I swallow hard. My throat hurts. My eyes burn.
I step forward. The greatest risk feels smaller than doing nothing.
“Jaela?” My voice is rough.
No answer.
I take another step. The ruin hums. The glyphs flare in sympathy. Panels shift. I can feel the device’s energy pulsing through the floor.
“How old is he?” I ask, voice low.
She freezes. The glow falls across her face—sharp contours, smudged grime, wild light in her eyes.
“A year and six months,” she says. Soft. Broken.
My breath catches. Ash falls behind me. The world tilts.
“A year and six months,” I repeat so I can hear it. Because he existed. Because she carried him. Because I might have missed half his life.
I feel her beside me in the hush. The hum of the obelisk is louder now, pressing, expectant.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demand, voice thick with betrayal, grief, and longing.
She looks down. Her fingers wrap around themselves. She flinches as if she expects pain. The walls shift. Glyphs glow. I taste iron.
“Because I was terrified,” she admits, voice brittle.
I step close. “Terrified of what?”
She meets my gaze, though her eyes are rimmed red. “Terrifiedyouwould hate me. That Kel would be better off unborn. That you’d refuse to help if I told you. That all of this—” she gestures around, at the ruin, at us “—would collapse if you knew the truth too soon.”
The air shivers. The obelisk hums like it understands.
“You lied to me,” I whisper, more to myself than to her.
She flinches. “I had to protect him. Protect you. I had to prove the sample was viable. I had to be sure before I risked trusting you with that burden.”
I close my eyes. My heart is hammering. My spirit teeters.
Memories flicker—when we met, when I lost her, when I believed she was gone forever. The nights I dreamed of her. The rage I let swallow me. The silence I wore like armor.
She places a trembling hand on my chest. “I did it all for Kel. Because I needed a chance. Because I needed you.”
My voice breaks. “You used me.”
She shakes her head. “No. I needed you. Even when I was afraid.”
The ruin pulses. The energy hums underfoot. I can feel it stirring, alive under our confession.
I reach forward slowly, touch her cheek. The skin is warm, gritty. She breathes. I taste dust, sweat, salt. All of it hers. All of it binding me.
“I should hate you,” I whisper. “But I can’t.”
Tears pool in her eyes. She lowers her head. She presses into me. The confession floods us both.
She sobs, quiet at first, then deeper. I wrap my arms around her. The world contracts to our shared breath, our shared light, the hum of the obelisk.
She whispers against my chest, voice muffled, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
