Page 22 of Sixth
Chapter 6
MORNING ROSElike a low current through glass-bright leaves. Light climbed the translucent canopy and returned in layered rainbows, every frond drinking color and giving itback.
The ground exhaled mist that scattered into thin, shivering sheets. Beneath it all, the planet held a hum Apex could map like a heartbeat. It wasn’t weather. It was a system. It threaded the clearing, the ship, the woman he guarded. The rhythm had steadied in the night when he let the healing cycle takehim.
He’d refused the med berth. He’d refused restraints. He’d stabilized the ship, routed power to Core, and gone still in the glow beneath the hull until regeneration demanded the last word. Now the blue-white residue dried in faint traceries across his ribs and hip, luminous for one breath before the skin drank it. Swelling flattened. Heat bled away. Muscles knit clean. Function returned.
He was operational.
He opened his eyes into light and silence and Emmy watching him as if she could force the cycle to finish by will alone. The Valenmark warmed across his wrist in a steady, low pulse. Not burn. Not bite. Warmth that echoed her focus.
“Repair cycle completed,”Core said from the external speaker, voice lowered.“Vitals optimal. Regenerative cascade is stable. Apex now functional.”
Emmy let out the breath she’d been holding. She didn’t touch him, and he marked the restraint. Her gaze went to the Valenmark on her wrist as if the band itself had declared him safe. Last night, she’d slept with her hand near his shoulder, not touching, but close enough to read his heat by the nearness of herpalm.
A small lightness shifted at her collarbone. The tiny, winged creature from last night stood in the hollow at the base of her throat, paws soft, rainbow wings furred and folded. Enormous eyes took in color, movement, the angle of Apex’s attention. The creature pressed a small hand to her own chest and shaped a sound with intent.
“Lu…me.”
The tone chimed clean as a bell. The little one tapped herself again and repeated it, softer, ademonstration. The ending rose like a question. Emmy laughed, helpless and quiet.
“Lume,” she repeated.
The creature trilled, delighted. Her star-silk tail, avelvet ribbon threaded with slow sparks, twined through Emmy’s hair as if laying claim.
Apex pushed to an elbow without the drag of pain. He tracked Emmy first, catalogued color in her mouth, calm along her throat, the way her chest climbed in a steady rhythm. He sethis palm over the sealed wound along his left ribs and pressed. No spike of sensation. No restriction. He rose to his feet with the economy of habit.
“You are all right?” he asked. His voice came rough from disuse. He watched her, not his wound. “You did not wake me.”
“You needed the cycle. Core said not to disturb you. Isat with you anyway and watched the seal knit along your left ribs.” She gave an awkward shrug, filled with a strange awareness. “It’s looking good so I’m guessing it’s better.”
The morning light cut a narrow bright path over him. Her gaze didn’t stray from it. The air between them charged as if the planet had increased the hum by a fraction. The Valenmark warmed to the samebeat.
“You are watching me,” he said, quiet and certain.
She didn’t pretend otherwise. “I didn’t want to miss it.”
“What?” His gaze held on her mouth, on the soft shine of her lower lip, on the small beat at her throat he wanted under his tongue. The Valenmark warmed as if it approved.
“The moment you came back to me.” Her voice was warm and a little hushed, gold as her eyes, and something inside him answered.
Focus tightened through him. The mark answered with a slow, deep pulse that tugged like tide through bone. He inclined his head once. Acknowledgment. Acceptance. The private relief that followed didn’t reach hisface.
The little creature peered around Emmy’s hair, curious. Apex measured wings, tail, the way she clung, the specific intelligence in her eyes, the low glow she made when Emmy said the name again.
“You kept it,” hesaid.
“Her.” Emmy stroked the tiny head with a careful fingertip. “She told me her name.”
“She told you.” The corner of his mouth shifted by half a degree. “Lume.”
The creature trilled at the resonance of his voice. Apex returned to what mattered. “You will keep her close. You will not let her wander. If she wanders, you will call for me.”
“You’re very sure she’s a menace.”
“I am very sure everything here may become one.” He rose to full height and the morning weighed him and found no weakness. Bruising gone. Edges clean. Weapon at rest. “We will repair the ship. Then we will leave.”
Duty said leave. The planet wouldn’t keep them. Voss would circle. The Council would come. He told the truth and watched the way her shoulders shifted, the small grief that didn’t quite reach her mouth. The Valenmark’s warmth on her wrist read as safety when she looked at it with him close. He filed that data since it mattered.
