She rose from her seat, careful not to wake Ari. She crossed the cabin and put herself directly in his path, forcing him to stop or walk through her.
He stopped.
“You didn’t force me to come,” she said quietly. “I chose to be here. I chose to help you find the Keys. I knew the risks.”
“You didn’t know the Grorn would be here.”
“I knew it was a possibility. I’m not a child, Doren. I understood what I was agreeing to.”
His hands clenched at his sides. “It doesn’t matter. I should never have?—”
“What? Let me make my own decisions?” She reached up, her free hand cupping his jaw. His fur was soft beneath her palm, warm with the heat of his body. “You don’t get to take responsibility for my choices. That’s not how this works.”
“How what works?”
“This.” She gestured between them, encompassing the ship, the baby, the life they’d somehow built together in the past fewweeks. “Whatever this is. Partnership, family, I don’t know what to call it. But it’s not you making decisions for both of us. It’s not you protecting me from the consequences of choices I make with open eyes.”
Something shifted in his expression. The fear was still there, but it was joined by something else now.
“You called her our daughter.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You just called her our daughter.” His voice softened. “You meant it.”
Yes. She’d said it. And yes, she’d meant it.
“She is,” she said simply. “Maybe not biologically, maybe not legally, but she’s ours. We found her together, we saved her together, and we’ve been caring for her together. That makes her ours.”
His throat worked. He looked down at Ari, sleeping peacefully in Emma’s arms, and something in his face crumbled.
“I’ve never had a family.” The words came out barely above a whisper. “Not a real one. My mother loved me but she lived by my father’s rules, and my father made it clear I was never wanted. I’ve spent my whole life alone, telling myself I preferred it that way.”
“And now?”
“Now...” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Now I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to be what you need, what she needs. I only know how to chase things. Artifacts, treasure, the Vault. I don’t know how to stay.”
She shifted Ari to one arm and reached for him with the other. He let her pull him close, his forehead dropping to rest against hers.
“You’re learning,” she said softly. “We both are.”
They stood like that for a long moment, breathing together in the quiet hum of the ship. Then He pulled back, and some of the tension had eased from his shoulders.
“We should go back to Sherae,” he said. “Regroup. Let Faith analyze the data crystal, and see if there’s anything useful we missed. The Vault can wait.”
“No.”
The word surprised both of them. She frowned, organizing her thoughts.
“I don’t want you to give up,” she said slowly. “The Vault has been your dream for years. It’s part of who you are. If you abandon it now because of what happened today, you’ll regret it. And eventually, you’ll resent me for being the reason.”
“I could never?—”
“You might. People do.” She thought of her father, charming and restless, always chasing the next opportunity. He’d loved her, she was sure of that. But he’d loved his dreams more, and in the end, he’d left her behind. “I don’t want to be the one that clips your wings, Doren. I want to be the person who flies with you.”
He stared at her, something shifting behind his eyes. “What are you suggesting?”
“We regroup, but not at Sherae. Not yet.” She bit her lip, thinking. “You mentioned once that an old scholar first told youabout the Vault. Someone who’d spent their life studying the Precursors.”
