The comm device looked like a brick compared to Kai's cracked old phone. Shen watched him like a hawk while he dialed. The call rang twice.
"Kai?" Mom's voice cracked through the speaker, raw from crying. Background noise—sirens still wailing in Dockside, people shouting.
"Hey, Ma." His throat closed up. "I'm okay. I'm… I awakened."
Silence. Then a sob that wasn't happy. "They said on the news some F-rank got pulled in. I thought—God, I thought you were gone."
"I'm not. Promise." He glanced at Aria. She was staring at the floor, arms crossed tight, like the call was an invasion she didn't want to witness. "I'm with the Registry right now. Big guild stuff. Might be gone a few days."
"A guild?" Disbelief, then pride trying to push through fear. "Which one?"
He hesitated. Shen's eyes narrowed.
"Astral Crown," he said finally. Couldn't lie to Mom, not about this.
Another beat of silence. Everyone in Dockside knew what Crown meant: untouchable, rich, dangerous.
"You be careful, baby. Those people up in the Spire—they don't care about folks like us."
"I know. I'm being careful." He swallowed. "How much we short this month?"
"Don't you worry about that right now—"
"Ma."
A sigh. "Eight hundred credits. Plus late fees."
Kai closed his eyes. Eight hundred was two weeks of hauling crates, three if he ate nothing but rice.
"I'll get it handled," he said. "Love you."
"Love you more. Come home when you can."
The line cut. Five minutes exactly. Shen took the comm back without a word.
Kai stood there, fists clenched, feeling the tether tug when Aria shifted her weight three meters away. The countdown burned in the corner of his eye.
46:58:02
Shen was already moving toward the door. "Rest. Hydrate. Tomorrow the Mirror Trial begins at 0800. Consultant Rook will brief you at 0700."
The doors sealed. Just them again.
Kai exhaled hard and slid down the wall until he sat on the cold floor. Luxury apartment or not, it still felt like a cell.
Aria stayed standing. "Your mother," she said finally, voice quiet. "She works two jobs?"
"Market stall mornings, cleaning offices nights. Dad bailed when Gates first opened. Left us with his gambling debts." He laughed, bitter. "Real winner."
Aria's fingers twitched. "Astral Crown pays retainers enough to clear that in a week."
"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly on payroll yet." He looked up at her. "Why'd you defend me to Juno back there? When he called me garbage."
She didn't answer right away. Walked the three-meter circle again, slow.
"Because he was wrong," she said at last. "You're not garbage. You're a liability."
Kai barked a laugh. "Wow. Feel the love."
Aria stopped pacing. Met his eyes—gray on brown, storm meeting street grit.
"You grabbed my wrist without hesitation," she said. "Took a hit meant for me. That's not liability. That's… reckless."
"Worked, didn't it?"
"It could've killed us both." She hugged her arms tighter. "I don't do reckless."
"Guess we're both learning new tricks."
Silence again. The kind that pressed in.
Kai pushed up, wincing at his ribs. "Look. Forty-eight hours till this Mirror thing tries to murder us with truth serum. We can spend it hating each other three meters apart, or we can… not. Your call, princess."
"Don't call me that."
"Then give me something else to call you."
She opened her mouth—closed it. Something flickered across her face, too fast to read.
"Aria," she said finally. "Just Aria."
Progress.
He nodded. "Kai. Not 'liability.' Not 'Dockside trash.' Kai."
She gave the tiniest dip of her chin. Acknowledgment, maybe.
The lights dimmed automatically—Spire curfew protocol. City glow filtered through the windows, painting stripes across the floor between them.
Kai grabbed a blanket from the couch, tossed it toward her side. "Floor's cold. Truce?"
Aria caught the blanket. Didn't say anything, but she sat—still three meters, still careful—and wrapped it around her shoulders.
The countdown ticked.
46:51:17
A new golden line appeared, small and private, visible only to them.
[Emotional resonance detected.
Sync Efficiency: 22% → 25%
Distance tolerance stabilized at 3.1 meters.]
Then, quieter—almost gentle:
[Stage 0 → Stage 1 progress: 11%]
Aria's eyes widened. She stared at the text like it had bitten her.
Kai just grinned, tired and hurting and weirdly hopeful.
"Guess the System ships it."
She pulled the blanket over her head like a hood, hiding her face.
But she didn't move farther away.
Outside their window, far below in the city, a second Rogue Gate siren began to wail—closer to North Spire than any had ever spawned before.
And in the dark between them, the tether pulsed once—warm, not painful.
(To be continued…)