Chapter 100: A Door We Hadn’t Seen

Isolde woke because Dinraal was whispering.

For a moment, she thought he was speaking to her.

Then she opened her eyes and found him standing beside the bedroom door, one boot on, the other in his hand.

“No,” he whispered.

A pause.

“You cannot possibly be comfortable there.”

Another pause.

The First Weapon lay across the threshold.

He had chosen the spot sometime during the night and now occupied it with the confidence of something considerably older than the house.

Dinraal looked down at him.

“I need to get through.”

The First Weapon opened one eye.

Isolde pulled the blanket over her mouth.

Dinraal glanced back.

“You’re awake.”

“Apparently.”

“I was trying not to disturb you.”

“How’s that going?”

He looked toward the doorway again.

The First Weapon closed his eye.

Isolde laughed.

The sound made Dinraal’s expression soften. He abandoned the attempt to negotiate and came back to the bed, sitting carefully on the edge.

“Good morning.”

She reached for his hand.

“Where are you going?”

“The second shelter. Halen wants help with the outer door.”

“Before breakfast?”

“It’s sticking.”

“So are you.”

He looked at his single boot.

Then at her.

“Yes.”

She drew him down until his forehead rested against hers.

For a little while, they stayed that way.

Their decision at Johanna’s clinic had changed surprisingly little about the mornings. There was still laundry to do. Dinraal still misplaced things he was holding. Isolde still woke before him some days and lay listening to the house.

They had agreed to try for a child.

That did not mean every hour had become a question waiting for an answer.

She was grateful for that.

Outside, a cart rattled toward the workshop. Someone called to the driver. A door closed farther down the road.

Dinraal kissed her.

“I can make breakfast.”

“That would be lovely.”

He rose and returned to the threshold.

The First Weapon remained where he was.

Dinraal considered him.

Then he stepped over.

The creature lifted his head at exactly the wrong moment.

Dinraal caught the door frame, lost his remaining boot, and somehow managed to stay upright.

Isolde sat up, laughing helplessly.

From the corridor, Aurelius called, “Is everyone alive?”

“For now,” Dinraal answered.

“Good. I’ve put the kettle on.”

The second shelter smelled of fresh wood and cold stone.

Its main room opened beneath the rise above the workshop quarter. The excavation had taken longer than anyone wanted, partly because the first survey missed a seam that carried water after heavy rain.

Meret had found it.

Halen had sworn at it.

Then they had changed the drainage, reinforced the affected section, and kept working.

Now the floor was dry.

Dinraal ran his hand over the outer door while Halen watched.

“Top corner.”

“I can see that.”

“It was fine yesterday.”

“The hinge has settled.”

“Which it should not have done.”

Dinraal crouched to inspect the lower fixing.

“Did you hang it before the frame bolts were tightened?”

Halen said nothing.

Dinraal looked up.

“Ah.”

“I was interrupted.”

“By?”

“Someone asking whether the outside bench could be moved because the afternoon sun was in her eyes.”

“Adela?”

Halen gave him a look.

Dinraal smiled and reached for the spanner.

The repair took twenty minutes.

By then, Isolde had arrived with the household lists, Tiamat with the volunteer rota, and Rhiannon with enough food to suggest she expected the shelter to be occupied indefinitely.

“We’re staying one night,” Isolde reminded her.

“Yes.”

“There are kitchens within walking distance.”

“Yes.”

Rhiannon placed another basket on the table.

“People get hungry at night.”

Dinraal glanced inside.

“Is that a cake?”

“It’s bread.”

“With icing?”

“A variation.”

Tiamat laughed and took the basket before anyone could argue.

The overnight visit had been Isolde’s suggestion.

They had practiced reaching the shelters, checking names, finding the medical corner, and leaving through the alternate exit. They had timed the routes in rain and dry weather. They knew where the lamps were and how the ventilation sounded.

But most people had never tried sleeping there.

Eline had asked what happened when the lights dimmed.

Another resident wanted to know whether his wife’s chair would fit beside a bed without blocking the passage.

