At first, Lyra tried to keep her expression steady. She really did. But the more Jonyna spoke—not kindly, not gently, but truthfully, painfully truthfully—the more complicated it became to pretend she wasn't being cracked open from the inside. Her fingers tightened around her glass, knuckles whitening, and she stared down at the melting ice as if it could anchor her.
Your mom was right rang through her chest like a blow she hadn't braced for. She wasn't used to people agreeing with that part of her life; usually, they downplayed it, or brushed it aside, or told her she'd "grow out of it." But Jonyna didn't do that. She didn't talk to her like a child to be reassured. She talked to her like someone who'd lived the nightmares Lyra had only heard whispered about. Someone who had lost, and survived, and carried the weight of centuries in her voice.
Lyra's breath hitched at the story of the massacre—a whole Order wiped out, a girl not much older than she was being shot at instead of taught. She lifted her eyes slowly, and there was no hiding the ache there, the way her throat tightened at the thought of Jonyna's mother waiting at home, terrified, angry, helpless. It felt too familiar in a way that hurt. When Jonyna said her mother berated her for trying to be a hero, Lyra looked away sharply, blinking hard. She didn't want to imagine her own mother like that—didn't want to admit she probably would be. And yet…hearing it said aloud by someone who had
lived that life shifted something inside her. Made the fear feel less like shame and more like something she could name.
When Jonyna leaned forward, Lyra felt the weight of the words settle on her shoulders, heavy but strangely grounding.
Either find people who can teach you to stay alive, or die young. No sugarcoating. No gentle illusions. Just the truth, every part of her had been too afraid to say out loud. Lyra exhaled shakily, shoulders trembling once before she steadied them. She hadn't expected war to be framed that way—not as glory or tragedy, but as something born from the failures of those who should have loved better. The idea that heroes weren't built to fight, but forced to, because the alternative was letting good people die… it rooted itself deep in her chest.
She swallowed hard when Jonyna spoke about people like them—people who didn't go to war because they wanted to, but because not going was worse. And when the older woman condemned the Diarchy, Lyra flinched. Not because she didn't understand, but because she
did. She'd flown through enough spaceports, seen enough headlines, overheard enough frightened whispers to know Jonyna was right. There would always be someone taking more than they needed. Always someone hurting people because they could. Always a need for those who stood between.
By the time Jonyna waved for a drink, Lyra felt like she'd been peeled open layer by layer. She didn't speak at first. Couldn't. She sat there, staring at the table, wiping at her eye quickly, and pretending it was just irritation from the smoke of the room. Her heart hurt—not because she was scared, but because she suddenly understood that being scared didn't disqualify her. It just made her human. Made her real. And Jonyna didn't dismiss that fear. She didn't mock it. She offered her something that felt impossible: teachers, safety, a home, friends, a purpose. A path that didn't end with her burning out too young or being used up by people who didn't care if she lived through the next jump.
Lyra finally inhaled, long and trembling, and made herself look up. The words didn't come fast. They came slowly, carefully, as if she were afraid that saying them too quickly might make them less true. "I…always thought…if I became something like this, it would happen by accident," she admitted, voice soft but unshielded. "Like I'd get pulled into a fight I couldn't run from, or stumble into someone else's war, and that would be it—I'd just…keep going until something broke." She shook her head slightly, blonde hair brushing her cheeks as she blinked down at her hands. "I never thought about choosing it. Not like this. Not with help. Not with training. Not with someone who actually cares if I make it out alive."
Her fingers curled slowly against the table, and when she met Jonyna's gaze again, her eyes were wet but steady. "My mom was right to be afraid," she whispered. "She was right that this life destroys people. And maybe she was right that it could destroy me too." She drew in a breath through her nose, long and shaking. "But she was wrong about one thing."
Lyra's voice strengthened, quiet but sure. "I don't think heroes die young. I think the ones who stand alone do."
She wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand and straightened, shoulders small but brimming with a fragile, genuine resolve. "If you can give me teachers—real ones—and a place where I'm not just another warm body to throw into a cockpit…if you can give me people to stand with…Then I want to try. I want to learn. I want to be better than what the galaxy expects girls like me to be."
A long breath, steadying herself.
"And if you're willing to help me make it long enough to make my mother proud, then…yes." Her voice softened, but never wavered. "I'll come with you."
Lyra didn't look like a soldier. She didn't look like a hero. She looked like a nineteen-year-old doing the bravest thing she'd ever done.
Jonyna Si
