The Queen’s voice carried the cold finality of a death sentence. "You chose to hide him instead. If the Lumina family falls from grace, if the Tribunal comes down on us with charges of high treason, it will be entirely because of your sentimentality."

"House Lumina is facing no treason charges, and we won’t," Athea countered, her tone cutting and precise. "I have already factored the Tribunal’s parameters into my long-term plans. Zaeryn is not a liability. He is a male like no other."

Athena let out a harsh, dismissive sound. "He is a male. Fear is his only natural state, regardless of how well Ysmeine raised him to hide it."

"He is the only male in recorded history to ever wield Vitae," Athea said flatly.

The room went completely still. The Queen rose from her throne, her towering stature throwing a long, dark shadow across the dais as she stared down at Athea.

Her face was no longer just disappointed; it was tight with sudden, brewing fury.

"What kind of rogue biological experiment are you running behind my back, Athea?" Athena accused, her voice dropping into a dangerous, low rumble. "Wielding Vitae? A male? You have spent decades playing god in those capital laboratories, but to intentionally engineer a rule-breaking anomaly under our own roof... "

"I am running no experiment," Athea interrupted, her voice remaining perfectly steady, matching her mother’s intensity without backing down an inch. "I was just as shocked as you are when I heard that he is capable of wielding vitae. I am a strategist, mother, not a fool. I would never risk our house on a whim."

Athea finally smiled. Although it was the faintest movement at the edge of her lips, her ice-blue eyes locked onto the Queen’s.

"Not only is he completely healthy for a male, but his anomalous physiology has entirely bypassed the Fade virus. He is a Vitae-wielding male with a genetic structure that shouldn’t exist."

For the first time in the entire exchange, Athena did not answer immediately.

This entirely came as a shock to her. She did know about Zaeryn’s existence but she never knew this information.

Athea held her mother’s gaze, and she made the rest of the case in the same measured register she had used to deliver the reveal.

"For whatever reason. Whatever combination of accident and inheritance and the goddesses’ own intent, the result is in sector 7. A male who carries no Fade, no M degradation, and no instability."

★★★

Back in sector 7.

Zaeryn and Leia worked in silence for the next hour. Leia ran the console, opening file after file. Zaeryn read through them on the Omni-Pad. Field reports. Casualty lists. The official inquiry that had been filed three months after the attack.

The official inquiry was confident about what had happened. The defense grid had failed. Command had been too slow to send reinforcements. They had underestimated the size of the Vorthak swarm because their early scans were faulty. Mistakes had piled on top of each other and the Vorthak had walked through the gap.

The inquiry’s recommendation was clear. Better scanners. Faster communication. Train the next generation of officers not to make the same mistakes.

Zaeryn read it twice. Then he set the Omni-Pad down.

"This doesn’t add up," he said.

Leia looked up from her console. "Which part?"

"All of it."

She turned around.

"The inquiry says the breach happened because the defense system failed and the commanders were slow," he said. "But look at the timing. The Vorthak attacked at the exact moment the defense system was switching between two settings. That switch takes about four minutes. Every time. Same length, same timing, every single day."

"So?"

"So the Vorthak hit us in those exact four minutes. Either they got incredibly lucky. Or they already knew when the switch would happen and they were waiting for it."

Leia crossed her arms. "Or the attack started earlier than the reports say. I’m noticing that half the reports contradict each other."

"I read all of them. The disagreements are about how many people died and which units were where. The time of the attack is the same in every single report."

"That doesn’t make it accurate," Leia said. "Those reports were written by people who were in the middle of a battle. Half of them were dead by the end of the day. The rest were in shock."

"True," Zaeryn said. "But if every report has the timing wrong in exactly the same way, that’s strange in itself."

Leia turned back to the console. She started pulling up the records of the defense system itself, the logs that showed exactly when it had been switching settings that day. The logs were broken in places. Big chunks were missing. But enough of it had survived to read.

She did not speak for a while as she read through it. Zaeryn waited.

"The switching pattern is standard," she said finally. "It has been the same for decades. Anyone who could read our defense data would know when the switches happen."

"So you think the Vorthak knew."

"I’m saying it’s possible. But here is the part of your theory that doesn’t sit right with me. If the Vorthak’s know our switching schedule, why is this the only breach that happened during the switch? Most of the attacks in the records happen at random times. Some during full defenses. Some during quiet hours. If they’re patient enough to wait for the four-minute gap, why aren’t they waiting for it every single time?"

Zaeryn considered what she was saying for a second. She was making sense. However, he still wasn’t buying it.

"Because they’re not stupid," Zaeryn said.

Leia looked at him.

"If they used it every time, we would have noticed years ago. Someone in command would have pulled the switching logs against the attack timestamps and the pattern would have jumped off the screen. They use it once. We blame our commanders for the failure. We patch our procedures. We move on. The pattern stays buried because there is only one data point and one data point isn’t a pattern. It’s a bad day."

He waited to hear her argument. But she didn’t argue so he continued.

"They aren’t waiting for the four-minute gap every time. They’re waiting for the right four-minute gap. The kind where they actually get something out of using the advantage. Sector 7 was that. Orbital defense down, secondary line slow, a swarm size that could actually punch through if they timed it. They didn’t burn the advantage on a small skirmish. They saved it for a target worth burning it on."

Leia was quiet for a moment.

"You’re saying they have strategic restraint." She noted.

"They understand that the moment we figure out they know our schedule, the schedule changes. That’s worth more to them than any single attack. So they hold it. They use it once, on the breach that justifies using it, and the rest of the time they look like ordinary swarms hitting at ordinary moments."

"That’s a significant claim. And I think you might be into something." She said, her expression softened for the first time Zaeryn had been in her presence, "When did you come up with this? Just now?"

"Yes, just now." Zaeryn responded.

Leia didn’t say anything. But she was a little taken aback. This was smart from Zaeryn and she didn’t expect it from him. "You’re saying the Vorthak are not just adaptive. You’re saying they’re disciplined."

"Yes."

"The Citadel has never assessed them that way."

"I know that too."

Leia looked at the screen for a long moment. "We need more," she said eventually. "One breach is not going to tell us anything. If your theory is right, the timing pattern should only show up in the worst breaches. The ones where the Vorthak got the most out of using it. If we look at every major breach in the last twenty years and the switching window keeps coming up only in the catastrophic ones, your theory gets stronger. If it shows up randomly, it falls apart. If it never shows up again, it was a coincidence."

"That’s fair." Zaeryn said.

"I know it’s fair." She responded.

She stood up.

Zaeryn looked at her. "Where are you going?"

"Getting something to drink." She replied.

She did not wait for a reply. She walked out and the door slid shut behind her.

Zaeryn exhaled. He looked at the screen, then at the Omni-Pad in his lap, then at the floor.

He set the Omni-Pad on the seat beside him, slid down off the chair, and stretched out on the thick rug that covered most of the lounge. There were throw pillows scattered along its edge. He pulled one under his head and lay there for a moment, eyes on the ceiling, listening to the quiet hum of the console behind him.

The door opened. Someone walked in and it wasn’t Leia.