Control.
“This is it,” I say quietly.
Stacy glances at me.
“The clan,” she says.
“Yes.”
“And you’re not going to meet them the way they expect,” she adds.
“No,” I reply.
She nods once.
“Good,” she says.
I look ahead, the path forward clear in a way it hasn’t been before.
“They think they know what I am,” I say.
“And do they?” she asks.
I let out a slow breath.
“No,” I reply.
And this time?—
Neither do I.
Not completely.
But I’m about to find out.
CHAPTER 34
STACY
The ship feels quieter than it should, not because anything has stopped, but because everything has settled into something deliberate, something controlled in a way that leaves space for thought where there used to be nothing but reaction. The hum beneath my feet is steady, consistent, almost grounding, and for the first time in longer than I want to admit, I’m not bracing for the next impact.
That should feel like relief.
It doesn’t.
It feels like a question.
I stand near the viewport, the stars stretched out in sharp clarity beyond the glass, distant and indifferent, and I watch them without really seeing them, my reflection faint against the surface, layered over something vast enough to make everything we’ve done feel small.
“You’ve been standing there a while,” Tyrok says behind me, his voice low, not intrusive, just… present.
I don’t turn immediately.
“I’m thinking,” I reply.
“That’s becoming a pattern,” he says, and I can hear the faint shift of movement as he steps closer, not enough to crowd me, just enough to enter the same space.
“It always was,” I say.
