The Last Silver

Preparations filled the next several days.

The damaged ships received priority at the docks. Supplies moved between vessels in a seemingly endless stream. Julius and Cleopatra worked through population manifests while Alexander and Gilgamesh argued over escort formations.

Johanna organized medical stores.

Arcturus rebuilt the fleet’s departure plan twice.

Asha and Eve divided their time between planetary surveys and the Questioner, sleeping whenever someone successfully bullied them into it.

The First Weapon spent hours studying the encounter recordings.

When Dinraal asked whether anything had become clear, the answer was brief.

“Clear enough to keep looking.”

Tiamat joined the research sessions when she could bear them.

Nobody pressed her when she left.

By the time the expedition was ready, they had identified several old reports worth investigating: lost survey vessels, unexplained failures across isolated instruments, a fragmentary account of a region where stars appeared to vanish.

None proved a connection.

All traveled with them.

They would scout the new system with construction crews and enough equipment to establish a foothold. The wider relocation would wait for their findings.

It was a sensible plan.

Dinraal still spent their last evening at the colony checking the passenger lists.

Isolde found him halfway through the same page for the third time.

“You’ve read that already.”

“Have I?”

“Yes.”

She took the tablet.

He considered protesting.

Then she sat beside him, and he decided against it.

For a while, they watched the activity beyond the observation glass.

A cargo tug drifted past carrying sections of a prefabricated habitat.

Isolde rested her head against his shoulder.

“I don’t want to wait anymore.”

Dinraal turned toward her.

“For what?”

She raised her head.

“To marry you.”

The question he had been about to ask disappeared.

“Oh.”

Her mouth curved.

“That is a remarkably unimpressive response.”

“I had something better planned.”

“Did it involve standing there looking frightened?”

“A little.”

She laughed, and the sound loosened something inside him.

Then her expression grew quiet.

“We keep talking about it as something we’ll do when everything settles.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think everything is going to settle.”

He looked down at their joined hands.

“No.”

“I still want it.”

“So do I.”

“A little ceremony,” she said. “With our people. We don’t need a hall full of strangers.”

“Or speeches.”

“A few speeches.”

“Brief speeches.”

“I’ll negotiate.”

He brushed his thumb over her knuckles.

“On the way?”

She nodded.

“On the way.”

Dinraal leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers.

“I would like that very much.”

Rhiannon received the news in silence.

It lasted just long enough for Dinraal to become concerned.

Then she stood.

“Tiamat.”

His sister looked up from the other end of the mess table.

“What?”

“They’re getting married.”

Tiamat stared at them.

Isolde lifted their joined hands a little.

“We thought something small.”

“Yes,” Rhiannon said immediately.

“Just the group,” Dinraal added.

“Of course.”

“No enormous arrangements.”

“Certainly.”

Tiamat was already smiling.

Dinraal looked between them.

“You’re agreeing very quickly.”

“Because we’re being supportive,” his sister said.

Rhiannon took Tiamat by the wrist.

“We need to speak.”

“That is exactly what worries me.”

Neither woman listened.

They had reached the doorway before Isolde called after them.

“Small.”

Rhiannon turned, her expression suddenly tender.

“We heard you.”

Tiamat nodded.

“Let us do this for you.”

Dinraal felt his objection fade.

Beside him, Isolde squeezed his hand.

“All right,” she said.

They departed the next morning.

The Imperial colony diminished behind them as the expedition formed up for transit.

Ahead lay a world none of them had touched.

Behind lay unfinished repairs, people who hoped to follow, and archives still being searched for a creature that had swallowed the stars.

Dinraal watched the colony until the fleet jumped.

Then he went to find somewhere he could be useful.

Rhiannon intercepted him outside the observation lounge.

“Not here.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were about to come in.”

“It’s a lounge.”

“Currently, it’s a wedding venue.”

He peered past her.

Tiamat stood on a chair, fixing pale fabric along the upper edge of a window. Aramaeis held the chair steady despite her repeated insistence that she could survive falling from it.

Johanna sorted small lights across a table.

There were flowers.

Dinraal blinked.

“Where did those come from?”

“Hydroponics,” Rhiannon said.

“Are they supposed to be growing food?”

“They are growing food. These were already flowers.”

From inside, Tiamat looked over.

“Stop interrogating the decorations.”

“I was only asking.”

“Go away affectionately.”

Rhiannon shut the door.

Dinraal stood in the corridor for a moment.

Then he laughed.

Aurelius found him later in a smaller observation compartment.

There were no flowers there.

