Chapter 32
ROWAN
Iwake slowly this time, not from pain or panic, but because warm light keeps slipping across my face through enormous windows somewhere nearby.
For a moment, I just stare upward, struggling to remember where I am.
The ceiling rises far above me beneath soft recessed lighting, dark stone stretching into shadows while pale morning sunlight spills across polished floors and furniture I don’t recognize.
Somewhere farther across the room, water moves behind glass.
Everything feels unfamiliar, too quiet and too clean after the tunnels. For one horrible second, I wonder whether any of it was real.
Then my ribs throb, dragging a gasp out of me.
“Easy.”
I turn my head to find Ciaran sitting beside the bed, his eyes already on me.
He’s wearing black sweats and a dark shirt with the sleeves shoved halfway up his forearms, one ankle hooked lazily over the opposite knee.
A multi-slate glows at his wrist. His black hair has gone wild at some point, and shadows linger beneath his eyes that weren’t there before, as though he was watching for the exact moment I woke up.
Something shifts in his expression when I look back at him, gone again beneath that usual control. It looks dangerously close to relief.
“You scared the shit out of people, you know that?” he mutters. “Almost two days unconscious and then another twenty hours asleep.”
I try to answer, but my throat feels like sandpaper. The first attempt produces little more than a rasp.
Before I can even try sitting up, Ciaran is already moving.
“Wait.” He reaches for the glass on the nightstand, one hand sliding behind my shoulders when I wince. “Slowly.”
“I can—”
“No, you can’t,” he cuts in before pushing the straw toward my mouth. “Drink.”
The water hurts going down, and by the time he finally takes the glass back, I’ve only managed a few careful mouthfuls.
He studies my face. “Better?”
I clear my throat cautiously. “A little.”
“Good.”
Ciaran adjusts the pillow behind me. He looks quietly pleased when I sink back against it. Only when he’s apparently satisfied does he settle back into the chair.
Neither of us speaks.
“Mouse?”
“Mm?”
“Do you remember being on a shuttle?”
I frown, trying to summon the memory. I vaguely recall bright lights flickering through my head, a medic hovering over me, and distant voices I can’t quite make out. And warm arms wrapped around me, anchoring me so I didn’t drift away.
“I think so.”
“You think?”
My brow furrows. “I remember... I remember somebody carrying me.”
Something crosses his eyes again, gone too quickly for me to identify. “Anything else?”
I hesitate. “Not much.”
He nods, his gaze lingering on me like the answer matters more than it should. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Something in his face tells me it does.
I stare down at the blankets, unwilling to summon those moments. “The concert.”
His jaw tightens. “Then?”
“I remember Sola.” My throat feels tight all over again. “She was really there, right? I didn’t dream that?”
Something moves behind his eyes. “No, mouse. You didn’t dream it.”
A shaky breath leaves me. “She came for me.”
“Yeah.”
I just sit there, trying to process that. Then everything starts colliding together again.
“The man outside my dorm.” I stare down at my hands. “The one at the party. The streets back in Düren. I knew his face. I just didn’t understand why. I thought I was imagining it. I thought I was losing my mind.”
“Mouse—”
“And then there was the woman.” The words tumble out, one memory tripping over the next.
“She knew about your mother. About the music sheet. About Sola. She kept talking like she already knew everything. She gave me that sheet, Ciaran. When I was twelve. She gave it to me. She said she wanted to h-hurt your mother.”
His expression hardens, his voice going quiet. “And then?”
I close my eyes. Light, my throat burns. “I ran. I couldn’t breathe.”
His face tightens, and when I finally read it, the guilt sitting there feels worse than anger ever could. “Mouse—”
“I know.” I swallow. “It was stupid.”
“No. You had a panic attack.” His thumb moves across my knuckles, like he’s making sure I’m still here.
Silence lingers between us as I look down at his hand resting over mine, as if he can fade the bruising with his touch, even though the memory remains painfully sharp. “She was waiting for me.”
“Yeah. Fuck, mouse. That’s the part I fucking hate.” His voice breaks, and he wraps his long fingers over mine. They are warm, and they make me feel safe. “We should’ve seen it. The Orlovs never accepted the ban. Never accepted what happened. Dad warned everyone they were still angry.”
Cold slides through me. The realization isn’t new anymore, but somehow that doesn’t make it hurt less.
