The warmth of the fireplace felt like a physical assault. My skin, forged in solar fire and the cold vacuum of the Void, crawled at the touch of the domestic heat. I stood in the center of the living room, my breath hitching as I looked at the woman knitting the silver sweater.
"Mom?" The word felt like a relic from a different lifetime.
She looked up, her smile radiating a gentle, maternal peace that I hadn't felt since I was six years old. "You’ve grown so much, Lyra. But you always did have your father’s stubborn chin."
Beside her, my father laughed, closing his book. He looked whole—no obsidian bones, no red embers in his eyes, no sacrificial blade in his chest. "And her mother’s fire," he added, winking at me.
I looked down at the children on the rug. The boy with the dark, unruly
