Page 96 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir

---

But the war never really ended, not for people like me. Not for ghosts in the cracks of the system.

I step outside again, and Clancy looks up with a grin.

“Mom! I got the water trap to work! Look!”

A bright green fish leaps from the shallows, smacks into the clear plastic funnel he rigged from a food tube, and bounces right back into the sea.

He throws his arms up like he won a prize.

I force myself to smile. “That’s amazing, baby.”

He runs toward me, sand spraying behind him, hair wild, teeth flashing.

“I wanna show Aunty Maesa! Can we go into the city tomorrow? Please? We haven’t been in forever!”

I squat, cup his cheeks in my hands.

His skin is warm. Safe. Real.

I look him in the eyes.

“I need you to stay close today, okay? No wandering. No solo explorations.”

He blinks. “Is it because of the weird plane?”

I go still. “You saw it?”

“Yeah. The one with the square tail. Sounded like thunder but... meaner.”

So hehasnoticed. His brain just didn’t attach the right danger to it.

Yet.

I nod slowly. “It’s probably just a scout. But I want to be safe. Just in case.”

Clancy doesn’t argue. He never does, not when it counts. That’s Kalev’s blood in him. He reads between the lines, even at six.

“Should I pack my grab bag?” he asks quietly.

My throat closes.

I nod.

He runs inside.

I stay standing in the sun, letting the warmth trick my body into thinking everything’s fine.

But I feel it. In the air.

In the shift of the wind.

The past is coming.

I don’t know if it’s the Alliance, or bounty-seekers who remember my face from another war, or something even worse. But I know this: they’re not just flyingnearGlimner anymore.

They’rewatching.

I feel it in my spine like a knife made of memory.

---