A child had asked whether anyone would be allowed to talk after bedtime.

Those were questions a quick practice could not answer.

So tonight, a small group would stay.

No alarm. No hurried arrival. Anyone could go home whenever they wanted.

Dinraal would take the first watch with Isolde.

He had expected her to put herself on the household team.

Instead, she had written her name beside his.

When he asked why, she said, “Because I want to know what this place feels like when everyone else is asleep.”

He understood that.

There were things a building only told you at night.

The morning exchange from Avalon arrived while they were testing the lamps.

Dinraal left the ladder leaning against the wall and went with Isolde to the relay room.

The reports had become familiar in their order.

A world named.

A reason to go quickly.

The people who crossed.

The people who needed more time.

Kessen had come through, eight hundred thousand in a day.

Lir-Anwe required a different kind of rescue, far beneath the water, with help from those who could reach its people.

Greyfold had brought dogs.

Asha stopped on that detail.

“How many?”

Eve checked.

“Eleven thousand.”

Dinraal looked at Isolde.

She was smiling.

“Don’t,” he said.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You’re thinking it.”

“I’m thinking our friend would enjoy visitors.”

“He already considers every doorway in Hearth his property.”

“Then he’ll have to learn to share.”

The First Weapon lay beneath the relay table, apparently unmoved by the prospect of competition.

Eve continued.

Some councils had refused.

Others had asked to wait.

Avalon had left a way open where it could, with someone standing beside it.

Dinraal listened closely to that part.

He still thought about Orrin’s fountain.

The report did not make those decisions easier. It gave them names and places instead of leaving them as an argument in his head.

“Twelve worlds brought home during this period,” Eve said. “Forty-nine remain on their list.”

Arcturus appeared on the wall display.

“Any change in the enemy movements?”

“The distant activity remains reduced. They’re continuing to watch.”

“Reduced isn’t absent.”

“No.”

Dinraal looked toward the household notice beside the receiver.

A hand-drawn flower marked the corner. Nessa had sent it over with a child who wanted to know whether messages could travel farther than ships.

“What about Andraste?” Isolde asked.

Eve’s expression softened.

“Still waiting.”

“She’s all right?”

“The family report says she is being watched closely. Nothing more detailed.”

Isolde nodded.

She did not ask for numbers.

They had learned enough to know that another family’s calendar would not explain theirs.

On the walk back, Dinraal took her hand.

“You’re quiet.”

“So are you.”

“I was thinking about all those dogs.”

She looked at him.

He smiled faintly.

“All right. I was thinking about the children.”

“Ours?”

“The possibility.”

She leaned against his arm as they walked.

“We don’t have to work it out from someone else’s life.”

“I know.”

“And if you start watching me every time I put down a cup, I’ll make you wash all of them.”

“I already wash most of them.”

“Then I’ll borrow more.”

He laughed.

At the shelter entrance, she stopped him with a hand against his chest.

“We can want this without being frightened of every ordinary day.”

He covered her hand with his.

“I’m trying.”

“I know.”

Then she kissed him and went inside to discover why someone had put the blankets in the cupboard intended for medical supplies.

The first residents arrived before sunset.

They brought much more than blankets.

One man carried a pillow he said had followed him through three ships and two temporary homes. A woman brought knitting. Adela arrived with a covered dish and announced that the shelter’s cups were too small.

Eline came last.

She paused outside the entrance.

Isolde saw her from the receiving table and went to meet her.

“You can look around first.”

“I know.”

“We’ve put your bed near the side passage.”

Eline nodded.

Her hands were empty.

“Did you bring anything?”

“At home.”

“All right.”

For several moments, they stood together.

From inside came the clatter of bowls and Gilgamesh asking whether the bread was being rationed.

Eline glanced toward the sound.

“Is he staying?”

“Only until someone stops feeding him.”

That earned a small smile.

Isolde waited.

Finally, Eline stepped across the threshold.

Dinraal watched from the far side of the room while pretending to adjust a lamp.

Isolde caught his eye and gave the slightest nod.

