Irina let out a breath, eyes fixed ahead once more. "So that's why you acted so close to her."
Astron didn't answer right away. He just kept walking, hands in his pockets, eyes half-lidded under the lamplight.
Then, quietly, he said, "Don't you already know the answer?"
Irina didn't respond—but the way her brows drew together, the small, flickering shift in her expression, said she did.
Of course she did.
Because even if Astron was a creature of logic—reserved, analytical, always calculating—there were certain things that pulled at him deeper than strategy or self-preservation.
A code.
An instinct.
A debt that couldn't be left unpaid.
Irina had known that from the beginning. She'd seen it back when they first met, back before the world had burned and reshaped itself around survival. Even then, he had carried that quiet, unrelenting sense of obligation—toward people who helped him. Toward moments he couldn't forget.
And Sylvie had saved his life.
