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That’s been my life since the Scorp attacked. Fear of being killed. Fear for my father.

Now fear for my triad. I can’t fathom what they are doing right now. War is so alien to me, but it is their natural state. I’d clung to hope that they’d find a way out of going to battle. That they’d steal a Reaver and take me away to some happy ending far from all the terror. Now I’m just hoping they come back alive.

“Come to sleep. You barely slept an hour last night.”

“You can go to bed. I’ll sleep on the chair again,” I say, leaning back in the rickety chair. “It’s not bad. Gives my back support.”

He lets out a long suffering sigh. “Alright. If you promise you’ll wake me in a few hours and we swap. I’ll watch at the window for you. Okay?”

“Dad, I’m fine.” I blink blearily, my eyes aching as my fork scrapes the empty bowl.

“Let me at least do that one thing for you. I can’t do anything else,” he says, but there’s a hint of sour mirth in his voice. He’s accepting that I’m not the girl he sent away to be an indentured servant—or that he didn’t know me, in the first place, blinded by grief for my mother. He no longer thinks of me as someone needing protection.

“Alright,” I say, the sides of my lips curling up in an almost smile, when my eyes widen in shock. Am I imagining it? No—out of nothingness, out of the blank night sky, the black, hawklike shapes of Reavers materialize as if by magic.

Not magic. An Orb-Shift.

I try not to think of what Bolden sees in that place between worlds, the darkness that hungers. I wish I could tell which Reaver was theirs. They break off in different directions, the attack ships veering out with purpose, identical black shadows darker than the night itself, when one shifts course abruptly towards the mountain peaks.

I know, instinctively, that it is them, when my smartwatch blinks.

Meet us where we dropped you off.

The message is short and to the point, and adrenaline floods me, erasing all my tiredness. I stand and grab my hoodie, putting the hood on low so it nearly covers my eyes.

“Where are you going?” he asks, but he already knows.

“To see them. They’ve returned.”

“I’ve bit my tongue, Lola. But those three…they are warriors. Bred for it. That’s what they live for. You go to them, this will be your life. Sitting at windows and waiting. You deserve better.”

I go to the bathroom and splash my face with water. “I know you want the best for me, Dad. But this is my choice.” He gets up and stands near the doorway.

“Then it’s your choice. When will I hear from you again?”

“As soon as I can.”

He clears his throat, looking awkwardly past me, as if he can’t make eye contact. “Lola… when I was underground, the only thing that made me keep going was the hope that you were still alive. Please, be careful. I know you can take care of yourself… just be careful.”

He hugs me, patting me on the back. When my mom got sick, he lost his joy, becoming like a machine with one task—helping her. Now he’s the man I used to know, the one who sailed us through the harbor, the one who made little jokes and was always there for me.

“I will. I love you, Dad,” I say, and slip away, nearly running down the creaking stairs. The stink of beer and the cacophony of raucous laughter is a wall of sweaty revelry that I push through as I slip through the bar patrons, until I’m out the door and into the night air.

It is so good to be outside again. I walk as quick as I can until I’m out of the town, then I run, unable to stop myself, the moon barely illuminating my path as I circle the peak until I’m truly out in the middle of nowhere.

The jet-black Reaver is perched right where it dropped my off.

Krazak, Bolden and Khra are standing in front of it, titans, my rocks. Gods, but they are handsome in the moonlight that flows over their hard, masculine features, their marble skin almost glowing, their hard grey eyes fixating on me as I pass by a boulder and into the clearing.

They are different. I feel it as I walk towards them. Darker, somehow, a new heaviness to them, yet standing tall under the pressures. “You’re safe,” I say, and I want to run to them, to hug Krazak, to feel Bolden’s huge biceps as he wraps me up, Khra’s gentle, eager kiss…

But I stop ten feet in front of them, uncertain. “Did the battle go well?” I ask, awkwardly, not sure what to say.

“A victory for Obsidian,” says Krazak, his voice deep, echoing. He steps forward, and runs his finger gently down my cheek, his touch so soft, as if he’s afraid I will dissipate into nothingness, that I’ll slip through his fingers if he takes my hand. “Lola, we thought war would give us absolution. It was empty. We need a future with you. That is the only thing that matters.”

I smile, looking up at him, but instead of hugging me to him, he opens his robe, and pulls out the long, venomous barb of a Scorp. “What is that for?”

Khra clears his throat. “There are groups of Aurelians in Wild Space called the Scorp-Blood tribes. They have women without the Bond. Women who do not age in the same way as humans. This is our chance at a future.”