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Zane kept them alive by hawking watches and jewelry from a case on the ground.

Kage got into thekapocircuit, wrestling and fighting in the localkupigadens, bringing home bags of cash from his wins.

Alongside Xion, Riv made daring raids on passing pirate cruisers, freeing enslaved people freighted from planets such as Alloria and reselling any stolen goods they found to help rehome the refugees.

He and Kage also started pulling apart the ship they’d stolen from the crats, studying its tech and components while integrating data into their neural nodes. Soon, they had enough of a schematic to start on ship-building prototypes of their own.

However, building ships was expensive, so Zane put his keen strategic and business mind into playing the markets.

In time, he was one of the top resource traders in all of Pegasi and secured the schills they needed to kick off their ship-building endeavor.

Elated as their business ventures grew, the five men consolidated themselves into The Sable Group, a legal entity headquartered in Eden II.

They celebrated their progress with drinks at the many kuratina bars and, later, tracked along the roofs of Eden II to the spaceport.

Where Riv and his brothers lay on their backs looking up at the stars and dreaming about taking over the rock for themselves.

Every evening, Riv met Élisa outside the market stall where she worked and walked her home.

They laced their hands together and made plans for their future - one he couldn’t imagine without her.

For Élisa was his dream girl, his silver-haired angel.

She’d saved him from the ghoulish, deathly clutches ofkoko. She’d given him hope.

She had him strung out and was now his past, present, and future.

Her care had given him a taste of the love so many spoke of. Love that the universe had deprived him of since birth.

So a year after meeting her, when Zane had handed him his Sable group share of the monthly takings, he wandered down to the bijou market, where he purchased a delicate ring with a small, shining diamond.

He knew it wasn’t much, but it was everything he had. And it was enough for Élisa.

As they lay in bed together that night, Riv took her hand and slipped the ring onto her finger.

Tears welled in her eyes as she gazed at it, holding it up high above their heads, her lilac eyes shining with wonder.

‘K’Élisa Djan,’ Riv said, his voice low and intense. ‘I love you more than anything in this world. Will you marry me?’

Élisa’s tears fell onto her satin cheeks, and then she threw her arms around his neck, kissing him with all the passion in her soul.

‘Naam, Riv Sable,’ she whispered. ‘I will marry you.’

7

Dissonance

RIV - NOW

The Rider woke in a rush of panic, though only the leap of his pulsing noids betrayed him. His muscles didn’t even twitch.

He didn’t always sleep so soundly, especially under these circumstances, and cursed as he took stock of his surroundings.

He was lying on a pallet in the hollow of a giant tree. In a chasm on a forsaken planet on the edge of Devansi’s badlands.

With Élisa.

He turned his head.