Mairo Region, Haphez
Approx. 6 months after Embers
The Ranch House sat perched on the edge of the world like a quiet sentinel. It stood alone—the only notable man-made structure visible for several kilometers in any direction—overlooking the Sea of Haphez from the crest of a sturdy bluff. The property was a serene pocket of controlled isolation: an open gravel clearing large enough for a small freighter to land, the house and its detached garage standing a short distance apart, the drive winding away through the dense coastal forest toward the main road in a long, deliberate curve that kept the outside world at arm’s length. The house itself was modest and contemporary, with a textured, weather-resistant exterior, wide windows that caught every shift of light, and an old-fashioned wooden deck that wrapped around the seaward side. It sat close enough to the sheer drop-off that standing at the railing gave the unnerving sense of hovering above the sea, yet far enough back that it still felt grounded, permanent. The detached garage looked ordinary from the outside, with its weather-stained siding and standard rolling door, but beneath its floor lay a secure trapdoor and a bunker that housed an arsenal.
Surrounding the gravel clearing were wide fields where the gentle, six-legged sylune grazed, their massive forms moving like living tanks across the lush grass. The fields stretched eight hundred meters to both the south and west of the house, leased to local ranchers who dropped their livestock off, asked few questions, and always paid on time. Beyond them, the coastal forest rose in dense waves of dark green, forming a natural barrier that swallowed sound and light and enveloped the entire property in layered privacy.
At the base of the cliff lay the sprawling beach, accessible by a steep trail. A little farther down the coastline, the bluff tapered gradually downward until forest met sand, but from the house, the drop felt immediate and dramatic. The whole place felt alive in its own way—the wind whistling through the grass and around the corners of the house, the calls of the sylune reverberating across the field, the constant murmur of the sea below. It was the perfect balance between a shelter and a home: hidden but not buried, secure but not sterile.
The sun hadn’t quite risen yet, its faint light casting the world in muted grays and faint golds from behind a bank of marine clouds on the horizon. The air carried the sharp bite of salt and damp earth, the kind of chill that clung to the skin until the day warmed. Ziva Payvan sat with one leg tucked under her, the other stretched out, foot resting on the bottom rail of the deck. Off to her right, the sylune herd grazed in the lower field, their bellows carrying over the hiss of the wind, their iridescent hides catching the faint light like dull armor. The forest was still dark, carpeted by a thin layer of morning mist that was sure to burn off in another hour or two.
Aroska had been up before her, a feat in and of itself. She had heard the shower, the low creak of the stairs, the soft crunch of boots on gravel as he made his way out to the garage. He hadn’t come back inside yet. That wasn’t unusual when he had a project, but the timing felt deliberate. The anniversary had crept up on both of them, silent and unassuming, then impossible to ignore once you noticed the date stamp on the comm console. This was the first time they’d faced it since being…together, and it had quickly become apparent that neither of them quite knew how to handle it.
She took another sip of warm lechai brew from the mug she held and let the earthy heat sit on her tongue while she ran the variables. He wasn’t angry, at least not the sharp, cold anger from the early days. This was a different kind, one he carried in his shoulders, one that made his answers shorter without being rude. The kind that made him seek out tasks that kept his hands busy and his eyes away from hers. She understood the mechanics of it. He loved her. He had forgiven the circumstances that led to Soren’s death. But forgiveness didn’t erase the fact that she’d pulled the trigger. Accident or not, the result was the same: a brother gone. A family altered forever. And the woman responsible was the one who shared his bed, the one he had gradually built a home with.
A small, instinctive bristle rose in her chest. They had talked about this. She had explained herself. They had reconciled with Soren’s death as much as anyone reasonably could. It had been nearly seven years now—two before they’d met, the four that had elapsed after she left Haphez, and another six months since she’d come home and they’d begun piecing this life together. So why couldn’t he just get over it? The thought flashed through her mind sharp and unbidden, followed almost immediately by a sting of self-reproach. It was a ridiculous thing to take offense at; of course he deserved the space. Yet the reaction was there, automatic, like muscle memory after years of treating others’ withdrawal and reticence as threats. At the same time, she felt a flicker of pride that she had recognized both the instinctive reaction and the subsequent guilt at all. Emotions were still murky waters—deep, unpredictable, full of currents she’d never learned to navigate cleanly. That was precisely why she didn’t push him. The last thing either of them needed today was her saying or doing something that would make things worse, whether she meant to or not.
