The adoration was blinding.
Below the palace balcony, the crowd of fans and reporters surged forward with
cheers and
holo-cameras, chanting her name like a festival goddess.
"Sommer! Sommer! One photo, please—!!"
"What does your reign mean for the Outer Rim?"
"Are you single? Are you immortal?!"
She was laughing — genuinely, freely — wrapped in flowing robes of starlight. Her eyes shimmered with champagne joy, her cheeks sore from smiling.
Zori stood beside her now in a glittering silver dress, draping herself over Sommer with the ease of long love. She leaned into the cameras with ridiculous poses — fish lips, crossed eyes, full-blown
mocking diva.
Sommer
cackled.
They clinked glasses.
Everything smelled like sugar, like spice.
"They love you," Zori whispered, brushing Sommer's hair back behind one ear. "They finally love you."
And then she kissed her.
It wasn't rushed.
It wasn't chaotic.
It was… warm.
Steady.
A promise without a vow.
The cameras
flashed.
And then—
"Sommer," said a voice from just behind the crowd.
One of the reporters stepped forward, pushing past the others — not asking a question, not shouting.
He held up a holo-pad. "
Just one last image," he said.
She nodded.
He raised the device.
FLASH.
The sonic trigger hit her ears
wrong.
The light distorted — not a picture, but a
memory.
The screen shimmered and changed—
—into the face of
Andrew Lonek, half-lit, just as she remembered him from her birthday night. Standing in the hallway. Holding her hand.
"I love you," he whispered.
Just that.
Three words.
No armor. No shields. No joke.
And it
gutted her.
The crowd fell silent.
The sky flickered.
Sommer's breath hitched. She looked down at the holo. Then up at Zori.
"That… that never happened."
Zori's face stiffened.
"
Of course it did," she said smoothly. "
He said it. You just forgot."
"
No," Sommer whispered.
Her throat felt tight.
The stars began to bleed. The champagne soured on her tongue.
And for the first time—
Zori looked
scared.
