Page 174 of She Who Devours the Stars

My HUD flickered, once. All the warnings went red.

[COLLISION IMMINENT.]

I ran faster.

In those last few meters, I remembered every stupid moment we’d shared: the taco debacle, the nights in the gym, the fights so dumb we forgot what we were yelling about halfway through. I remembered the way she smiled when she knew she’d won, and the way she always let me have the last word, even if it cost her.

The world started to shake. The ground cracked, light pouring through the fractures.

At the edge of the blast, Fern looked up. Her eyes met mine, and she didn’t look away.

Thread Modulation: Fern Trivane

Axis Alignment: Fey Ruins

My first conscious thought after the Ruins detonated was that my tongue was bleeding, and my second was that maybe, for once, it wasn’t my fault.

I was on my knees. The world had recoded itself to dirt and blue-white, then dirt and nothing. Mythprint still crackled up my spine, but it felt… hollow, like a shell after the animal’s left. My head rang with a chorus of too many voices, none of them saying what I wanted to hear.

I was about to stand—because I refuse to let trauma keep me horizontal for more than three seconds—when I saw the sky above me break. Not fracture, not just tear, but genuinely, beautifully, break, like a pane of gold-stained glass punched through by an angry goddess.

What came through was the only goddess worth praying to.

It was Dyris.

I don’t know what I expected after all this. Maybe a drone strike, or a lecture, or that pinched look she got when I’d done something only legally considered “a crime.” I did not expect her in a war outfit tailored by a fever dream and a vengeful mother. I did not expect the hair slicked, mythprint gilded, lips a shade of red that could bleed a star.

I certainly did not expect the leopard print.

For a half-second, I wondered if my brain had finally melted, and I was hallucinating her, maybe as a last kindness from the universe before I got deleted. Then the reality field caught up, and she hit the ground so hard it made the Ruins lurch.

She didn’t stumble. She landed in the superhero pose, fist to dirt, every line in her body flexing for maximum intimidation. The air rippled gold around her, Jhenna’s signature burning inthe angles of her jaw. Even her shadow looked like it wanted to serve.

She stood up, slow, deliberate, brushing invisible dust from her suit. The heels—fuck me, the heels—were still intact. Her mythprint painted a vector trail from her cheek to her collarbone, a line I’d always wanted to trace with my teeth. I tried to look away, but it was like trying to unsee a star going nova in your own living room.

She didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at me, eyes unreadable, face calm as if she was considering whether or not I deserved to live.

“Am I hallucinating?” I said, because it was the only thing that made sense.

She smiled, just a bit, and the world re-aligned itself around the line of her mouth.

“You wish,” she said.

I wanted to cry. Instead, I laughed, and the taste of blood in my mouth turned sweet.

The ground under me was still vibrating from the mythquake, but Dyris didn’t care. She closed the distance in three steps, then crouched down until our faces were level. I half-expected a slap, maybe a kiss, perhaps both.

She reached out, thumbed a streak of blood from my cheek, and flicked it away with zero drama.

“That’s why I always ran from Mom,” I blurted. It made no sense, but she got it. She always did.

The next thing I knew, her arms were around me. Not tight, not suffocating—just… there. Solid. Real. She anchored me to the moment like nothing else could, mythprint folding around us in a gold-and-blue cocoon. I could feel my own signatureresponding, pulling itself together, desperate not to disappoint her.

I might have cried then. Maybe. Just a bit.

She lifted me to my feet, set me down gentle, then cupped my face in her hands.

Her eyes were so intense I thought I might combust on the spot.