She set the mug down on the small table beside her chair and stood, the deck boards cool and rough under her bare feet as she moved to the far end of the railing and peered down toward the garage. The overhead door was raised partway, and through it, she could make out the open hatch in the floor. He was in the bunker, then. Cleaning weapons or inventorying the latest additions from the last contract. Something methodical. Something that didn’t require conversation.
Part of her wanted to go down there and ask what he needed, to cut through the distance with directness the way she handled most problems in the field. Another part—the calculating part that had literally kept her alive through the years—advised against it. Pressing him would only turn the distance into a wall. Better to give him the space he was already taking and handle her own side of the equation in the meantime.
She turned and went back inside, the change in the air immediate: drier, quieter, the faint hum of the environmental controls maintaining a steady temperature against the coastal humidity even at the early hour. The main living area opened up before her; a long couch faced the wide windows that looked out over the deck and the sea beyond. The workspace off to one side held the workbench she had claimed as her own domain. She moved to the sink and rinsed her mug before crossing to the workbench and making herself comfortable on the tall stool there. The surface was already half-covered with parts from her work in progress: a new long gun to replace the beloved rifle she’d lost in the chaos of the final battle for Delatori. The process was proving to be slower and more complicated than she’d anticipated. Many of the components she’d once acquired fairly easily through old channels were now harder to source, as she had to be more secretive about her presence and identity, routing requests through multiple outlets, waiting for discreet shipments that sometimes took weeks longer than they once would have. There were still several pieces she wanted to get her hands on before she could consider the weapon truly complete. She continued tinkering with it in the meantime nonetheless, stripping and reassembling it over and over in hopes that it would become as familiar in her hands as the old gun had been. The work was painstaking, but it gave her something to look forward to, something constructive toward which she could direct her energy, especially at times like this when the past pressed too close.
An hour passed as she lost herself in the steady rhythm of tools and metal. The sun climbed higher outside, breaking over the distant clouds and bathing the house in warm light. She had the receiver stripped down and the components laid out in careful order on the workbench when the side door opened. Aroska stepped in, wiping his hands on a rag, his close-cropped hair damp at the temples after whatever he’d been doing down in the bunker. He paused in the doorway, eyes flicking over the workbench, then to her.
“Morning,” he said. The word was neutral. Not cold. Just…measured.
“Morning.” She didn’t look up from the alignment jig in her hand. “You eat yet?”
“Grabbed something earlier.” He crossed to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable exactly, but it had weight. She could hear him breathing, hear the faint clink of the glass against the counter.
She set the jig down and turned on the stool to face him. “You’re working on the inventory again.”
He nodded once. “Figured it was due for a check. The last run added a few pieces that aren’t catalogued yet.”
Logical. Practical. The same way she approached most things. She studied his profile for a second—the hard line of his jaw, the way the morning light caught that faint scar cutting through his furrowed brow. Despite everything, he still appeared every bit the HSP veteran that he was: tall, built, athletic, with those warm amber eyes and a few flecks of gray in his dark hair and beard these days. But today, those eyes were dull, tired, and not in a way sleep would fix.
“You don’t have to do it alone,” she said. Simple statement. No pressure.
He took a slow sip of water, then set the glass down. “I know.” A beat. “It’s fine. Gives me something to focus on.”
There it was—the closest he would come to acknowledging the date without saying it out loud. She nodded and turned back to the workbench. “I’ll be out here if you need another set of hands.”
He didn’t answer right away. She heard him move closer, felt the shift in the air when he stopped a meter behind her. His hand came to rest lightly on her shoulder—warm, familiar, his calloused palm rough against her skin in a way that still grounded her. The touch lingered only a second before he squeezed once and let go.
“Thanks,” he said softly. Then he was moving again, heading upstairs. She listened to his boots on the steps, the way the bedroom door hissed shut with a certain finality that was probably all in her head.
She stayed at the workbench for another twenty minutes, testing the fit of the rifle’s new receiver, pleased that her old bariine configuration would still be compatible with this weapon. The work helped keep the internal noise at a manageable level. Guilt wasn’t a useful emotion in the field, so she had trained herself to treat it like any other variable: acknowledge it, factor it in, keep moving. But here, in the stillness of the home they had created together, the calculation felt incomplete. Aroska had chosen this life with her despite everything. He had chosen her. And right now, as they faced the anniversary of Soren’s death for the first time together, she still couldn’t quite come to grips with how that was possible.
When the fit was solid, she reassembled the long gun in its entirety, wiping it down with the same careful precision she gave every weapon in their arsenal. It normally lived in a locker in the bedroom, but she took another glance up the stairs and decided now wasn’t the time to return it. She placed it in the rack above the workbench.
