“It’s still too early~”

  Emilia looked up from where she was seated on the floor next to Conrad, the man attempting to teach her how to use her core better as Sil shifted back and forth between looking at her hacked system—he had yet to decipher more than the barest amount of it, extra obfuscation which being one of the most significant changes she’d made to Helix’s original language—and supervising them. Her friend had been less than enthusiastic about the use of her core. That was a little fair, but also, billions of people used their cores every day. It’d be fine. Probably.

  Conrad had yet to comment on the crack running through her core, but he had wound his energy more securely along the lines of it, adding an extra bit of protection as he frowned in concentration, his hand pressing directly over the skin of her stomach because clearly even for him, dealing with the crack—protecting her from a further fissure—was difficult.

  “Hello~” she singsonged, waving to Pria and Beth and— “HYR!” Emilia scrambled up, and vaulted over Sil’s couch before launching herself at the northerner, something that unfortunately involved all but pushing her classmates out of the way. A little part of her felt bad for that, not just for the violence of it, but because she technically hadn’t seen them in weeks, whereas she’d seen Hyr only hours earlier.

  The syn caught her with the ease she’d come to expect from them during their brief acquaintance, their movements smooth as though being guided by the universe itself. Her Censor immediately began listing off various studies done on Free Coloniers who claimed to have fortune-telling abilities, all of which had come out either inconclusive or showing that their abilities were lies. All it took was a small push, however, and her Censor was listing off dozens of issues with those studies. Another push, and it was sliding into the back door of Astrapan and several over universities, determining that there had been some questionable things going on with some of the funding for said research, and a significant number of the researchers had purist ties. Awesome.

  “Emilia, lustrat vy syn,” Hyr whispered, their arms tightening around her, their nose pressing into the top of her head.

  Emilia laughed, muttering into the syn’s neck that it hadn’t been that long, only a few hours, since they’d parted. “lustra’k syn vy.”

  “Since when do you speak anything other than Baalphorian?” Pria asked as Hyr let her feet touch the ground again.

  “Since I was a teen? Didn’t learn Brylish until my 40s, though.” It didn’t take a genius to realize she must have learned it during the war and just wasn’t explicitly saying it. Indeed, behind Pria, Beth—who had been awkwardly skirting Conrad to get to Sil—glanced back at her, dubious.

  “Do not date this one,” Beth said, rather than confront Emilia over her continued avoidance of admitting she was veteran in favour of pointing at Conrad.

  “What?” the man in question asked, popping a handful of the snack Sil had given him into his mouth. Emilia had no idea why her friend had taken to giving Conrad food, but he had. Perhaps it was because Conrad was terrible with his Censor and kept accidentally activating things whenever he tried to do anything. The man had gone to the bathroom and had needed to ask them how to turn off a hairdryer. He shouldn’t have even been able to access the hairdryer’s system! Sil had offered to look at the programming of Conrad’s temporary Censor, but the Free Colonier had insisted only she could look at it. Sil had banned her from using the Virtuosi System for at least 12 hours—and that was only after officially admitting to him that she was a sub-30 and her brain would be fine after a short rest—though, so Conrad would have to wait.

  “Em is banned from dating anyone without permission from now on,” Pria replied. Her eyes shifted over the Free Colonier, assessing in that way of hers that she usually avoided, because she hated the feel of it—the scratch of emotions through the aether.

  Conrad watched her back, his energy lapping at the room’s aether in a way that made Sil tense, Beth look around in confusion and Hyr tilt their head.

  “Hm… I don’t think he wants to date or fuck her, so we’re good. You are really”—Pria waved a hand over Conrad’s general being—“intense about her, though. Total stalker vibes.”

  The man smiled, sharp and unrepentant, even as Sil glared at his back. “Sure, but I’m a well-behaved stalker. Saved her from the pretty boy earlier.”

  “Pretty boy?” Pria asked, glancing between Conrad and Emilia, who had dragged Hyr inside and was attempting to talk them into trying the same food she’d given to Conrad. “Oh~ were you the mystery Free Colonier who took Elijah out earlier? I really thought that guy was lying about that.”

  “Why did you think Hyr was lying?” Emilia asked, automatically opening her mouth when Hyr held out a spoon of their food for her. “Wait, how did I end up being the one eating that? Wait, actually, not guy. Hyr isn’t a guy.”