Only two seats, a low table, and the muted glow of transit beyond the glass.

“I’ve been informed that you’re forbidden from entering the forward lounge,” Aurelius said.

“Apparently I’m a threat to ribbon.”

“That sounds serious.”

Dinraal smiled.

Aurelius sat beside him.

For a while, neither spoke.

Then the older man said, “Bahamut would have been very proud of you.”

Dinraal’s smile faded.

He looked down at his right hand.

The silver had withdrawn to the familiar gauntlet.

“I wish I knew what to say when you tell me things like that.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

Dinraal swallowed.

Beyond the glass, light slipped across the darkness.

“I ran.”

Aurelius turned toward him.

“From the Questioner.”

“Yes.”

“You brought the fleet away alive.”

“I don’t know how to stop it.”

“No.”

“I don’t even know what it is.”

“Neither do I.”

Dinraal gave a small, humorless breath.

“Not especially reassuring.”

“I’m not going to reassure you with something untrue.”

That drew his gaze.

Aurelius rested his forearms on his knees.

“Your father knew there were things he could not fix by being stronger. Things he could not survive by refusing to yield.” His voice lowered. “When it mattered most, he chose to give you a chance.”

Dinraal’s throat tightened.

“He wanted his son to live,” Aurelius continued. “I remember that. Whenever I wonder what he would think of the man sitting beside me, I begin there.”

For several moments, Dinraal could not answer.

Then he said, “Sometimes it feels as though I should be doing more with what he gave me.”

“You are building somewhere for people to live.”

“We haven’t built it yet.”

“You went back for eight hundred people while something neither of us understands was coming toward you.”

“Isolde went with me.”

“Yes. She usually does.”

A faint smile touched Aurelius’s face.

“And now you’re marrying her.”

Dinraal looked toward the closed door.

“I wish he could be here.”

“So do I.”

The simple agreement hurt more than comfort would have.

Dinraal pressed his lips together.

Aurelius waited.

“He gave me my name,” Dinraal said at last.

“Yes.”

“And you gave me another.”

“Caelum.”

Aurelius spoke it quietly.

Dinraal remembered what it meant to him. The life attached to it. The promise that he could belong somewhere.

“I used to worry,” he admitted, “that loving you as my father meant I was taking something from him.”

Aurelius’s expression changed.

“Oh, my boy.”

He moved closer and placed a hand at the back of Dinraal’s neck.

“You have never taken anything from him by being loved.”

Dinraal’s breath caught.

For a moment, he tried to hold himself still.

Then Aurelius drew him in, and he stopped trying.

He gripped the older man’s coat with his unarmored hand.

Aurelius held him without speaking.

When Dinraal finally leaned back, he wiped his face with visible irritation.

“Rhiannon will know.”

“Yes.”

“Tiamat too.”

“Almost certainly.”

“They’ll be unbearable.”

“They love you. It comes with complications.”

Dinraal laughed shakily.

Then he looked at Aurelius.

“Will you stand with me?”

The older man’s eyes shone.

“At the ceremony?”

Dinraal nodded.

“I would be honored.”

Isolde found them a little later.

She took one look at Dinraal, then at Aurelius, and asked no questions.

Instead, she crossed the room and offered Dinraal her hand.

“They want us.”

“Have they finished?”

“Apparently they need our opinions.”

“That sounds suspicious.”

“It does.”

Aurelius stood with them.

At the forward lounge, Tiamat opened the door before they could knock.

Her eyes flickered over Dinraal’s face.

For once, she said nothing.

She simply reached out, squeezed his arm, and stepped aside.

The room was still recognizably theirs.

The same wide windows. The same scuffed floor. The same chairs, now arranged in a small semicircle.

Pale fabric framed the glass. Flowers stood in borrowed containers, and warm lights softened the room’s edges.

There was space at the front for two people.

Only two.

Rhiannon watched Isolde carefully.

“Well?”

Isolde’s fingers tightened around Dinraal’s.

“It’s perfect.”

Rhiannon exhaled.

Tiamat looked suspiciously pleased with herself.

Dinraal glanced around the little room, imagining the chairs occupied. Their friends. His sister. Her brother. Aurelius waiting beside him.

Isolde walking toward him.

Beyond the windows, the fleet traveled toward the system that might become their home.

For now, there was this room.

There were people outside it arguing over who had misplaced the remaining lights.

There was Isolde, smiling up at him.

“Tomorrow?” she asked quietly.

Dinraal lifted her hand and kissed it.

“Tomorrow.”