Sera's POV
Orin comes to me himself the next morning, before I've even finished dressing, and there's something in the careful way he knocks that tells me whatever he's carrying, he wants to hand it over gently.
Dax is already there when Orin arrives, having barely slept, the archive's findings still sitting heavy in his eyes. He doesn't say anything, just draws a chair close to mine and sits, his hand finding my knee, steady and present, the way he's learned to be present without needing to fill silence with words.
Orin lowers himself into the last chair slowly, holding a portrait carefully in both hands, and sets it on the small table between us like he's afraid it might break.
I look down at the face rendered there, faded but unmistakable once you know to look—my own eyes, my own j