  “He looks like a guy.”

  “Pria,” Sil snapped. Emilia had always figured the reason Beth knew she didn’t have to get mad about anyone saying something negative about her gender was because Sil would beat her to it.

  Pria’s dark skin brightened. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. He— She? They? Fuck. I mean—”

  “All of the synat are gender-neutral,” Conrad explained around his mouthful of snacks. “I’d introduce myself, by the way, but I’m private.”

  “A secretive bastard,” Emilia corrected.

  “But I’m a secretive bastard,” the man agreed. “Another time?”

  Hyr nodded before assuring Pria it was fine. “I am aware the customs of Nur’tha are not well known in the Nur’sa.”

  “Nur’tha? Nur’sa?” Pria asked, mangling the pronunciations. Impressive, given neither were particularly difficult to pronounce!

  Sighing, Sil’s eyes unfocused. Emilia knew that look, it was the one the man used when he was reaching into one of their Censors—well, never Emilia’s, not until today, anyways—to adjust something. Clearly, Pria had some setting related to information about the Free Colonies turned off, otherwise her Censor would be correcting her and supplying her with information as she said—or even thought—stupid or insensitive things. As for how it had been turned off…

  “Oh, I was flirting with a chick from, where was it… Byshire, maybe? That sounds right. She kept talking about her home and my Censor kept giving me supplementary information, and it was really~ distracting, so I turned it off. Guess I never turned it back on?”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  From the look on Sil’s face, he had looked into exactly when it had been turned off and was not impressed with how long it had been off.

  “Why didn’t you believe Hyr?” Emilia asked before Sil could tell Pria off. There had been enough fighting that morning already. They didn’t need more, especially over something that Pria would apologize for then do again the next time her Censor was annoying her—this wasn’t the first time her roommate had turned some function or another off because it was aggravating her, only to forget to turn it back on. “Actually, how did you even meet?”

  “Victor attacked us,” Beth said.

  “Victor attacked you, you mean. I was just standing there, being ignored.”

  “He what!?” Emilia and Sil demanded in unison, anger radiating off each of them so powerfully that both of the Free Coloniers tensed.

  Conrad whistled and despite the ire crackling through her, she didn’t fail to notice the way his energy ballooned out around him, the way Pria’s gaze snapped to him. Apparently, he had noticed her emphatic connection to the aether, mysterious as it was even to her friends, and had decided to lessen the strain of their anger on her, especially since—

  “Emilia, you need to breathe,” Hyr was saying. “Hatrav.” One of their hands pressed to her stomach, forcing her to breathe in with them as homicide rage racketed through her, demanding she go find Victor and kill him.

  “What the fuck? Why—” Emilia heard Beth asking, far in the distance.

  “It’s because she fucked with her Censor and made it so she can use her core,” Sil grumbled, but that wasn’t it. Well, not all of it, anyways.

  The other part—the bigger part—was Payton’s knots. Annoyance and anger with Victor making way to rage that was now boiling out into the real world through her core. She wanted to tell them that—although she could hear Conrad telling them that this wasn’t just the whole being able to use her core thing, not that she thought they believe him—but she couldn’t. Instead, her gaze was caught in Hyr’s, their calming presence dragging her back, their energy tentatively slipping into her, sliding against Conrad’s to wrap around hers, tugging her emotions back under control just as they had in the latter moments of the raid.

  “Don’t say it,” she heard Sil say, nonsensical because as far away as her mind had been, spinning through the gold of Hyr’s eyes and energy, she was pretty sure no one had said anything.

  “I wasn’t going to!” Pria insisted, and even Emilia knew she was lying.

  “Say what?” she asked, catching hold of Hyr’s hand as it dropped away with her overwhelming anger. Their eyes widened slightly, and for a blink of time, Emilia thought they would pull away. They didn’t, instead flipping their much larger hand around in hers until they were properly holding hands.

  “Nothing,” Beth and Sil replied in unison. Not suspicious at all.

  Emilia begrudgingly let Hyr pull her over to the others, situating her beside Conrad—who looked far too amused by this entire mess of a situation—and sliding down beside her.

  “You three sure are cozy,” Beth commented, giving the three of them a once over.

  Emilia snuggled further into Conrad, just because she could. “It’s been a weird morning.”

