like he’s afraid the boy will vanish if he blinks.
I don’t speak.
I don’t move.
Because for the first time in years, I feel something I forgot I had the right to feel.
Whole.
They cuff the last of them right in front of me.
Vrek’s scum—those who didn’t die in the fight or crawl away like cowards—are dragged from the docking bay in chains. Blood on their collars. Smoke still clinging to their clothes. Some scream innocence. Others curse us like it’s a spell that might save them.
It won’t.
I watch, silent, arms folded, Reflector hovering just behind me like a loyal ghost. Pyramus stands at my side, holding my hand with a grip stronger than it should be. Garokk is three paces behind us, like some damned shadow—wounded, quiet, burning.
And the entire station is watching.
The holonet lenses are already floating in place like vultures. Feeds streaming live. Subtitles scrolling beneath my face. The headlines are brutal.
CRIMSON RAIDER RETURNS – BLOOD IN THE SKY.
ISOLDE OF THE NINE: HOSTAGE OR ACCOMPLICE?
PIRATE KING’S LOVE CHILD?
I hate them all.
But I don’t blink.
“Madam Director,” a council officer says beside me. “The Council will offer parole. Supervised, restricted. One year.”
“No.”
The word drops like stone.
He frowns. “I—excuse me?”
“Parole is for criminals. He’s not a criminal anymore.”
Garokk’s eyes flick toward me. He doesn’t speak. But I feel the shift in the air. A held breath. A possibility cracking open.
“I’m not asking,” I say.
I turn to the cameras.
And I speak.
Not to the council. Not to the station.
To the galaxy.
“My name is Isolde Verrix, Director of Outreach for Orbimall One. I am a diplomat. A mother. And I stand here today beside the man who risked everything to save innocent lives—who took back his own ship from a traitor’s hands and bled to protect what mattered.”
My voice holds.
Clear. Sure. Sharp.
“He is not perfect. Neither am I. But he is not your villain.”
I see the feed delay—my own image reflecting back through the glass wall behind me. I see Garokk, still as stone. I see Pyramus, blinking wide-eyed at his mother like she just split the sky open.
“Garokk was a pirate,” I continue. “But so were half the founders of your corporations. He was branded, hunted, and abandoned. And yet here he stands—not as a prisoner, but as a man who did the right thing. And now?”
I lift my chin.
“I am demanding amnesty.”
Gasps ripple through the chamber. The council chair goes pale. One of the security officers swears under his breath. I don’t care.
“I’ve reviewed the statutes,” I say. “There is precedent. Crisis redemption clause. Section 14.3. You want your station back. You want the feeds to calm down. You want to look like you still have control? Then grant him clemency. Seal the record.”
They stammer. They argue.
I don’t listen.
Because I have one thing they don’t.
Leverage.
And a lot of money.
Orbimall One’s redevelopment fund was boosted by a silent investor years ago.
That investor was me.
I know where every credit sits.
And I’m ready to move them.
The council finally agrees—to consider. To review. To submit a vote.
But I already know.
It’s done.
After the cameras retreat and the crowds are cleared, Garokk leans against the far wall outside the chamber, arms folded. His wounds are bandaged, but the war still lives in his eyes.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he says.
“Yes,” I reply, stepping beside him. “I did.”
He doesn’t say thank you.
And I don’t ask for it.
Instead, I reach down and take his hand.
Warm.
Calloused.
And, for the first time, not running.