Page 75 of Shadows of Stardust

More tightness, a sharp sear of memory that steals my breath.

Ros lays her hand over mine.

“It left me alone. An orphan.” I let the warmth of her touch bolster me as I continue. “I was scraping by in some group home the Seventh Sector Council put together for younglings like me, when I was approached by an Aux recruiter.”

So many promises, that recruiter made. Training and prestige and glory. An entire universe of possibility opening up before me. So much better than the situation I’d found myself in.

“Fucking monsters,” Ros seethes. “Preying on kids like that.”

A bit more of the tightness in my chest loosens. Enough for me to breathe as I flex my fingers under hers and try not to let myself examine too closely the way her grip on me eases that tension even further.

“Regardless, I accepted. And I excelled in my training. I became… valuable to them. An asset. I rose quickly through their ranks.”

Ros’s gaze is softer now, the edge of her indignant anger melting away as she turns my hand in hers and soothes her thumb over my palm. Steady, unerring strokes that have me spellbound, relaxing even further under her touch.

“But I didn’t want anyone else to be… to be like me. I found out it was still happening. Recruiting younglings from desperate situations. Making it seem like the Aux was the best choice for them when… when…”

“When fighting and war were the absolute last things they needed.”

Ros’s words hit too close to something aching and broken at the core of me. Something I’ve set far to the side while I’ve done what I needed to survive. The control I wrested from an unfeeling universe that stripped any semblance of stability and security from me when I was too young and too powerless to do anything to stop it.

“I tried to bring it all to light.” My voice is quieter now, reticent, like the confession might still have the power to damn me, even after everything I’ve sacrificed and every risk I’ve taken to land myself here. “I spoke up against those recruiting practices. And it cost me everything.”

“It’s why you’re here. Working security,” she murmurs, and I nod.

A few seconds of silence pass as that information, that shame, sinks in.

So fresh, those wounds, though if someone had asked me yesterday, I wouldn’t have thought so at all. I would have thought myself beyond it, able to focus entirely on the mission at hand rather than the failures of my past.

I’m still lost in the tangle of it, drowning, when Ros chuckles softly. Not humor, exactly, but something more rueful as she shakes her head.

“Sorry,” she says quickly when she catches my eye. “It’s not funny. Really, I shouldn’t have laughed. It’s only…”

“Only what?”

Strangely, if feels like exactly what I need, this change in direction. A reprieve. A rope tossed overboard to keep me from going underwater completely.

She shakes her head again. “If you only knew what I was thinking that day I landed on the beach.”

I arch a brow. “Oh? And what were you thinking?”

Roslyn shifts, resting one elbow on the counter and propping her chin in her hand. “I shouldn’t say. It would only stroke your ego.”

“By all means, stroke away.”

She laughs again, brighter this time. “I was thinking how utterly fucked I was, having to contend with a guard like you. You, uh, stand out a little from the rest of the team, and I guess now I know why.”

A brief wave of guilt twists my gut, but Ros is still smiling.

Maybe this is… alright.

Maybe we’re at a point where joking about it is permitted.

I take another risk.

“Well, then I hope your own ego would be at least a little gratified to know I had similar suspicions about you.”

She rolls her eyes. A little disconcerting, given the way it exposes more of the strange, milky white that surrounds her irises, but it seems to be another human expression of good humor.

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