She’s mid-laugh. Leaning against the bar. Her eyes are half-lidded and dangerous, and her lips are parted like she’s about to say something devastating.
It’s the only image I have of her.
And I stare at it until the room disappears.
“You don’t even know,” I murmur to no one. “You don’t evenknowwhat you did to me.”
If I were braver, I’d message her back. Say something. Anything.
But I don’t.
Because some wars you fight with weapons.
And some… you lose with silence.
CHAPTER 7
ALAINA
They say you forget the pain once the baby’s in your arms.
Bullshit.
Irememberevery second.
The contraction that made my hips feel like they were splitting apart. The burn of muscle stretched past reason. The endless press of time, of bodies, of light too bright and voices too sharp. The terror that I wouldn’t survive it. Thathewouldn’t survive it.
They had to sedate me at one point. I bit a nurse. Iroared.
And when he finally came out—slick, red, wailing—I didn’t cry.
Not right away.
Istared.
Because the first thing I saw weren’t the fists or the wet curls of hair or even the way his mouth was open like he already had things to say.
It was the eyes.
Golden. Bright as twin novas.
I broke.
Right there, sobbing into my palms while the nurse handed me this squirming, furious little creature who looked half like me and half like something from the stars.
“He’s perfect,” I whisper, voice hoarse, throat raw from hours of screaming.
And he is.
He’smine.
I name him Caelix. Half from a name I read in a pre-Alliance myth, half because itfeelslike his. Strong vowels. Sharp consonants. Vakutan cadence wrapped in human heart.
He grabs my finger and holds on like he owns me.
Hedoes, really.
My whole damn life recalibrates around him in the space of a breath.
