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Nada, also inside out.

Unraveling everything he thought he knew, rewriting the laws of his existence. She was a celestial force, luring him into her orbit with a gravity he couldn’t resist.

Each moment with her was like falling through an uncharted universe’s vast, endless expanse.

While in unison tumbling through starlit corridors of fate.

Drawn deeper into the radiant aura of her soul.

Andfokk, he was helpless to stop it, shackled to her love for eternity.

35

Epilogue

Ki’REMI

Issa led her Ki’Remi through a narrowing passage, each step downward drawing them deeper into the guts of Eden II.

The city drone had long faded behind them, swallowed by the pulse of the subterrane, geothermal gases, and mineral walls.

Above them, glow-shrooms pulsed on the high cavern roof in erratic clusters, their blue and violet light flickering like wayward stars.

They’d parked his flyer at one of the tunnel entrances and gone by foot the rest of the way.

Past a Pika camp, a series of subterranean speakeasies, and sunken gambling dens.

After a series of twists and turns, they reached a doorway nestled against a subterranean wall between ancient rock shelves and repurposed metal crates.

Outside was a silent line of Luna Pikani, the descended outliers of Eden II. They were pale-skinned, with mirrored eyes and soft whistling speech.

His eyes studied her with interest as she waved her wristband over the doorway, unlocking it.

She led him silently, and he arched his brow as he took it all in.

Inside, twas nothing more than a modest table fashioned from salvage, a hover exam bed, worn cabinets stacked with healing tinctures, scavenged tools, and a pair of surgical lamps powered by a solar battery.

A curtain of translucent mesh separated the treatment space from any curious eyes.

K’Remi stood silent, absorbing it all.

‘This is where I started again,’ Issa said, stepping past him, her fingers brushing the corner of a shelf as if anchoring herself. ‘When I landed on New Savartin, I started helping people. I treated whoever showed up. No questions asked. When I came here, I did the same.’

‘You built all this with your bare hands.’

His rasp was low, more observation than praise. ‘You didn’t wait for a solution. You became the solution.’

She glanced at him and shrugged with a soft smile. ‘Don’t make me out to be a bleeding hero. The Luna Pikani needed my healing, and I needed a way to release mySsignakht.’

K’Remi exhaled, long and slow, stepping toward the room’s far corner.

He ran a palm over one of the supply drawers, noting how carefully the medical instruments had been laid out. ‘Kidaya, please let me help formalize what you’ve done here. This sacrifice deserves more. You deserve more.’

Issa blinked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘This corner of the Pikani underworld has been one myakiand I have wanted to invest in for some time now. I’ll speak to the Sable Riders to see if we can establish a sanctioned clinic down here that is fully staffed and stocked. It can operate when you’re away on missions under our Group charter yet still carry your name.’

He met her gaze with a raised brow. ‘Perhaps ‘Issa’s Sanctum’. Or whatever you decide to call it.’