He turned back to the bracket.

A few minutes later, Mira arrived with Lethan, carrying her wooden ship under one arm.

“This isn’t a toy inspection,” Dinraal told her.

“I know.”

“Then why does that have a blanket?”

“It’s sleeping here.”

He considered the ship.

“That seems reasonable.”

Lethan thanked him with a tired smile and helped Mira choose a bed.

The room filled slowly.

People tried the chairs. They asked where things were. Someone moved a stool, discovered it blocked the passage, and moved it back.

Teren came through the alternate entrance.

He stopped beside Isolde.

“The outside lamp shines directly into your eyes when you come up.”

She took out her pencil.

“We’ll change the angle.”

“The handrail is good.”

“I’ll tell Halen.”

Teren looked around the room.

Then he chose a chair from which he could see both exits.

Dinraal recognized the choice.

He left him to it.

By the time supper was served, the shelter had become noisy enough that the ventilation seemed almost quiet.

Rhiannon ladled food.

Tiamat settled a dispute over blankets.

Aurelius read the beginning of a story to three children who interrupted so often that he had scarcely reached the second page when the bowls arrived.

Isolde sat beside Dinraal at the end of a long table.

He handed her bread.

She handed half of it back.

Across the room, Eline accepted a cup from Adela.

Dinraal let himself breathe.

The trouble with the lamps began after supper.

One was too bright.

Another cast a long shadow across the side passage.

A third made a faint, persistent humming sound that nobody had noticed while people were talking.

Once someone mentioned it, everyone could hear it.

Dinraal stood beneath it with a screwdriver.

“Better?”

“No,” said six people.

He adjusted the housing.

“Now?”

A pause.

“Worse,” Adela said.

Isolde covered her mouth.

Dinraal looked down at her.

“You could help.”

“I am helping. I’m recording the complaints.”

“Thoroughly, I hope.”

“Very.”

He replaced the lamp.

The new one stayed quiet.

The room applauded with sufficient enthusiasm to embarrass him.

He climbed down.

Isolde offered him a cup of tea.

“A remarkable victory.”

“I expect a plaque.”

“We’ll put it beside the troublesome cupboard.”

As the evening wore on, they discovered smaller things.

The water tap was difficult to turn for someone with stiff fingers.

The last row of beds needed hooks for clothing.

The screen around the medical space rattled whenever someone passed too close.

Nobody wanted the room completely dark.

That last decision took longest.

Some needed light to know where the exits were. Others could not sleep with it on their faces. A boy said the dim red marker reminded him of an alarm on his old ship and asked whether it could be another color.

Dinraal listened.

Then he moved the light behind a shield and changed the marker.

There was no need to make the boy explain more.

Later, Eline asked Isolde to walk the alternate route with her.

They went up the gently rising passage and out into the cold.

The sky had cleared.

Above the workshop roofs, stars shone between thin bands of cloud.

Eline took a long breath.

“I might go home.”

“You can.”

“Would that spoil the test?”

“No.”

The woman looked back at the doorway.

“I thought I could stay.”

“You’ve stayed for hours.”

“I meant all night.”

Isolde rested her hand on the rail.

“You can try again another time.”

Eline considered that.

Then she said, “Could we stay here a little first?”

So they stood outside together.

Inside, Dinraal moved a stack of folded blankets away from the bed Eline had chosen, giving her a clearer view of the passage.

When she returned, she noticed.

She sat down without saying anything.

An hour later, she was asleep.

Dinraal found Isolde at the side entrance near midnight.

The room behind them had settled into the awkward quiet of people sleeping in an unfamiliar place.

Someone snored.

A child murmured.

Aurelius had gone home after the story, leaving his book with Isolde in case anyone wanted the ending.

Dinraal carried two cups.

She accepted one and made room on the bench.

“How many awake?” she asked.

“Three that I know of. Teren says he’s resting his eyes, which appears to mean inspecting the door hinges.”

“Let him.”

“I did.”

They sat with the door partly open behind them.

Warm air escaped around their shoulders.

