Page 66 of Silver Slayer

The absence hit like reaching for what should have been there and closing on air. Not grief, exactly. More physical than that. The body's stubborn insistence on a presence the mind already knew was gone. Every instinct I had kept orienting toward the empty space beside me, kept expecting the weight and warmth of him, and finding nothing.

Brooke’s voice echoed from earlier, bright and uncomplicated,We could still be in the hands of the Xegnot. I, for one, am happy to be here in one piece and unmolested.

Erin, pragmatic as always,I’ll take safe.

They were right. I would miss my family, and Terra Vitae and the work that had given my life shape when nothing else had.

But I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t buried in alien soil like Dana and Tessa. I wasn’t stranded on a planet that wanted to eat me, and I wasn’t being held captive by the Xegnot or anyone else. I was sitting in a cookery on a safe planet, eating food that tasted like home, surrounded by women who had survived the same nightmare and found a way to keep going.

The gratitude was real. So was the conflict twisting inside me. It felt as though accepting this place meant letting go of Earth... of my family... of everything I'd worked so hard to build. If I stopped clinging to the hope of going home, was I giving up?

I took another bite of the stew and tried to convince myself I wasn't already drifting away from the only world I'd ever known.

The conversation around me had settled into the easy rhythm of people sharing a meal. Elise signed something that made Amy laugh. Marie was in the middle of a story about Draggar learning to cook, and Sakkar sat with that carved-stone stillness of his, present but not quite participating. I was halfway through my bowl, letting the savory stew and the noise of the cookery blur together around me, when Bella leaned forward across the table.

Bella rested her forearms on the table and looked directly at Vala. The blunt curiosity written across her face told me she'd been working up the nerve to ask this question since he'd sat down.

“Vala,” she said, and her voice carried just enough to cut through the chatter. “Is it true? Is it really as dangerous as everyone says to go back to Earth?”

The table went quiet. Not all at once. Conversation died in stages, like lights switching off one by one. Marie set her spork down. Amy's smile faded. Elise's hands stilled in mid-sign. Even Sakkar, who always seemed to weigh every conversation before adding his own thoughts, looked up from his meal.

Vala set his own bowl down with a precision that suggested he had been expecting this. His reflective skin caught the cookery’s light in slow, shifting patterns, and his luminous eyes fixed on Bella with a calm that felt earned rather than practiced.

“Yes,” he said. The word hung in the air between us, simple and absolute. Then he continued, his voice dropping into that dry, measured cadence that made every syllable count. “I returned to the Yulineon Council and argued that your species washonorable. That you deserved protection, not extermination.” A pause. The corner of his mouth lifted in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “They called me a sympathizer. A traitor. I barely made it out of there with my life.”

No one moved. Around us the cookery went on as before, other tables bright with laughter and the clatter of bowls and the low murmur of a hundred conversations. Our table had gone silent.

“Universeval Rule still stands,” Vala continued. “Any human found off Earth is condemned to death.” He picked up his spork, examined it for a moment, then set it back down. "The Council believes your species is too primitive to be trusted with knowledge of the known universe.They believe ignorance is the only thing protecting your world... and the rest of the galaxy from your kind."

Bella stared at Vala for a long moment. The fire that usually danced in herwhiskey-colored eyeshad dimmed, leaving only stunned disbelief. She brushed a loose strand ofmahogany hairbehind one ear, released a slow breath, and leaned back against the bench.

"Well... crap."

Beside her, Holly lowered her eyes to the untouched stew before her. Herdark brown almond-shaped eyesfixed on the bowl while her fingers tightened around her spork until her knuckles whitened. Against her sun-kissed complexion, the sadness on her face was impossible to miss. She blinked several times, as though willing away tears she refused to let fall.

"So..." Holly whispered. "Now that the Moktian craft is no longer available, home isn't really an option anymore."

"No, I am afraid not." He looked from Holly to Bella before continuing. "The Moktian craft's cloaking system made it the only vessel capable of reaching Earth without being detected. TheStar Chaserpossesses no such cloaking tech, and it’s stolen, so they will be looking for it. Any ship approaching your world openly would be intercepted long before it reached the surface."

The hope went out of Holly’s face like a light.

The weight of Vala's words settled over the table like a gathering storm. Any attempt to reach Earth was gone the moment the Moktian craft crashed on the anomaly world.

I waited for the crushing despair I had imagined for so many weeks. For panic. For the desperate ache that had driven me since the day I woke on that impossible planet.

It never came. The realization unsettled me far more than Vala's words.

Only days ago, I would have given anything for another chance to return home. Now the thought that it might never happen hurt... but not in the all-consuming way I expected. The grief was softer somehow, tangled with emotions I wasn't ready to examine.

No one spoke for several long moments. The truth Vala had laid before us seemed to settle into each of us differently. Then, little by little, the heaviness began to lift. Someone at the far end of the table changed the subject. A quiet laugh answered. Bowls scraped softly against the tabletop as everyone returned to their meals, conversation finding its footing again one voice at a time.

Amy leaned toward Elise. “Where’s your mate tonight?”

Elise's expression brightened as her hands moved through a familiar series of signs,Vallon is with Vennox. They've been catching up since he returned.

The moment I saw Vennox's name spelled out, my pulse stumbled, then quickened. The familiar knot that had taken up residence beneath my sternum tightened until it ached. The sudden, overwhelming need to see him stole the breath from my lungs. I couldn't explain it, not to them, and certainly not to myself.

Before I could think better of it, my own hands were already moving.Do you know where they are right now?