The night had fallen quiet over the Draven villa. Moonlight spilled across the polished floors, and the faint sound of the sextuplets laughing in their rooms echoed faintly down the halls. But in the main study, silence lingered—broken only by the steady scratching of Kaelen's pen as he reviewed mission notes.
Across from him, Astra sat rigid, her posture impeccable as always, but her hands fidgeted against the armrest of her chair. Since the call with Avni earlier that day, she had seemed… different. Not in the way a tired warrior grows weary, but in the way a heart begins to fray at its edges.
Kaelen looked up, narrowing his eyes at her. "You've barely spoken a word since the call," he said gently, setting down his pen. "That's not like you, Astra. Normally, you'd be the one dissecting every detail, weighing every thread of strategy."
Astra's lips parted slightly, but she didn't respond right away. Her gaze drifted toward the window, where the moonlight made her silhouette appear fragile, almost breakable.
Kaelen's tone softened further. "What is it? Did something about Avni Raichand unsettle you?"
The question cut through her carefully built composure. Her shoulders stiffened, and a flicker of emotion crossed her face—too fleeting to define. For a moment, it looked as though she might answer honestly, but instead she shook her head sharply.
"It's nothing," Astra said quickly, almost too quickly. Her voice had an edge, brittle and uneven. "I'm just… tired. The mission. The pressure. That's all."
Kaelen leaned forward, studying her face with the same precision he'd once used in battlefields. He wasn't fooled. "Astra, I've known you for years. I can tell when you're carrying something heavier than you admit. The way your voice trembled when you spoke to Avni, the way you looked at her… something happened."
Her composure cracked. "I said it's nothing!" The words burst out harsher than she intended, her voice breaking. The sound startled even her.
The silence that followed was heavy, thick with unspoken truth. Astra's breath quickened, and she clenched her fists against her knees as if to hold herself together. "Don't ask me again, Kael," she whispered, her voice shaking now. "Not yet. I can't… I can't explain it. Not even to myself."
Kaelen's stern gaze softened. He reached across the table, resting his hand gently over hers. "I won't force you," he said quietly. "But whatever it is, you don't have to face it alone. When you're ready, I'll listen. No questions, no judgment. Just… remember that."
Astra swallowed hard, her throat tight. She wanted to say something, to let the words spilling inside her heart out into the open—but she couldn't. The memory of Avni's face was too fresh, too raw, stirring a storm she wasn't prepared to name.
So she forced a small, strained smile, pulling her hand away. "Thank you, Kael. But for now… let it be."
Kaelen nodded slowly, though his eyes still held quiet concern. He didn't push her further, but he knew—just as surely as he knew the patterns of war—that this wasn't the end. Something had broken loose inside Astra, and sooner or later, the truth would demand to be spoken.
As she left the study that night, her footsteps echoed down the hall, unsteady in a way they had never been before. She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the hammer of her own heartbeat. Why does her face haunt me? Why does it feel like something I've been searching for my whole life?
And in the quiet of the study, Kaelen whispered to himself, watching the door close behind her:
"Astra… what are you hiding?"