Episode 4

Chapter 4: The Star Eye

Two days after the academy visit, Lucian came back.

This time he didn't bring medical gel. He brought the Fire Squirrel — now officially Gold-tier, Violet Flame Marten-potential, certified and stamped by the most bored technician in Dustmere's bureaucracy — and something else. Something I didn't notice until he set it on the counter.

A food container. Real food. Not synthesizer nutrient bars. Actual prepared meals in thermal-sealed compartments: grilled protein, fresh vegetables, a dessert that smelled like it had been made by someone who understood the concept of flavor.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Lunch," he said, like I'd asked him what color the sky was.

"I have food."

"You have nutrient bars." He sat down on the floor by the healing pod, his spot now, apparently. The Marten settled across his shoulders. "Those are not food."

I opened the container. The smell hit me and my stomach made a sound that could generously be described as "enthusiastic." Less generously, it sounded like a cargo engine turning over.

I ate. He drank another canned coffee — he'd brought his own this time, probably because my synthesizer's version had given him some kind of taste-based PTSD.

We sat in comfortable silence while the Marten dozed on his shoulder.

"Your squirrel's evolution is fully stabilized," I said between bites, pulling up Star Eye. "Want to see the full data panel?"

"Show me."

I turned the counter's holo-display toward him and ran a complete Star Eye scan. The Marten's data populated the screen in clean, organized layers: species classification, tier rating, complete skill tree, stat breakdown, combat power index, and two branching evolution paths.

*"Species: Fire Squirrel (Violet Flame Marten evolution imminent). Tier: Gold. Core skill: Fire Tornado (Rank A). Evolution Path A: Blaze Squirrel — standard advancement, moderate ceiling. Evolution Path B: Violet Flame Marten — rare evolution, requires specific catalyst material, combat power ceiling significantly higher."*

"There are two paths," Lucian said. He read data the way he did everything else: precisely, completely, never skipping a line.

"Path B is better. Significantly. But it needs a catalyst I don't have yet." I tapped the screen. "When I find it, your squirrel becomes something most people in this colony have never seen."

He looked at the display for a long moment. Then at me.

"You can see all of this. Species data, evolution paths, hidden potential — all of it."

"Star Eye," I said. "Think of it as X-ray vision for star beasts."

"That ability doesn't exist in any documented system."

"It does now."

He studied me with that flat, unreadable expression I was learning to translate. Lucian Blackwell didn't trust people until they'd earned it, and the earning took time he wasn't willing to waste.

But he was sitting on my floor. Drinking my terrible coffee. Eating lunch across from me like this was a thing we did.

"In this station," I said, "nobody touches you or your beast. Nobody. That's a fact."

He held my gaze for three seconds. Then nodded.

He left around four. A nod, a door, and the Lysander-9 dissolving into the skyline.

I cleaned up the food container. The bruises were fading now, thanks to the Meridian gel. The scratches had closed into thin pink lines that would probably scar. I was keeping them.

The system chimed just as I was locking up for the night.

*"Alert: remote information query detected. An external party is actively searching for data on Star Beast Station. Source trace initiated... trace failed. Encryption level exceeds system's current capacity. Recommendation: increase operational security."*

Someone was digging. Professionally, expensively, with encryption good enough to block a system that could scan star beasts at the molecular level.

Five million credits' worth of investigation, if I had to guess.

I stared at the alert for a long time. Then I dismissed it and went to check on my egg.

---

Twelve kilometers away, in the Ashford estate's security wing, Caelen Ashford sat in a dark room and watched his sister suffer.

Not Yara. The other one. The one he'd hit.

The security archive was supposed to be restricted — Helena's personal authorization required for access. But Caelen knew the override codes. He'd installed half the system himself, back when he still believed the cameras were there to protect the family.

He started with the most recent footage. Yara's "stolen pendant" accusation from four nights ago. He watched the thirty minutes before the confrontation: Yara alone in the living room, carefully removing her own pendant and hiding it in a ventilation panel. Then crossing to the comm system and disabling the security feed for the east wing. Then sitting back down, pressing her hands to her face, and practicing the cry.

Three takes. She did three takes before she got the trembling right.

Caelen's jaw tightened. He went back further.

Six months of footage. Fast-forwarding, stopping, watching. The timestamps blurred together but the pattern didn't.

Yara slipping something into Sera's water glass at dinner. Yara intercepting Sera's academy application from the mail system, reading it, tearing it into pieces, then walking back to the living room to curl up on the couch and ask Caelen about his day. Yara deliberately spilling solvent on Sera's training uniform the night before a practical exam, then comforting Sera the next morning with a hug and a "don't worry, you'll do better next time."

Yara telling Helena that Sera had threatened her with a blade. The footage showed what actually happened: Sera had been cutting a nutrient pack open with a utility knife. Yara had walked in, waited until Sera's back was turned, then backed out and started screaming.

Helena's response had been swift. Sera was locked in the storage closet for three days.

Caelen watched Sera go in. Watched the bolt slide home. Watched the hours tick by on the timestamp — one, four, twelve, twenty-four, forty-eight, seventy-two. No food delivery. No water. No bathroom access. When the bolt finally opened, Sera walked out on legs that barely held her, face blank, eyes dry.

She'd passed Caelen in the hallway that day. He remembered it now. She'd looked right at him, right through him, and he'd thought: *Why doesn't she say something? Why doesn't she ask for help?*

He knew why now. Because she had. Dozens of times. And nobody had listened.

Caelen sat in the security room until the artificial dawn started creeping through the window. The last clip he watched was from two weeks ago — Sera alone in her room. Seven square meters. No chair. A narrow cot with a blanket so thin you could read through it. Mold climbing the corner where the ventilation had been shut off. She was sitting on the cot with her knees pulled up, staring at the wall. Not crying. Not doing anything. Just sitting there in a room that was barely a room, in a house full of people who were supposed to be her family.

Caelen dropped his face into his hands.

His right hand — the one that had backhanded Sera across the face hard enough to send her into a display shelf. Hard enough to fracture holo-frames and shatter plexi and probably crack something in her cheekbone that she'd never told anyone about.

His hands were shaking.

He pulled up his comm and dialed a number.

"I need a background investigation," he said. His voice was raw. "Full scope. Target: Yara Ashford. Everything she's done in the past two years. Every person she's contacted, every credit she's spent, every lie she's told. I want all of it."

He ended the call. Sat in the dark for another hour.

Then he stood up and walked to Sera's old room. Opened the door. Stepped inside.

Seven square meters. The mold. The thin blanket. The desk with nothing on it because Yara had stolen or destroyed everything Sera owned.

Caelen stood in that room for a very long time.

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