The nursery coordinate pulsed at the center of the projection. Nobody breathed for several seconds, as if the ship itself understood that one wrong sound might make the truth worse. Mae stared at the glowing point and felt the five heartbeats beyond reality answer in frightened rhythm. Darius had found the one place none of them could afford to let him touch. The map flickered once, then sharpened into a path that should not have existed.
Lucien moved first. His chains struck the navigation core and seized control of every possible route, rewriting the ship's jump sequence before the systems could reject the impossible destination. "He cannot reach the nursery directly," Lucien said, but the strain in his voice betrayed the limits of that comfort. "He has a coordinate, not an entry key." Sethis's shadows recoiled from the map as if the light had teeth. "Darius does not need the door if he can make the walls scream loud enough."
Ashar's fire dimmed into a hard, controlled glow. "Then we silence him before he touches the walls." Riven's wings flexed, the edges bright with stormlight. "That sounds inspiring until we remember he is ahead of us." Kaine stood at the back of the room, gold light moving under his skin like something trying to claw out. "He is not ahead," he said. "He is desperate."
Mae looked at him. "That does not make me feel better." Kaine did not flinch, though the old version of him might have sharpened his tongue in response. "It should not," he said. "Desperate men break sacred things because they would rather ruin them than admit they cannot own them." Mae hated how much truth sat inside that sentence. She hated even more that Kaine knew it because he had once been close enough to that kind of fear.
The ship lurched as Lucien forced the jump. Stars stretched into violet-white lines, and the entire hull groaned like it was being dragged through a wound in space. The projection collapsed, but the nursery pulse remained in Mae's chest, five heartbeats steady beneath thousands of newly awakened bloodlines. Every sound felt too close. Every breath felt borrowed.
Ashar came to her first, then stopped before touching her. "We will reach them," he said. His voice carried the same oath-like steadiness she had heard before, but now it landed differently. Mae wanted to believe him and hated that wanting felt like weakness. She nodded once because she did not trust her voice. Ashar accepted that small answer like it was enough.
Riven tried next, gentler than his usual smirk would have allowed. "I will check the outer hull and make sure this ship does not politely rip itself in half." Mae glanced at him, and for one second his almost-joke steadied something inside her. "That would be appreciated," she said. His wings shifted, and the corner of his mouth lifted with careful relief. Then he left before the moment could ask more of her.
Lucien remained only long enough to adjust the chains around the chamber. "I am securing the path," he said. "If the ship fractures during the jump, follow Sethis's shadows before following any light." Mae looked at him sharply, and he met her eyes without apology. "Light can be imitated in broken systems." His gaze shifted briefly toward the nursery pulse. "His shadows cannot be forged when they are protecting you by choice."
That left silence behind when Lucien went. Kaine stayed near the door, watching Mae with unreadable gold eyes. For once, he did not look like he wanted to speak, and that made him seem almost human. He looked toward Sethis, then back to Mae. "I will be near the engines," he said. "If Darius tries to break our route, I will make the damage useless to him."
Mae did not know what to say to that. Thank you felt too small and too intimate. Forgiveness was a country she had not even started walking toward. So she gave him truth instead. "Do not die for me again if I do not remember the first time."
Kaine's face changed. Pain moved through him, sudden and clean, but he did not use it against her. "I will try not to make you carry a debt you did not choose," he said. Then he turned and left the room before she could decide whether she was relieved. The door sealed behind him with a quiet sound that felt too final.
Sethis was the only one left. His shadows remained close to his feet, quiet and contained, even though she could feel them wanting to reach for her. He did not pretend he was calm. He looked like a man standing beside a door he had opened once and lost everything beyond. Mae folded her arms around herself and stared at the dead projection instead of his face.
"You can leave too," she said. Sethis did not move. "I can." His voice was soft, careful, and stripped of the usual blade. "But you asked once what remains if we remove fate from the room." Mae looked over at him despite herself. "I think this is the room."
