He glances briefly toward the officers, then back to me, and I see something in his eyes that feels like recognition of the trap we’re both in.
“Fine,” he says quietly. “Then talk to me like you’d talk to the record.”
I laugh once, short and bitter. “The record doesn’t get nauseous.”
The moment the words leave my mouth, I regret them, because they’re a crack, and cracks let people see inside.
Rhyx’s gaze sharpens. “Nauseous.”
I press my lips together and feel heat climb into my face. “Forget it.”
“No,” he says, voice firmer. “You’ve been pale for days. You almost swayed in chamber. You went to medical.”
My stomach drops. I hadn’t told him. I hadn’t told anyone.
“How—” I start.
“I watch,” he replies simply. “I pay attention.”
The officers at the door shift slightly, as if sensing the conversation turning personal, but they don’t interrupt.
I inhale slowly, tasting chilled air and the faint ozone scent from Rhyx’s binders.
“Okay,” I say, and my voice is careful now, too careful. “You want the record? Here’s the record.”
I step closer to the projection table and tap the console to lock the overlays, freezing the corridor segment in place as if I’m pinning a butterfly for examination. Then I turn to face him fully, shoulders squared, hands flat on the console edge so he can see they’re steady even if I’m not.
“I’m pregnant,” I say.
The words land like a detonation in a room that was already full of explosives.
Rhyx doesn’t move at first. His eyes widen slightly, then narrow again, as if his mind is rapidly recalibrating to accommodate a new variable that doesn’t fit any known model. The binders hum softly as his hands flex.
The officers at the door go rigid.
“What?” one of them blurts, then catches himself and returns to silence, embarrassed by his own humanity.
Rhyx’s voice is low. “How far along.”
“Early,” I answer, because specifics feel like giving someone a weapon. “Five or six weeks. That’s what medical said. I signed confidentiality. I declined contact notifications.”
His gaze stays on my face, intense enough that I feel exposed down to bone. “You told no one.”
“I’m telling you,” I say, and the admission tastes strange, like copper.
Rhyx inhales slowly, and when he exhales, his voice is rougher. “Why.”
“Because,” I say, and I force myself to keep my tone steady, to keep the sentences long enough to hold my trembling inside them, “Admiral Vol privately offered me institutional protection in exchange for silence.”
The air changes. Even the hum of the storage columns seems to sharpen.
Rhyx goes still again, and when he speaks his voice is quiet in the way danger is quiet.
“He approached you.”
“Not personally,” I say. “Not like he’d dirty his hands. A courier. An invitation phrased like an honor. ‘Strategic reconciliation.’ ‘Safeguarding tribunal integrity.’ All that pretty language that meanswe will keep you safe if you stop digging.”
Rhyx’s eyes burn pale gold in the dim light. “And you refused.”
