Page 79 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

Ghar’s silence becomes heavy beside me.

I force myself not to look at him yet.

Sira nods faintly. “The phrase is broader, but yes. Bonded metaphysics, cross-species fertility, and soul-recognition systems are grouped with several cosmological legitimacy structures.”

Brakk rubs both hands over his face. “I understood almost none of that, and I still know it’s bad.”

“It means the people who buried this were worried that if civilizations learned their sacred bonds had older origins, social structures might fracture,” I say, translating too fast because if I slow down, I might feel the implications properly. “Religions, governments, family law, inheritance lines, species alliances, holy orders, temple economies, all of it. If the metaphysics of the galaxy were inherited from beings before the Precursors, then anyone claiming exclusive authority through Precursor doctrine loses leverage.”

Ghar’s voice comes low behind me. “Leverage.”

I turn then.

His face is carved from control, but his eyes betray him. I see the disturbance there before he hides it. Not mere theological discomfort. Something personal and older, tied to survival, war, and the stories soldiers tell themselves so they can keep breathing after impossible orders.

I regret the sharpness of my tone before I even speak. “I didn’t mean it that clinically.”

“You did.”

“Yes,” I admit. “But I didn’t mean to make it sound small.”

His gaze holds mine a moment longer before he looks away. “Nothing about this is small.”

The archive case suddenly emits a stronger pulse.

The platform beneath us answers.

A line of light ignites across the floor and runs forward, bridging empty air to one of the suspended rings below. A walkway forms piece by piece, its black plates sliding from invisible seams and locking together in silence. At the far end, a circular structure rises from the center of the ring, smooth and dark as still water under moonlight.

My fatigue disappears beneath a rush of fierce exhilaration.

“There,” I breathe.

Ghar sees my expression and steps in front of me before I can move. “No.”

I almost run into his chest. “Are you kidding me?”

“No.”

“That’s an archive node.”

“It may be a trap.”

“Everything here is a trap if you use a broad enough definition.”

“Then my definition is broad.”

I look around him toward the newly formed bridge. The node waits at the ring, untouched, intact, possibly older than the entire known mythological framework of the galaxy. The answer to everything may be sitting there in the open, and the man in front of me wants to pause because pausing is his native religion.

Guilt stirs underneath the frustration.

He looks exhausted too. He has fought, killed, carried me, dragged us through impossible terrain, and then had every belief from childhood sliced open by glowing dead languages. I know that. I do. But the node calls to every part of me that survived being dismissed, patronized, underfunded, and laughed at for chasing civilizations everyone else thought were mythological debris.

“I need to reach it,” I say, forcing my voice lower.

Ghar shakes his head once. “We need to assess the bridge, secure the approaches, and confirm the Choir has not found another entry.”

“If we wait, they may catch up before we learn how to use the nexus.”