Page 101 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

“A small team. No bonded pairs. No source-touched. No one whose presence makes the proof packet richer,” I say, voicing my thoughts on who to bring.

Rosalind’s steady gaze makes my stomach flutter like something is coming alive inside it. Which is weird and I don’t like it.

“Who?” she asks.

“I need Renn for ground reading,” I say. “I need you because if we find Rhazek alive and chained to something hostile, I would like someone large and angry nearby. I need Rosalind here because the City will listen to her before it listens to anyone else when Adran starts trying to lock people in cupboards for their own good.”

“I heard that,” Adran says from behind us.

“You were meant to.”

Rosalind’s gaze sharpens. “You are not deciding this because you care about him.”

The passage goes oddly quiet. Rude, really, how many people have ears.

I want to answer fast. I want to be clever. I want to say something dry enough to bury the heat climbing my throat.

Instead I think of Rhazek stepping between me and green light. Rhazek saying the worst cages are the ones called protection. Rhazek’s ruined wing dragging in the dust as he walked anyway. Rhazek leaving me a route token because he knew the woman I am better than he trusted the world to let him stay.

“I am deciding this because saving him and stopping the proof are the same route,” I say.

Rosalind holds my stare. She knows I answered the safer question and she lets me have it. For now.

“Take water,” she says. “Take two bone-handled blades. No metal near active green if you can avoid it. No hero speeches. No touching the shard barehanded. If the line in him turns fully, you cut the signal before you cut the male.”

My stomach clenches and cold spreads outwards from my spine. Syin’s face goes grim. None of that matters and Rosalind doesn’t even try to soften it.

“That is the order he would give if he were standing here.”

I think of Rhazek saying aim me. I think of him leaving anyway. I close my hand around the broken token until its edge bites into my palm.

“No,” I say.

Rosalind arches one eyebrow.

“If the line in him turns fully, we stop the signal and keep him alive unless there is no other choice.”

“That may be the same thing.”

“Then I will be very annoying about finding another choice.”

She exhales quiet, but heavy. It’s not approval. It’s much too weary for that. It’s the sound of a woman who has had to love impossible people through terrible math.

“Fine,” she says, nodding sharply. “But be annoying quickly.”

I nod and move.

The corridor outside has filled with faces. Humans. Zmaj. A child tucked under Ila’s arm, wide-eyed and silent. Someone whispers Rhazek’s name. Someone else whispers enemy. The words chase each other down the passage, two hungry little things looking for fertile ground to take root in.

I stop and turn, meeting them. Their fear is palpable. The City survivors have lived on the edge of death since the generation ship crashed. The newcomers, Rosalind’s group, have been through their own special kinds of hell. They’ve dealt with off-worlders. They’ve had their own journey, but all of that has led us here. To this moment.

To me.

They want answers. They want safety. I don’t have either one. This isn’t my job. I’m a route runner, but they’re looking at me and no one else is stepping up. Not Adran. Not Rosalind. And even if they did, they don’t know Rhazek.

I don’t know him.

The thought is immediate but right behind it is the understanding that it’s a lie. I do know him. I know him in what he’s done. I recognize something in him. And I’m interested, curse it all. I’d like at least the chance to get to know him.