“I usually do.”
“That explains your personality.”
Her gaze lifts immediately. “Careful.”
“There it is.”
She throws a folded piece of parchment at me without real force. I catch it easily.
Peace, I’ve learned, looks strange on us. Not soft. Never soft. But lighter around the edges.
I move beside her and brace one hand against the table while reviewing the latest positioning reports spread between us. Marked routes cross the valley in layered ink, revised so many times that older plans still ghost faintly beneath the newest lines.
Aeryn reaches past me for another document, and her shoulder brushes lightly against my arm. Small contact. Familiar enough now that neither of us reacts to it anymore.
“What have you seen?” I ask quietly.
Her hand stills for a second before continuing. “No immediate fracture points.”
That alone changes the room. Months ago every vision carried catastrophe buried somewhere inside it, futures unraveling faster than we could stabilize them. Now the projections stretch further before breaking. Longer lines. Fewer collapses.
Not safety. But possibility.
“And the artifact?” I ask.
Aeryn exhales slowly through her nose before meeting my gaze fully. “Still contained.”
Contained. Not destroyed. Some things cannot be destroyed cleanly. Only buried deeply enough that reaching for them becomes its own warning.
Three days ago Zethon strike divisions cornered the remaining artifact carriers near the eastern ruins after Velkiron abandoned them under pressure from two converging fronts. The battle lasted less than an hour. The losses afterward lasted longer.
No one touched the artifact directly once they understood what it was doing. Smart. Very smart.
A final sealed report rests near the end of the table. I already know what it contains before opening it. Confirmation seals from three separate Zethon relic authorities. Transport routes. Containment verification.
Secured beneath full Zethon restriction. No active bloodline resonance detected. The immediate threat is over. I read the final line twice anyway.
Aeryn watches me quietly while I lower the report back onto the table.
“Well?” she asks.
“It’s done.”
My words aren't landing the way I intended. Not triumph. Not relief exactly. More like the moment after surviving a storm large enough that your body still expects thunder even after the sky clears.
Aeryn leans back slightly in her chair, studying me with that infuriating ability she has to notice what I don’t intend to show. “You thought we’d lose it again.”
“I thought Xalith would try.”
“He did.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
I look back toward the maps. “And this time he failed.”
Silence lingers for a moment before she reaches out and folds the final report closed with careful fingers.