  “I assume you met in that raid you randomly joined?” Sil asked, starting another big thing—Emilia had only offered him her raid rewards, knowing neither Pria nor Beth raided enough to care.

  “No, no!” she said as they collectively turned on her, trying to force answers out of her. “You still have to finish telling us what happened with Victor!”

  “But your thing happened first!” Pria tried to insist. Normally, that might have worked, but Emilia wasn’t having it.

  “Yes, but my thing is longer—like way, way longer. So you first. Victor, and how Hyr comes into it, and why you thought they were lying about being the one to take down Elijah earlier.”

  Pria grumbled, crossed her arms, and refused to say more.

  Beth, on the other hand, sized her up. “Are the two of you going to fly off the handle again?” she asked, barely sparing Sil a glance, which seemed rather unfair!

  Had she been the one to lose control of her temper? Yes, but Sil was the one most likely to spark off to go fuck up Elijah and his asshat friends for threatening Beth and Pria—mostly Beth, if Pria was to be believed.

  Emilia wanted to point this out, but instead, she just waved her and Hyr’s clasped hands through the air. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got help.”

  Beth and Pria looked at their linked hands dubiously, which was fair. Unless they’d actively served alongside Free Coloniers, most didn’t understand what sort of things cores could do. Even having served alongside some of the most powerful Free Coloniers, Emilia hadn’t realized just how much they could do. Sure, she’d seen Helix helped along by Ri’s energy, and later Simeon’s, and seen the healing prowess of numerous Free Colony supports, which could be more freely used on Baalphorians without Censor workarounds.

  Even her understanding was nothing compared to reality, however. Before, her knowledge had been more theoretical, based on stories and the coding she’d done for the training system and several core ability inspired skills. Never having experienced more than the barest brushes of energy against her meridians, the overwhelming expanse of Ri’s energy, the ease with which James dug into himself, she really hadn’t known the full scope of a core’s abilities.

  Now, sitting there, listening to Pria and Beth relate how they’d run into Elijah and his roommates, how they’d argued and Victor had tried—actually fucking tried!—to nullify Beth…

  Yeah, now Emilia could understand the power of cores more, Hyr’s energy continuing to ground her, Conrad’s a quiet companion, not helping or hindering the syn’s efforts to quell her rising anger. It was impressive.

  So was Sil’s anger, the man standing and attempting to leave, intent to go search for Victor.

  “He's gone,” Beth said as she forced Sil onto a chair, arms crossing as she glared down at him.

  “Gone where?” Emilia asked, giving into the urge to let her eyes close, just for a moment or two. Conrad’s warmth against her, Hyr’s hand in hers—their collective energy unit. It was all just so calming and safe.

  Neither Pria nor Beth answered. Strange.

  “I believe the…ah… I do not know the word,” Hyr was saying, their cool fingers brushing Emilia’s loose hair—Olivier had stolen her hair tie again, hadn’t he?—behind her, their fingers lingering just a second too long against her neck for the syn’s movement to be simply friendly… maybe. “kryjy’fra?”

  “Ah… The Black Knot.”

  “Yes,” they confirmed. “I believe a jy’fra grabbed them.”

  “I didn’t really see,” Beth was saying, continuing her tale of how Hyr had pulled her out of the way, and then something—someone—had grabbed Victor. Poof. Gone.

  “Then this g— person was saying we were going in the same direction, so we just travelled together. Hyr stopped in front of Sil’s door with us, so I just assumed they had been here before, so they must have been the Free Colonier who took out Elijah,” Pria finally said, her tone growing less convinced as she spoke.

  “Ah… no…” Emilia said, snuggling further into Conrad. It really was unfair Hyr was so big and couldn’t do more than hold her hand and press gently into her side without risking smushing them. They definitely needed a better set up next time. “synat,” she said, by way of answer, knowing Hyr would explain it while she slept.

  At least, while she was asleep, Hyr would have at least one person in the room who believed. She and Conrad had never talked about such things—why would they have, when the northerners had only appeared after Conrad was gone—but Emilia knew he believed.

  “Be nice…” she breathed out, tucking herself into him impossibly more. Her only answer, before the world went dark, was a small huff of amusement.

  “Only for you,” she thought she heard, but that might have just been the dream, tugging her under.