Ravi sat with his knees pulled in like a shield, staring at nothing. The grass underneath him was a little damp from the end of the morning, the air cooler than the Fennec region furnace he'd grown used to. The discomfort was not enough to get him to move.

Blindsided. Again. And this time was somehow even less fair than the first. This wasn't the result of a bad coincidence. Lio could've told him the truth. Ravi wasn't entirely sure what it meant that Lio had concealed it from him for so long.

The crew muttered around him, a few dropping down to sit in a loose circle. He heard Lio's approach, even muffled by the grass, because everyone around him got so quiet they might've stopped breathing. He didn't look up.

Jossen spoke first. "Lio, you know Suzerain Aureli?"

A heavy silence, and then Lio's voice, smaller and more timid than he'd ever heard it. "She's my mother."

Ravi blinked, like he was realizing it for the first time all over again. When the Suzerain had reached them, he'd almost protested that she'd made a mistake. She was hugging the wrong Alior; that one was his. And then it landed, and he'd turned to ice for what felt like years. He was still thawing.

"Your mother," growled Aziri, "is Suzerain Aureli." He got louder with every word. "And you made us fly a fucking lightship across the territory and risk getting brigged instead of just calling your mother—"

"No!" Lio's voice was shrill. "I promise, I considered—That wouldn't have worked, Aziri. She won't do that kind of favor for anyone in our family. She can't, the Commissioners would—look, we needed to prove ourselves!"

Ravi twitched. Lio might be trying to convince himself this was for the crew, but really it was for him. He wanted to prove himself to all the Mastali experts who'd laughed at him. And maybe to his family, because fuck if they didn't turn out to be fairly accomplished.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Rosareen asked the question Ravi was waiting for.

"I...I'm sorry. I should have. I thought I would, eventually. I just...my whole life, everyone who was around me was only there to get to my mother. To gain access, or to curry favor, or to brag. None of them really liked me, they just... I wanted people who would take me or leave me because of me. Without my family or the credits or the connections. You're the only real friends I've ever had." Lio ran out of air and drew a sharp, audible breath to keep going. "I know I should've said sooner. But I was afraid it might change everything, and I couldn't bear to lose you all any earlier than I had to."

The grass crunched as Lio shifted his weight back and forth. "My mother was elected when I was a child. I've spent almost my whole life being the Suzerain's son. My father runs the top Enlightenment lab in our Territory. My sister controls a shipping empire. My brother is the lead Engagement branch advisor to the All-Territories Council. But I'm...not anything. I wanted, for a little while, to just be Lio. Not in anybody else's spotlight, not in anybody else's shadow."

"You should've told us before the lightship, Lio," Yorune said sternly. "There were different risks for us than for the son of the Suzerain."

Lio had the guts to sniffled. "You're right. I didn't think about—I didn't think. Yorune, everyone, I'm sorry."

Another long silence. No one was saying what needed to be said. Every single one of Lio's reasons for his dishonesty were entirely about him. All of his justifications boiled down to the same things that had always driven him. On some level, Ravi understood why Lio had stayed silent for so long. Because of course it changed everything. The truth severed the already thin-stretched threads that tied his future to Lio's.

Around him, the crew continued to lob questions. Ravi didn't need to hear the words to know that Lio was already winning them back. He could hear it in Duhar's awe, Rosareen's curiosity, Teres' soft laughter at whatever Lio was saying. They didn't realize what it meant, yet. This was the world Lio really belonged to, and none of the Opalina crew would be able to follow him into it.

Ravi stood up. It felt a bit like moving through a dream, where undefined sounds swirled like fog around him. He walked away from it, away from them, away from Lio, and trudged toward the row of little rooms.

One by one, he passed the doors, palm skimming the scanners. Eventually one would open. At the third door, he realized someone was edging along in his wake with tentative, uneven steps.

"Ravi," Lio's voice was thick with tears. "I'm so sorry. I didn't want it to ruin everything. Please talk to me."

Suzerain Aureli's son. So far out of his reach. That thought opened the way to something other than shock. Some cold tar of an emotion that sucked all energy out of him. He couldn't turn to look at Lio, because then he might do what he always did and pretend they could both have everything they wanted.

"I don't want to talk to you right now," he said, hollowed out. He moved on to the fourth door and tuned out the agonized hitch of Lio's breathing. Reaching for the fifth door, the footsteps had stopped. No one was following him anymore.

The sixth door he tried let him into a miniscule room, not even the size of the consolation-prize trailers Huseda had set up for them. Not that it really mattered. Ravi passed a little workstation and a kitchenette to find a narrow bed cornered at the back of the room. He flopped onto an itchy woolen coverlet and a crisp pillow.

And now, to wait. The thought sank into his sluggish mind and he rolled over, fingers biting into the pillow. Waiting. People said patience was a goddess blessing, but he was beginning to think that was a cruel joke played on his entire life.

He'd spent years being patient. Waiting to be noticed for his skill, years toiling after commendations in the hopes that someone might find him worthy of a higher rank. He'd spent even worse years waiting for Gadsen to turn around and realize he'd made a mistake. And now he was back at the beginning, waiting for someone to come along willing to put him first, who wouldn't ever leave him behind, who could point at him with pride because he was no longer unseen.

In the sun soaked days before all these shitty discoveries, it almost felt like he'd finally ended up in the right place. At Opalina, with a team capable of more than they knew. With Lio, imperfect perfection that he was. And now it was all about to be gone, and all he could do was wait.

