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Zandrel

When Ros turns to walk away, she takes half of me with her.

It’s the half that would damn my duty and cast off my responsibilities. It’s the half that believes I can have softness and peace and a safe place to lay my head at the end of each day.

It’s the half that loves her beyond reason.

Geeno has already left the platform, too, and somewhere nearby I can hear the fast, agitated cadence of his voice as he no doubt chews out the producers over what just happened here.

But it all feels very far away.

Geeno’s blustering, the breaking of the waves on the beach, the midday sun shining like a hot, guilty spotlight to illuminate what just happened here. To make sure I have nowhere to hide from what I’ve just done.

I can barely comprehend any of it as I watch Roslyn disappear through the break in the trees lining the beach and fight every instinct that would send me barreling after her.

“Well, you two really fucked that up.”

Blood dropping by several degrees, I turn to find Marva stepping up onto the platform.

“We abided by your terms. You can’t mean to revoke them now that we’ve—”

She waves one hand carelessly in front of her before raising it to massage the bridge of her nose, eyes shut tight in irritation. “No. Not that.”

“Then what—”

“You have to ask?”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to keep arguing, to offer more of the tired old lies I’ve been telling myself for the last few days.

For the last few weeks, maybe.

Since the moment Roslyn and I first met.

Under the weight of Marva’s hard stare, though, that’s just what they would be. Lies. Hollow, spineless justifications.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Marva asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

I let out a tight sigh through my nose. “I’m going back to the Aux.”

“To take care of that dirty little recruiting secret they’ve been hiding?”

“How do you—”

“Please, Zandrel. You think I didn’t do my research when I found out they were shipping an Aux mercenary here to be part of my crew?”

I sigh again, resigned this time.

“Then you know why it’s so important I go back.”

She considers that, then nods. “A worthy mission. But worthy enough to miss out on the rest of your life?”

The question knocks the air from my lungs.

The rest of my life.

Currently walking away from me, getting back on the hover she rode in on, boarding a ship that will take her back to the misery of Severin before she goes… somewhere. Somewhere to start the rest of her own life. Without me.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it?” Marva tilts her head, studying me. “You can find a reason, Zan. Even when there are plenty of others that would keep you tied to that life, keep you fighting. You can find a reason to make yourself a different path.”

There’s an edge to her voice, a conviction and knowing that goes deeper than a vidcomm producer chastising a contestant.

I glance down at her ring. The one I can finally place.

“Which company?” I ask plainly.

“Alpha-19.”

A high-ranking Aux company. And an honorable one, if memory serves.

“Did you find your reason?”

Marva’s laugh is a softer, gentler sound than I thought her capable of making. “I did. And she’s got the patience of a saint to deal with me spending a couple of cycles every revol on this saintsforsaken planet dealing with messes like you and that human of yours.”

That human of mine.

My chest aches again, a deep, vital crack that extends to the very core of me, and I fight the urge to run after her.

How much simpler might it be if I could.

If I could snatch her up, keep her with me, whisk us both away to a future with no wayward sisters and no higher callings, a universe in which we could just be us .

But that’s not the universe we live in.

This universe—the one we’ve both had to contend with for so many difficult years—still has more that it demands from us. It still has responsibilities. It still has sorrows.

But perhaps it also still has a future like the one Roslyn hinted at earlier today.

Perhaps it’s got a different path.

Perhaps it has a happy ending we both could still dream of, if only I can make myself worthy of it, worthy of her.

“And I might have an idea or two for how to help you find yours.”

My gaze snaps to Marva’s, and the crooked grin she’s wearing sends a spark through my chest. Buoyant, expansive, making room for something other than the misery that settled there when Roslyn walked away.

“I’d like to hear them.”

Marva’s grin widens. She claps me on the shoulder, and it’s impossible not to name the bubble of light still spreading in my chest for what it is.

Hope.

My warrior doesn’t deserve half-measures, and she doesn’t deserve half a male to be her partner.

She deserves worlds and stars and galaxies at her feet.

She deserves a life, a whole life, filled with certainty and safety and peace.

She deserves to be loved and cherished, to have someone by her side who knows and appreciates every facet and flaw, every unspoken need and every broken place that needs soothing.

And I want to be all of that for her.

My mind starts to race.

The first time I saw my warrior, I made strategies and plans. I plotted and schemed ways to know all her secrets, to understand the mystery of her.

And now I’ll plot and scheme again, do anything, everything, to make a future worthy of her.