Below, Hearth’s lamps marked the roads. Their own house was hidden beyond the workshop, but Dinraal could see the turn that led to it.

Isolde followed his gaze.

“You’re thinking about home.”

“Yes.”

“So am I.”

He looked at her.

She turned the cup between her hands.

“Not in a bad way.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“I used to feel as though leaving a place made it disappear. Rooms on ships. Quarters we knew we’d lose. Even when everything was still there, I never quite trusted it.”

Dinraal nodded.

She leaned back against the wall.

“Now I know where the cups are.”

He smiled.

“Usually.”

“And my book.”

“And your boots in the middle of the bedroom.”

“They’re beside the bed.”

“On my side.”

“You have longer arms.”

He laughed quietly.

Isolde rested her head against his shoulder.

For a while, they watched the sky.

Then Dinraal felt something move through the silver.

His cup stopped halfway to the bench.

Isolde lifted her head.

“Did you—”

“Yes.”

It lasted no longer than a breath.

There was no pressure against his thoughts. No terrible weight gathering behind the stars. No sense of something reaching into him and searching for a weakness.

Instead, he felt an opening.

That was the only word he could find.

Somewhere beyond anything he could place, something that had seemed solid simply was not closed anymore.

A distance became possible.

And through it—

He could not say.

A sound, perhaps.

Too faint to hear.

Too brief to follow.

Beside him, Isolde’s bracelet had spread into a narrow line across the back of her hand.

Then it withdrew.

The feeling vanished.

The night remained.

The workshop lamps still burned. A loose strip of fabric near the entrance moved in the breeze.

Dinraal set down his cup.

Isolde was already looking at him.

“What was that?”

“I don’t know.”

They waited.

Nothing returned.

Inside the shelter, the First Weapon lifted his head.

He looked toward the open door, then past them into the darkness.

Dinraal watched him.

The creature remained still for several seconds.

Then he lowered his head onto his forelegs.

Isolde exhaled.

Dinraal reached for his communicator.

Eve answered on the third signal.

“Tell me.”

“Something in the silver,” Dinraal said. “Just now. Isolde felt it too.”

Eve did not ask whether he was certain.

“How long?”

“A breath.”

“What kind of sensation?”

He looked at Isolde.

She answered before he could.

“Like a door opening somewhere we hadn’t known there was a door.”

A pause.

Then Eve said, “Are you in pain?”

“No.”

“Any pressure? Confusion?”

“No.”

“Still happening?”

“It stopped.”

“All right. Stay where you are for a moment. I’m checking the relay.”

Dinraal looked back into the shelter.

The residents were still asleep.

Teren had opened his eyes.

He watched Dinraal without asking.

Isolde rose and stepped just inside.

“Nothing you need to do,” she said quietly.

Teren studied her face.

Then he nodded.

Dinraal contacted Arcturus.

The fleet had detected no approaching ship. No new contact in the system. The reference stations were reporting within their usual tolerances.

Arcturus’s voice stayed level.

“Do you want the watch increased?”

“Check the existing reports first.”

“Already doing it.”

Dinraal looked at the stars again.

He did not want to dismiss what had happened.

He also did not want every sleeping person below them dragged out of bed because he lacked a name for a feeling.

Isolde returned to his side.

“Let’s write it down separately.”

He looked at her.

“Before we decide we felt exactly the same thing.”

It was a good suggestion.

He took the small slate from his coat.

She used the back of the overnight checklist.

They stood apart while they wrote.

When they compared their accounts, the differences were small but useful.

Dinraal had felt distance.

Isolde had felt a boundary give way.

He had reached for the word singing and then crossed it out because he had not actually heard a voice.

She had written something on the other side, followed by a question mark.

Both had written that it was brief.

Neither had written danger.

Dinraal read her page twice.

“You weren’t frightened.”

“Afterward, a little.”

“Because we don’t know?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

That was what he felt too.

Eve called back.

“No outgoing transmission from us at that time. No scheduled exchange. I’ve preserved the receiver record.”

“Anything on it?”

“Nothing I can honestly identify yet.”

