Page 222 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

“Absolutely not.”

“But it may mean the ritual is not worthless because the cosmology was wrong.”

Anita’s smile is small and tremulous. “I think that’s true.”

I look at the blade again. “I can choose what it means now.”

“You can.”

“That feels arrogant.”

“It also feels like adulthood, unfortunately.”

A sound leaves me, almost a laugh. “Your species has strange definitions.”

“My species invented unpaid internships and called them opportunity, so I will not defend us too hard.”

I place the blade against the stone.

Old ritual would require a prayer. The words sit in memory with perfect clarity.

May my strength serve the Design.

May my wounds be counted.

May my dead be received.

May my path align with purpose.

I cannot say them.

Not honestly.

So I stand before the stone, Anita beside me, and make new words with an uncertain voice.

“May my strength serve what I choose with care,” I say.

Anita goes very still.

The smoke curls upward.

I continue, because stopping would be easier and therefore wrong. “May my wounds teach me restraint instead of bitterness. May my dead remain honored by memory, not used by doctrine. May my path be judged by the lives it protects, not the destiny it claims.”

The final word fades into the small chamber.

Nothing answers.

No divine force. No ancestral thunder. No Precursor light. No Echo leaning through reality to compliment local moral improvisation.

Yet Anita’s hand finds mine.

That answers enough.

She threads her fingers around my claws and holds gently, as if the ritual is made more complete by witness than by heaven. When I look at her, tears shine in her eyes, and she does not make a joke fast enough to hide them.

“You okay?” she asks.

“No.”