Page 20 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

“Impossible,” I say automatically.

“You said that four times already.”

“That’s because it keeps deserving it.”

Sira tilts her head slightly. “The symbol layering resembles proto-origin structures.”

“That term barely means anything.”

“It means the language predates all known convergent linguistic branches.”

I cross my arms tightly. “Or it means we haven’t found the intermediary structure yet.”

“Perhaps.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

Sira’s luminous gaze drifts toward the floating translation sequence. CHILDREN SHAPED AFTER THE FIRST ARCHITECTS still glows faintly like a threat pretending to be grammar.

“The ruins may predate the Precursors themselves,” she says calmly.

The entire tent goes quiet.

Even Brakk stops rattling tools around long enough to stare at her.

Then Teren laughs too loudly. “Well. That’s horrifying.”

I point at Sira immediately. “No. Absolutely not. We are not jumping from incomplete syntax chains to cosmic revisionism because the ruins have good branding.”

Sira folds her hands together. “I did not say I was certain.”

“You implied it.”

“Yes.”

“That’s worse.”

Teren swivels in his chair toward me. “Counterpoint, Anita. What if the spooky murder architecture really is older than the galaxy’s favorite dead demigods?”

“It isn’t.”

“You sound emotionally invested in that answer.”

“I am intellectually invested in not sounding insane.”

Brakk grunts from beneath the equipment panel. “Too late. You crawled into a restricted ruin chamber with Security Mountain less than a day after arrival.”

Heat crawls up my neck. “That is not relevant.”

“Oh, it’s extremely relevant,” Teren says.

“It is structurally foundational to the gossip ecosystem,” Brakk adds.

I point at both of them. “Neither of you gets to speak for thirty seconds.”

Teren raises his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, the entire western terrace watched you and Ghar stare at each other like somebody detonated a romance novel inside a physics lab.”

Sira’s expression does not change, but one pale eyebrow lifts almost imperceptibly.