Isolde touched Dinraal’s wrist.

He looked at the silver.

It lay still.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll send you our accounts.”

“And then stay with the people you’re watching,” Eve said. “I’ll call if there’s anything else.”

He thanked her.

When the call ended, Isolde picked up their cups.

The tea had gone cold.

They drank it anyway.

They did not sleep much before dawn.

That had been true before the strange moment.

The shelter still needed watching.

A man woke disoriented and had to be shown the way to the washroom. Mira sat up convinced that she had lost her ship, although it was beneath her blanket. Eline asked once whether the side door was still unlocked.

Isolde walked with her to check.

By morning, the list of changes covered both sides of the paper.

Dinraal had added one item in the margin.

Bench outside side entrance needs a back.

Isolde read it.

“Very practical.”

“My shoulders disagree with the wall.”

“Mine too.”

Tiamat arrived to relieve them carrying breakfast and an expression that warned Dinraal against claiming he was not tired.

She glanced at the checklist.

“Anything urgent?”

“A loose screen fitting. One lamp to reposition. More hooks.”

“And?”

Dinraal knew what she meant.

Eve had briefed her before she came.

“We still don’t know.”

Tiamat studied both of them.

“Then you won’t discover it by standing here until you fall over.”

“We have the exchange at the hour,” Isolde said.

“You have time to eat.”

They ate.

The residents began waking around them.

Adela complained about the cups again.

Teren said the alternate passage needed a small shelf where someone could put down a bag before opening the door.

The man whose wife used a chair showed Halen where the bed spacing had become awkward.

Eline came to Isolde with her blanket folded over one arm.

“I stayed.”

Isolde smiled.

“Yes.”

“I woke up twice.”

“So did almost everyone.”

The woman looked toward her bed.

“Could I use that place if we needed to come again?”

“We’ll put it on the plan.”

Eline nodded, relieved.

Dinraal watched her leave through the entrance she had been afraid to cross.

Then he helped carry the breakfast bowls to the washing station.

The world had not changed its demands because something distant had opened for a heartbeat.

People still needed hooks.

He found that comforting.

Dot’s question came through at the hour.

Had Hearth sung anything toward Avalon during the night?

Eve read it aloud.

Dinraal and Isolde looked at each other.

Asha stopped moving.

“No,” Dinraal said.

Eve began the reply, then looked up.

“Tell it yourselves.”

They stood beside the receiver together.

Isolde spoke first.

“We didn’t send anything. Dinraal and I were at the shelter when it happened.”

Dinraal added the time from his slate.

Then he described the opening.

He used the words they had written before hearing from Avalon.

A long way off.

One breath.

A door they had not known was there.

Isolde rested her fingertips against the table.

“We felt it in the silver. There wasn’t anything visible.”

Eve watched the reply form.

The acknowledgment came slowly enough that Dinraal could hear the room’s ventilation between the faint sounds from the equipment.

Dot had felt it too.

So had others.

On a ridge.

At a birth.

Isolde drew in a sharp breath.

“Andraste?”

Eve read ahead.

Then she smiled.

“The baby’s here.”

Dinraal turned toward his wife.

Her whole expression changed.

For a moment, the mystery simply made room for something else.

“A girl?” she asked.

“Yes. Vessa.”

Dinraal repeated the name quietly.

Eve continued through the short family message.

Andraste and the child were resting.

The birth had been on Hyrran.

Those present had felt something far beyond the familiar reaches, something they could not identify.

They had wondered whether it came from Hearth.

Dinraal looked down at his hand.

It would have been easy to mistake distance for an answer.

To hear that they had felt it too and decide they must therefore understand what it meant.

He was grateful Dot had asked.

“No,” he said again. “It wasn’t us.”

Asha leaned toward the receiver.

“Do they have any bearing? Any repeat?”

“Nothing confirmed.”

Isolde was still looking at the baby’s name.

Then she turned toward Dinraal.

“There’s one thing we should say.”

He knew.

He had hesitated because he could not prove it with a station reading.

