"I was there when you gave him up, Athea. I’ve earned more than gratitude."
Athea stood, moving to the window. The capital city spread out below. "Calyra, I thought you of all people understood this the most."
"Trust . I understand that this is risky."
"Really? Then you should know that generosity is a luxury I can’t afford right now," she said, her back to Calyra. "Every person who ets him is a thread that connects back to us. Viora was a calculated risk. She needed to see him because she was already suspicious, and a suspicious Viora is a dangerous Viora. Letting her in was damage control."
"And letting in is what? A treat?"
"A liability."
Calyra went quiet. Not the performative silence from before, but sothing closer to genuine. When she spoke again, the teasing edge had softened.
"You know," she said, "when you first told about him, do you rember what I said?"
Athea didn’t answer. She rembered.
"I said he was the most interesting thing to happen to this family in a century," Calyra continued. "And I ant it. But that’s not why I want to et him."
She paused, and sothing honest flickered across her face, brief and unguarded, the kind of expression she usually kept locked away behind layers of silk and sarcasm.
"I want to et him because he’s my nephew, Athea. My only nephew. The only boy in this family. And he doesn’t even know I exist."
Athea’s shoulders tightened, just a fraction, but enough.
"He knows you exist," Athea said. "Ysine has ntioned you."
"Oh, how thrilling. I’ve been ntioned." Calyra’s voice was dry. "I’m sure that made a lasting impression. ’Your mother has a sister. She wears nice clothes. Moving on.’"
Athea turned from the window and studied her sister for a mont before speaking.
"If you go to Sector 7, people will notice."
"I will blend in."
Athea scoffed. "You don’t blend in, Calyra. You have never blended in anywhere in your life. You walk into a room and every person in it knows a Lumina has arrived. Andrea and Erythea are already suspicious. If you suddenly take an interest in visiting a remote sector with no obvious political reason, they will ask questions."
"I’ll make up a reason."
"You’ll make up a bad reason, and then you’ll get bored of maintaining it, and then you’ll do sothing impulsive because you always do."
Calyra let out a short, offended laugh. "Excuse , I’m older than you. And I am not impulsive."
Athea just looked at her.
"I’m... occasionally spontaneous," Calyra anded.
"You once rearranged a state dinner’s seating chart because you didn’t want to sit next to the ambassador from the Southern Provinces. It nearly caused a diplomatic incident."
"She was making advances on , Athea. I had to act."
"You see my point."
Calyra sighed, a sound that was half frustration and half amusent. She stood from the chaise and crossed the room, stopping beside her sister at the window. They stood there for a mont, side by side, looking out at the city neither of them had chosen but both of them carried.
"I’m not going to do anything reckless," Calyra said quietly. "I just want to see him. Even from a distance. Even if he never knows who I am."
Athea closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were fixed on so point in the distance, past the spires, past the lights, sowhere far away.
"Not yet," she said.
"When?"
"When the situation is more stable. When Sage has settled into the Aegis Division and there’s a reason for him to visit the Citadel that doesn’t raise flags. That’s your window."
"And if that window doesn’t open?"
"Then I’ll make one. But on my terms, not yours."
Calyra studied her sister’s face for a long ti. Searching for the lie, the deflection, the strategic misdirection she’d grown up learning to read.
She didn’t find it.
"Fine," she said. And then, because she was Calyra and she couldn’t leave a serious mont alone for more than thirty seconds: "But when I do et him, I’m telling him every embarrassing story from your childhood. Every single one."
"You wouldn’t."
"The ti you cried because a garden spider landed on your textbook."
"I was six."
"The ti you tried to impress Mother by reciting the entire Matriarch’s Code from mory and forgot the third article halfway through."
"I had a fever."
"The ti you told General Rostova her new haircut made her look like a hedge."
Athea’s composure cracked. Just barely. A twitch at the corner of her mouth that she suppressed imdiately, but not before Calyra saw it.
"I was stating a fact," Athea said.