A suffocating heaviness settled in her chest even as she stepped back outside into the fresh air and slipped into a pair of flexible mud boots. Despite its steepness, the trail down to the beach was short, a narrow path cut into the cliff face that zigzagged through patches of hardy coastal grass and exposed rock. She took it at a brisk pace, the sound of the surf growing louder with every step until it filled the air, a constant white noise she hoped would drown out her thoughts for a while. Down on the sand, the tide was out, leaving a wide stretch of damp, packed ground perfect for a run. She shucked the boots and stripped down to her compression bra and shorts, leaving her lightweight lounge clothes draped over a driftwood log bleached pale by the sun. Then she started moving.
The rhythm of running usually subdued the turmoil in her mind, but today it only sharpened the edges. Every stride carried her through the same loop: He loves you. You killed his brother. He still loves you. The sand gave under her feet with each impact, the wind off the water cool against her sweat-damp skin. She pushed harder, letting the burn in her lungs override that duller ache behind her ribs. The beach stretched out in both directions, the cliffs rising sheer behind her and the forest edge visible in the distance where the sand gave way to rock and then trees. She could taste salt on her lips, could feel every grain of sand between her toes. Memories surfaced in fragments—the office building in Noro, the view through her scope, the red mist, the years of walls she had built and the slow, reluctant way Aroska had dismantled them one by one. Salex. The aeromids. The moment the truth had come out on that hillside in the moonlight. The Revenant. Delatori. The reunion on the beach. Each step became a reminder that they had gotten through worse than this, even if this first anniversary in their new life felt raw in a way she hadn’t fully anticipated.
By the time she looped back to the base of the cliff, gathered her clothes, and climbed the trail again, her legs were heavy and the sun had risen higher still, turning the sea into a sheet of molten gold. Aroska was on the deck when she reached the top, leaning on the railing with a data pad in one hand. He looked up as she approached, eyes tracking over her—assessing, the way he always did when she returned from anywhere he hadn’t been, making sure she was whole.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Fine.” She tossed the clothes into a chair and wiped the back of her hand across her brow; the salty air had dried the sweat into a faint crust on her skin. “Cleared my head.”
He gave a small nod and went back to the pad, but he didn’t move away when she stepped up beside him. The silence lingered, but it wasn’t the same heavy kind from earlier. More like two people standing at the edge of something familiar and deciding whether to step across.
She reached over and tapped the rim of the data pad with one finger. “Supply run into town tomorrow?”
“Probably. We’re low on a couple of the specialty connectors for the comm array.”
“I’ll go.” The words came out before she could fully process them. Town runs were almost always his; she’d been developing a handful of false identities, but they could still use some refining, and there was no sense in risking them on something as simple as a shopping trip. “You can stay here. Work on whatever you need to.”
He looked at her then—really looked, the way he did when he was trying to read the subtext she rarely offered. After a moment, he nodded. “All right.”
She turned to face the sea, elbows on the railing. The water stretched out calm and endless, the horizon now a clean line where blue met blue. Large marine birds wheeled overhead, their calls sharp against the deeper rumble of the surf. The fields surrounding the house had shifted as the sun moved; the sylune had moved deeper into the shade at the forest edge, their massive forms dark against the grass. She could feel the warmth of the wood under her forearms, the faint vibration of the breeze through the railing.
She drew a deep breath and spoke before she could talk herself out of it. “You don’t have to carry this on your own.” Direct. No inventory metaphors this time. “I know what day it is. I know what it costs you.”
Aroska set the data pad down and shut his eyes, remaining quiet for several long moments. When he finally replied, his voice was low. “It’s not about carrying it on my own. It’s about…making sure I don’t take it out on you. You didn’t ask for any of this, either.”
She huffed a short breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I pulled the trigger. The rest is just details.”
He shifted beside her, close enough that their arms brushed. “Details matter. You know that better than anyone.” Another pause. “I’m not going anywhere, Ziva. Even on the bad days.”
She kept her eyes on the horizon. The operative in her wanted to list every reason he should reconsider. The rest of her—the part that had finally relented in the cabin aboard the Revenant and had come back to him on the beach after Delatori—stayed silent. She reached over and laced her fingers through his where they rested on the railing. His grip tightened immediately, steady and warm.
There was no telling how long they remained like that. No grand declarations. No promises that erased the past. Just the simple matter of standing together when that past reared its ugly head.
Inside, the long gun waited on its rack above the workbench. Outside, the ocean kept its steady rhythm against the shore, and the forest stood watch over this sanctuary they’d carved out. And for now, that was enough to keep moving forward.