But it belonged in the account of what they had felt.

“Whatever it was,” he said, “it wasn’t hungry.”

Eve looked at him carefully.

“You’re describing the feeling.”

“Yes.”

Isolde nodded.

“No reaching for us. No taking. I don’t know how else to put it.”

Eve included the distinction.

Then they waited while the reply went out.

Dinraal stood close enough to Isolde that her shoulder touched his arm.

Somewhere beyond their sky, Lucas and Andraste had a daughter.

Somewhere farther still, something had sung.

For now, those were the things they knew.

Asha wanted to examine everything.

Dinraal understood the impulse.

She arrived at the shelter after breakfast with two instruments, a tablet, and a coat she had put on inside out.

Isolde pointed it out.

Asha looked down.

“Oh.”

She corrected it without slowing.

“Where were you sitting?”

They showed her.

She measured the doorway, the bench, the nearest wall.

Then she stopped.

Dinraal watched her expression change.

“You think that’s unnecessary.”

“I think the bench is unlikely to explain an event also felt on another world.”

Asha lowered the instrument.

“Yes.”

Isolde smiled gently.

“You can measure it if it helps you think.”

“It won’t.”

She sat down.

For a while, the three of them looked out over Hearth.

Workers were arriving at the workshop. Children crossed the yard toward the school. Someone had hung washing beside Eline’s house.

Asha turned the tablet in her hands.

“I’d like there to be something we can follow.”

“So would I,” Dinraal said.

“Not necessarily go after. Just follow enough to understand.”

He nodded.

She opened the account Eve had compiled.

Dinraal and Isolde’s observations appeared separately.

The station reports followed.

Then the confirmation from Avalon.

The blank space beneath them looked larger than the rest.

“Leave it,” Isolde said.

Asha looked at her.

“The blank.”

“I wasn’t going to fill it.”

“You were thinking about it.”

Asha gave a reluctant smile.

“Possibly.”

Dinraal leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“We can keep listening.”

“Yes.”

“Without pretending this tells us where to fly.”

Asha nodded.

She made one final note.

No route established.

No repetition.

Then she closed the tablet.

Below them, the First Weapon emerged from the shelter carrying Mira’s wooden ship in his mouth.

Isolde stood.

“Oh, no.”

He looked at her.

The ship remained firmly held.

“That isn’t yours.”

He took one step downhill.

Dinraal rose.

The First Weapon began to trot.

Asha laughed so abruptly that she nearly dropped the tablet.

By the time Dinraal recovered the ship, two flags were missing and the deck was wet.

Mira inspected it with grave concern.

“Storm damage,” she decided.

Dinraal nodded.

“Severe.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Yes.”

She handed it back.

Asha watched him sit on the step with the ship across his knees and silver gathering into a tiny brace beneath a broken rail.

For the first time since the message arrived, she put her tablet away.

They sent their congratulations after lunch.

Isolde insisted they be separate from the observation record.

“Vessa deserves a message that isn’t about measurements.”

Dinraal agreed.

They sat at the kitchen table while Aurelius prepared tea.

He had heard the news from Tiamat, who had heard it from Eve, and had arrived carrying a small cloth bundle.

“What’s that?” Isolde asked.

“A book.”

“For a newborn?”

“For whoever eventually reads to her.”

He unwrapped it.

The cover was worn, but Sella had repaired the binding. Inside were pictures of animals, trees, ships, and houses.

Dinraal recognized it from the school.

“The children like that one.”

“I know.”

Aurelius turned to a page showing a crowded kitchen.

Someone had drawn a small creature beneath the table in pencil many years before.

Isolde smiled.

“We can send the pictures.”

“And keep the book until there’s a way to give it to her,” Aurelius said.

Dinraal touched the edge of the repaired cover.

Another thing waiting for a door.

He looked toward Isolde.

She had already pulled the paper closer.

They wrote to Andraste and Lucas.

They welcomed Vessa.

They wished the family rest, knowing perfectly well how unlikely it was that a household with so many children would provide much of it.

Isolde added that a book was waiting in Hearth.

