Side by side.
Objectively, it’s a tie. Discipline versus instinct. Control versus edge. Safety versus spark.
Yoris is everything the brass salivates over—clean flight logs, textbook formations, no disciplinary flags. He’s steady. Dependable. Predictable.
Kaz…
Kaz is wind and fire and wild starlight.
A pilot’s pilot.
But he’s also the one who nearly clipped a tower three nights ago.
And the one who left a manual on my doorstep like a confession he knew I’d never answer.
I sit. My hand hovers over the data pad, cursor blinking against the final field:Instructor Assessment: Supplemental Commentary.
Blank.
Again.
I’ve left it blank every time, letting the numbers speak for themselves. But this time, my fingers ache to type something—anything.
Because this time, I know what I want.
I want Kaz to win.
Gods help me, I want it more than I want my own heart to behave.
I close the field without typing a word.
Then I bring up his footage again.
He’s mid-dive, spinning tight, a corkscrew maneuver that should be impossible at that velocity. But he pulls it. Just enough. Right before the G-force redlines. His ship hums like it’s singing.
I pause the frame.
He’s upside down in the shot, jaw clenched, arms taut, eyes forward.
Fierce. Focused. Unreadable.
That’s the Kaz they all see.
The one who flies like he’s got something to prove.
Not the one who kissed my shoulder in the dark and whispered my name like a promise.
Not the one I left standing outside my door like some forgotten myth.
I lean back, eyes burning.
What if he doesn’t even want it anymore?
What if this whole time he was chasing something else—something that vanished the moment I stepped away?
Trozius doesn’t say hello when I walk into the conference room. Just motions toward the terminal, already lit with the candidate dossiers.
“Final vote’s in an hour,” he says. “I want to know where you stand.”