Listless, he lay on the bed and let waves batter him. He replayed every warning Lio had tried to give him, all the times Lio had talked about bending to his family's will and leaving Opalina. Ravi had never understood why Lio spoke as if nothing about Opalina could last for him. It made an awful kind of sense now. Of course the Suzerain's son could not picture a long term relationship with a low-ranked nobody. Lio had tried to tell him that they were on borrowed time, and he'd brushed it all aside as if falling in love could obliterate all other obstacles.

He was losing everything. His crew. His command. Lio. A dry-mouthed, exhausted dread oozed through him at the thought of starting every aspect of his life over for a third try.

When the knock came and he went to open the door, he hesitated with his hand above the panel. If it was Lio, he wasn't ready to open it and hear Lio explain why it had to end. "What?" he asked, barely loud enough for the disruptor on the other side to hear him.

"Com?" Teres' voice was uncertain. "They're—the Enforcers are back. To take us to the Commissioners."

Ravi closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the door for a second. Then he stole a breath, tugged the rumples out of his uniform, and pressed his palm firmly to the screen. The door shuttled out of the way. He half expected it to be nighttime already, since it felt like he'd spent a lifetime lying on the bed, but the sun was still rising on a horribly bright afternoon.

Half the crew already trailed toward the waiting Enforcers and their hovs. Ravi checked to make sure he was climbing into one without Lio and strapped into a seat. Not that he expected to avoid Lio's presence entirely during whatever fucking grilling they were about to endure. But he felt raw as an exposed wire. The longer he stayed wrapped in a silent cocoon, the better he could weather the necessary waiting.

The hovs bypassed the ziggurat, zipped out of the city, and climbed the steep hill to the complex of buildings where the Commissioners worked. After a swift stop at a checkpoint, they were ferried through a tunnel, impenetrably dark until the hovs slowed beside an illuminated platform where Huseda waited.

Ravi couldn't meet her gaze when he stepped onto the platform. She'd known who Lio was. All those party invitations, all those approved dispensations. She said something to the assembled crew, and flanked by the Enforcers, led them to an elevator. He was relieved that Lio stood far away from him in the confined space.

Some part of him hated that his thoughts were wrapped so tightly around Lio still. They were on their way to stand before the Suzerain's Commissioners, who would undoubtedly recognize that Opalina's inept com had completely lost control of his crew. His chances of securing the lightship command post were nil. His prospects for reassignment were hardly better. Here he was, stepping into a marble hallway about to face the governors of his future, knowing that his career was circling a drain, and instead of arranging his arguments and constructing his defense, he was trying not to think about what it would do to him to be separated from Lio.

Huseda touched her hand to an intricate mosaic positioned on a pair of doors three times her height. Light skittered through the mosaic screen as it scanned her hand and then ripple. Without a sound, the doors swung open to admit them.

The room beyond might've been large enough to house a lightship. Everything was blindingly white stone, slick beneath his boots. Huseda pointed them to their seats and stepped away for her own post.

Ravi held his breath, gazing at the high table where the Commissioners sat. It was on a raised lip of stone. Water poured down the faces of the stone into a rectangular pool, so that it looked as if the Commissioners were seated at the precipice of a waterfall. An immense statue of the First Goddess loomed over one side of the pool, opposite an equally colossal statue of the Little.

He stole a peek into the Little's smiling countenance and started a prayer. But he didn't know what to ask for. He was empty even of prayers.

The room was intimidating, and he was certain that was intentional. Ravi reached the line of chairs waiting for them. The steel seats were locked into the ground and spaced far enough from each other that every crew member was isolated. Unable to move closer together. Huseda sat in what looked like a much more comfortable armchair on a dais at the First Goddess' feet, facing them. Ravi fixed his eyes on the distant faces at the table crowning the waterfall and waited.

"Welcome," the Commissioner in the center said. Her voice carried easily over the noise of the water, amplified so that it sounded as if she was sitting directly in front of him. "We are pleased to see you all, even under such unusual circumstances."

If they were really pleased, the crew wouldn't be sitting in the middle of an interrogation room for giants.

"It is our understanding that this crew has made several key discoveries related to the Mastali lightship. You will meet with Enlightenment commanders to share this information." The Commissioner inclined her head. She might've smiled, but he was too far away to be sure. "Your methods are unconventional, but your achievements are significant. We have decided to award each of you an Enlightenment commendation for your unprecedented contributions."

Nobody said anything. A commendation was a poor prize if they were still getting reassigned to other posts. And no matter how impressed the Commissioners might sound, the way the crew had gone about their discovering mattered too. The Commissioners weren't going to hand a lightship to a bunch of non-ranked oddballs who'd nicked the fucking thing out from under the top Enlightenment crews in the territory. Ravi flicked a glance at Huseda, but her expression gave nothing away.

"We have also agreed," the Commissioner said, "that it is clear that continued advancement with the Mastali lightship requires your involvement."

Ravi looked up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yorune's delighted expression next to him. He didn't dare look at the rest of the crew yet. This shouldn't be possible. No more possible than a shitty mountain outpost turning out to be a hidden lightship. Somehow, maybe—

"To this end, we have changed our selection for the Enforcer com position," the Commissioner said.

Ravi's pulse galloped, thoughts clearing like sunlight breaking through clouds. His head buzzed, pulse frantic. Yorune, grinning, stretched a hand toward him.

"For his extraordinary insight and clear capability, we are honored to extend the command position to Alior Mirez."

There was an expectant beat of silence, as if the Commissioners were waiting on applause.

Ravi's ears were ringing. He almost let out a hysterical giggle. His hands were shaking so badly that lacing them tight did nothing to conceal it, but it didn't matter that he maintained a sense of control anymore.

His command position had just been handed to the Suzerain's son.