Calyra grinned. Wide and real and unbothered by anything in the world. "Oh, he’s going to love ."
"He’s going to be terrified of you."
"Sa thing, coming from a Lumina."
Athea shook her head, turning back to her desk. But she didn’t pick up the data-slate. She just sat there for a mont, her fingers resting on its surface, her eyes distant.
Calyra moved toward the door, her silk gown whispering against the floor. She paused at the threshold, glancing back.
"For what it’s worth," she said, "you’re terrible at being a mother from a distance, Athea. But you’re very good at keeping him alive."
She left before Athea could answer.
The door closed. The star-charts rotated. The silence ca back, but it felt different now. Lighter, sohow. Like sothing small had shifted in the weight she carried.
Athea pulled up her comm and stared at the screen for a long mont.
Then she opened her ssages with Ysine and typed a ssage.
______
Before today, Zaeryn would have never guessed that Ravena and Ingrid would get along. They were too different. But he was wrong.
One minute he was part of the conversation, and the next he was watching it happen from the outside like a spectator at a match he hadn’t been invited to.
It started when Ravena ntioned a case study from her coursework, sothing about a jurisdictional dispute between two sectors over mineral rights.
Ingrid, who Zaeryn would never in a thousand years have pegged as soone interested in legal theory, asked a follow-up question. Then another. Then Ravena uncrossed her legs and leaned forward on the bench, which was her version of getting excited, and started explaining the precedent structure of the Matriarch Tribunal with the kind of focus she usually reserved for cross-examining him.
Ingrid listened. Actually listened, not the polite nodding kind, but the kind where her eyes sharpened and she interrupted to push back on a point, which made Ravena’s eyes sharpen in return, and suddenly the two of them were locked in a conversation that moved so fast Zaeryn couldn’t find a gap to slide into even if he’d wanted to.
He caught fragnts. Sothing about deploynt jurisdiction. Whether Warladies should fall under military tribunals or civilian courts when off-duty. Ingrid had opinions. Ravena had counterargunts. Ingrid had examples from her mother’s service record. Ravena had case law that apparently contradicted those examples.
Zaeryn looked between them, waiting for a pause that never ca.
"So I’m just going to..." he started.
Neither of them heard him.
He stood up, brushed the grass off his pants, and walked back toward the house. Behind him, Ingrid said sothing about sentencing guidelines that made Ravena lean forward on the bench, and that was it. He was gone. He could have been on fire and they wouldn’t have noticed.
"Well, at least now I can play video gas," Zaeryn muttered to himself as he crossed the garden.
The house was cool and quiet after the damp warmth outside. He ca in through the side door and headed for the kitchen. He was halfway to the cabinet when he noticed Kayla sitting at the dining table.
She was reading sothing on her data-slate, her posture straight and rigid even at rest, because Kayla didn’t know how to sit any other way. A cup of sothing dark sat untouched beside her. She didn’t look up when he walked in, but he knew she’d clocked him the second he crossed the threshold. Kayla always knew where everyone was in this house. It was either a Warlady instinct or a control thing. Probably both.
Zaeryn opened the cabinet, grabbed a glass, and filled it with water. He drank half of it standing at the counter, very aware of the silence between them. It wasn’t hostile exactly, but it was never comfortable either. Conversations with Kayla were rare, and when they did happen they always felt like stepping onto a frozen lake and waiting to see if the ice held.
He was about to walk back outside when she spoke.
"Your wrist comm has been going off."
Zaeryn paused. He looked down at his wrist and realized it was bare. He’d left the comm in his room after showering.
But it wasn’t in his room anymore. It was sitting on the table next to Kayla, the display blinking with a missed call notification.
He frowned. "And how did it get here?"
He already knew the answer. She had brought it. Which ant she’d been in his room. Which raised a question. What was Kayla doing near his room in the first place?
Kayla didn’t answer imdiately. She scrolled to the next page on her data-slate, taking her ti, as if the question was barely worth acknowledging.
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