A shadow at the end of a street. Footsteps behind me on the walk home.
Waking up terrified because somebody had been standing outside the apartment again.
For a moment, the memories blur together, and I can almost see him—a skinny little boy standing alone beneath the Düren streetlights, looking over his shoulder every few steps because he couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody was there.
Somebody always was. The truth knocks the breath from my lungs. For years, I thought the fear came first. That the nightmares created the panic. That my heart was simply broken. Now all I can think about is that frightened kid trying so hard to convince himself everything was fine.
Light, I wish I could go back and tell him he wasn’t losing his mind. Tell him he wasn’t weak. Tell him he was right. That one day, he’d find answers. That one day, somebody would believe him. That one day, somebody would come for him.
For a while, neither of us says anything. Then Ciaran’s fingers tighten around mine. “Hey, where did you just go?”
I blink. “What?”
“You disappeared for a second.”
Heat creeps unexpectedly into my face. “Oh, I was thinking about... me.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “That’s usually how thinking works, mouse.”
Despite everything, a small laugh escapes me, and my gaze drops to our joined hands. “I mean when I was younger. That kid was so scared all the time.”
His expression softens. “I know.”
I swallow, staring down at our intertwined fingers. “I wish I could tell him he was going to be okay.”
His gaze gentles, his hand lifting to brush a strand of hair behind my ear before he lets it fall again. “You really are weird.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“Wasn’t a compliment, mouse.”
“Well, it sounded like one.”
His thumb brushes slowly across my knuckles, the familiar movement sending something warm through my chest despite everything. My fingers tighten around his before I can stop them.
“Yet you still came for me.”
His grip on my hand tightens. “Of course I did.”
For a second, I can’t speak. Not just because he came, but because Düren isn’t next door, because he crossed half the Reach and walked straight into the place I spent half my life trying to escape.
For me.
“Why?”
Ciaran just looks at me before shaking his head. “Fuck, you really don’t get it, do you?”
“Ciaran—”
“You think this is about your heart?”
Heat creeps into my face. “That’s not—”
“Bullshit.” The word lands so fast I blink.
“You disappeared. One minute you were there, and the next nobody could find you. I checked your feed. Called you. Then Adrian said he saw you being dragged onto a ship. I tore through those fucking trees looking for you. I flew across the Reach to find you. You think I would’ve done that because you’re medically inconvenient? ”
“Ciaran.”
“Mouse.” He leans forward and his fingers curl beneath my chin, forcing me to look at him.
“Your sister was there. Cassian. Lucan. Marius. Rafe. Dad. We found out where you were and everybody got on a shuttle.” Something like a smile crosses his face.
“Damaris tried too. Lucan practically had to sit on him to stop him from following us into those tunnels.” His thumb brushes my jaw.
“He wasn’t about to let his boyfriend walk into a firefight. ”
Despite everything, I huff out a laugh in relief. Lucan is more clever than I gave him credit for, apparently.
“He was waiting when we got back. Spent two days trying to get upstairs to see you. I think he threatened half the staff. But me?” His expression turns serious again.
“I would’ve been on that shuttle if you’d disappeared from the other side of the Reach, from another planet, from the middle of nowhere.
I would’ve gone anyway. Because you don’t disappear on me, mouse.
I would’ve crossed every fucking planet in existence. Do you understand?”
“No.” The word comes out broken, and the tears spill over, blurring my vision as I look away.
Embarrassment burns through me, but the more I fight it, the worse it gets. My chest tightens and my ribs protest with every shaky breath.
His thumb brushes beneath my eye, catching a tear. “And yet here you are.”
I just stare at him, at the stubborn certainty in his face. This man who crossed half the Reach to walk straight into the place I spent half my life trying to escape.
Something in my chest aches.
“Shut up,” I whisper, tilting my head back until Ciaran catches my mouth.
The kiss deepens fast, his hand tightening in my hair as his tongue brushes mine. Our tongues curl together while relief and exhaustion crash together somewhere between us, and I barely remember how to breathe.
A low rumble rises out of Ciaran as he catches my bottom lip between his teeth and kisses me again, slower this time, his fingers working through my hair and lingering there while his forehead rests against mine.
“I missed you so fucking much. I was so scared.” He looks up, dark eyes fierce.
“When I saw the shuttle leave...I thought you were gone. I couldn’t fucking believe we didn’t catch her before she took you. ”