The words settled between them. The ship trembled around them, but Sethis stayed still, giving her space and presence at the same time. Mae hated that he was good at that. She hated that some part of her relaxed because he was there. She hated that hate was becoming harder to hold.
"I do not remember loving you," she said. Sethis closed his eyes for a second like he had expected the words and still could not prepare for them. When he opened them, the pain was there, but he did not make it her responsibility. "I know," he said. Mae swallowed hard. "But everyone acts like I should feel guilty for not being her."
His expression sharpened. "No." The word came fast, fierce, and absolute. His shadows stirred, then stilled when he caught himself. "You owe us nothing for what another version of you survived." He took a slow breath. "And you owe me least of all."
Mae frowned. "Why least of all?" Sethis smiled faintly, but it was the kind of smile that existed because grief needed somewhere to sit. "Because I remember being loved by you." His voice thinned around the confession. "That is more than most gods ever deserved, and more than I had any right to keep after the reset."
The nursery pulse trembled inside Mae. She looked away because his honesty felt too bare to watch directly. "You make it sound like I was perfect." Sethis laughed softly, and the sound startled her because it was almost warm. "You were impossible, stubborn, reckless, violent when cornered, and terrifyingly bad at resting." His eyes softened. "You were not perfect."
Mae could not stop the small laugh that escaped her. It hurt her throat and loosened something in her chest at the same time. Sethis watched it happen like the sound mattered more than victory. The look made her nervous. "Then why did you love me?"
Sethis did not answer immediately. He glanced toward the window where stretched stars bled across the glass in broken lines. "Because when everyone else saw power, you kept asking who was bleeding underneath it." His hands curled loosely at his sides. "Because you never mistook my shadows for the worst part of me." He looked back at her. "Because you chose even when every system in existence tried to turn choice into obedience."
Mae's chest tightened. The answer did not feel like seduction, and somehow that made it more dangerous. It felt like testimony. Like he was not trying to make her love him. Like he was simply telling the truth and letting it stand where she could walk away from it.
"I do not know how to carry that," she whispered. Sethis nodded once. "Then do not carry it." The simplicity of his answer made her blink. "Set it down, Mae." His voice lowered. "If it becomes yours again, let it be because you picked it up, not because I put it in your hands."
The ship groaned louder. A warning light flashed across the wall, red and violent, then dissolved into static before any alarm could fully form. Mae reached instinctively for the console, but the nursery pulse pulled her attention inward. Five heartbeats shivered in fear. Darius was closer.
Sethis felt the shift too. His shadows rose, not around Mae this time, but toward the ceiling, tasting the damaged route ahead. "He is scraping the outer barrier." His jaw tightened. "Not inside, but near enough to make them feel him." Mae's hands began to glow. "Then we hurry."
She took one step toward the door, but the ship buckled hard. Mae pitched sideways, and Sethis caught her only after she grabbed his sleeve first. The distinction mattered so much it made her breath catch. His hands settled on her arms, steady and respectful, then loosened the moment she found her balance. Neither of them moved away.
For one suspended second, the war fell quiet around them. Mae saw him, not as a god, not as a lover from a stolen timeline, and not as the father of a child she could not remember. She saw a man who had every reason to beg her to become someone else and kept choosing not to. She saw the grief he swallowed to keep from drowning her with it. Something inside her answered before memory could interfere.
"I do not remember loving you," she said again. Sethis's gaze held hers, dark and aching. Mae's fingers tightened in his sleeve. "But I know I could." The words left her mouth before fear could kill them.
Sethis went perfectly still. His shadows froze midair, and every fragile thing in his face broke open at once. He did not kiss her. He did not reach for more. He simply bowed his head until his forehead almost touched hers, stopping just short of contact.
"Then I will wait for could," he whispered.
The ship ripped out of the jump before Mae could answer. Gravity vanished, then slammed back hard enough to throw them both against the wall. The window filled with impossible darkness, and beyond it floated the convergence nursery, vast, luminous, and surrounded by broken rings of stolen Council machinery. Five child-lights burned within its outer barrier, flickering against waves of blue-white interference. Darius had not entered.
But he had started cutting.