“No,” I say. “We concluded something that had been entered into with clear terms. There was grief, yes—but not loss. It was simply over..”
She worries her lower lip. I can almost see the next spiral lining itself up.
And yet—she surprises me again.
“Do you need to have another kid?” she asks. “For your people.”
I take a moment before answering.
“No,” I say finally. “I do not.”
Her shoulders drop an inch, but her eyes stay sharp. “Not biologically?”
“Not culturally,” I clarify. “And not ethically.”
She exhales, slow. “Okay. Because my brain immediately went to?—”
“I know where it went,” I say gently. “You’re wondering whether being with me comes with an unspoken obligation.”
“Yes,” she admits. “And whether that obligation could ever land on me. Accidentally. Retroactively. Like…well, like a trap.”
“It won’t.”
“But your people?—”
“My people are concerned with survival,” I say. “Not coercion. After the Trinity fell, we learned—painfully—that survival without consent isn’t survival at all. It’s just a slower extinction.”
I didn’t know how painful these memories would be, not as they surface one by one. Memories of life on the flotilla…of a time before that, when our planets were shattering slowly, when the Boreans offered us salvation if only we would bend to their will.
My people know the price of those chains.
“So,” she says carefully, “having Solvi wasn’t…a requirement. It was a choice you and Shahar made.”
“Yes.”
“And another child would also be a choice.”
“Yes.”
“And if you never had another one?”
I meet her gaze. “Then I would still be considered whole.”
She swallows. “Even if you were with someone whocouldhave kids, but didn’t want to?”
“Especially then,” I say. “Because that would be an honest life, not a strategic one.”
“So this isn’t like with Shahar,” she breathes.
I reach up to cup her cheek now, smoothing my thumb along her cheekbone. “With Shahar, I made a conscious choice to do my duty. With you…none of this has been a duty or a chore.Noneof it. If anything…it has all been impulse. My feelings for you are entirely against my will.”
She laughs, closing her eyes and unleashing a dramatic sigh. “You sure know how to make a girl feel loved.”
“I hope so,” I say, entirely seriously. “Because I’ve never been in love, but I think…I think this is what it feels like.”
Her eyes snap open again, go wide. “Wow…that’s fast. I’m not—I don’t know if I’m ready?—”
“It wasn’t a demand, just a realization,” I tell her. “Like I said—you arenot trapped.Not with me. Never with me.”