Dinraal considered the next line for a long time.

Then he wrote:

We’re glad there were so many people there to welcome her.

He did not claim to know what had happened on the ridge beyond what the family had shared.

He did not need to.

A child had arrived among people who loved her.

That was enough to celebrate.

Aurelius read the message when they offered it.

Then he added his name.

Rhiannon and Tiamat came by before the packet was sent and added theirs too.

Rhiannon wanted to send a pattern for a blanket.

Tiamat pointed out that Avalon probably had blankets.

“People can have more than one.”

Dinraal looked at Isolde.

She looked back.

Neither mentioned the shelf at the top of their own cupboard, which they had quietly cleared two nights earlier.

There was nothing on it yet.

For the moment, the empty space belonged to them.

That evening, Isolde asked Dinraal to walk with her.

He expected the garden.

She took him uphill instead.

Past the cottages.

Past the workshop.

Up the path to the shelter’s side entrance.

The new bench back had already been fitted.

Dinraal ran his hand along it.

“Halen works quickly when properly motivated.”

“I think Tiamat told him we’d complain forever.”

“A fair assessment.”

They sat down.

The shelter was empty now except for the supplies and the quiet movement of air.

Below them, Hearth began its evening.

Adela’s window shone toward the school. A lamp burned in Aurelius’s room above the community kitchen. Somewhere near the workshop, Gilgamesh was laughing loudly enough to be heard halfway up the hill.

Isolde drew her coat closer.

Dinraal put his arm around her.

For a while, they watched the stars emerge.

“Do you want it to happen again?” she asked.

He did not answer immediately.

“The feeling?”

“Yes.”

“I think so.”

She nodded.

“But I’d like to know everyone was safe first.”

“You did check.”

“I meant before it happens.”

She smiled faintly.

“That would be convenient.”

He looked at her.

“What about you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’d like to feel it again.”

“Why?”

She considered the question.

“Because for that moment, I wasn’t thinking about what might come for us.”

Dinraal looked toward the horizon.

Isolde rested her hand over his.

“I was wondering who might be there.”

He remembered the brief sense of distance opening.

He had spent so long learning to recognize pursuit that even now he struggled to let an unknown thing remain anything else.

But she was right.

For one breath, he had wondered too.

“We don’t know it was someone,” he said.

“No.”

“It could be something we don’t understand at all.”

“Probably.”

He laughed softly.

She turned toward him.

“You don’t have to choose between being careful and being curious.”

He brushed his thumb over her ring.

“Remind me.”

“I intend to.”

The sky deepened.

No strange sensation returned.

No voice spoke.

Dinraal found he did not resent the silence.

After a while, Isolde said, “Vessa.”

He smiled.

“Yes.”

“A new name for us to learn.”

He looked down at their hands.

“Do you think we’ll be terrible at choosing one?”

“Yes.”

He laughed.

“We’ll have lists.”

“You’ll cross yours out.”

“You’ll pretend you don’t have one.”

“I don’t.”

She raised an eyebrow.

He lasted three seconds.

“There may be one or two.”

“Already?”

“They occurred to me.”

Isolde leaned against him, laughing quietly.

He kissed her hair.

They did not discuss the names yet.

They had time for the possibility without making it a promise.

Below them, someone came out of the workshop and extinguished the outer lamp. Another light appeared at the upper watch post.

Dinraal noticed the change automatically.

Isolde felt him shift.

“Someone’s there,” she said.

“I know.”

“They’ll call if they need you.”

He looked at the distant lamp.

Then he settled back against the bench.

For once, it required no argument.

They stayed until the cold reached their feet.

On the way home, Isolde tucked her arm through his.

At their garden gate, Dinraal paused and looked up once more.

Nothing opened.

Nothing called.

Beyond the familiar stars lay things he could not name, and one of them had reached them for a single breath without asking for anything.

He would remember that.

Isolde opened the door.

Warm light fell across the path.

“Coming?”

Dinraal turned toward her.

“Yes.”

He went inside, and she closed the door behind them.