Mairen stares out across Astren Cove from the lighthouse roof, the wind scraping salt through her tangled hair, a half-empty bottle of rye balanced dangerously beside her. The night is black and jagged around the glass, the beacon churning its wheel of light over the endless sea. She shivers, more from what she’s done than the bite of the cold. She thinks she’s alone—she’s always alone up here. That’s why she comes.

A quiet click of boots on metal. Veyra appears at the hatch, haloed silver, clutching a flask and avoiding her gaze. It’s strange, Mairen thinks, how Veyra makes every silence sound like a challenge—how she always looks like she’s calculating the quickest escape. But tonight, Mairen can see the strain in Veyra’s neck. She crooks a finger, inviting her closer with that reckless, sideways smile.

Veyra, usually so reserved, folds herself onto the ledge, not quite near enough to touch. She doesn’t speak, just tips the flask in Mairen’s direction. “You look like hell,” Veyra murmurs. Her voice is low, careful, leaving room for denial. Mairen laughs, reckless and raw.

“I could say the same about you.” She sips, rye burning her throat. “What’s your excuse?” The wind whips Veyra’s hair across her eyes, and for the first time, Mairen thinks she looks real—unguarded, bruised.

Veyra’s mouth twists. “Maybe I finally did something stupid.” Her gaze flickers, unwilling to linger. “Maybe I wanted to see what you look like when you’re not performing for an audience.”

A beat, thick with challenge. A flicker of lightning splits the horizon in the distance; thunder rolls, and Mairen shivers. So does Veyra, but she doesn’t pull away when their thighs brush, doesn’t flinch as Mairen leans in, her perfume mingling with sea spray.

“Careful,” Mairen whispers, eyes dark and hungry. “You stay up here too long, you might start telling me something true.”

Veyra’s hand trembles as she grabs for the flask. “Maybe that’s the point.” For a moment, all performance drops away. They watch the beam sweep the water, the fog rolling in so thick the world disappears.

Mairen laughs, softer now, vulnerable. “I’m tired of being wanted for all the wrong reasons.” Her voice cracks at the edges—she’s never hated herself more than she does tonight. Veyra, in a rare act of courage, touches Mairen’s cheek—fingers gentle, hesitant, then certain. The contact charges the air; even the wind seems to pause.

Without thinking, Mairen’s lips fall to hers—salty, desperate. The kiss is hesitant, lingering, both of them raw from too many lies and too much silence. There is heat in it, and something gentler that terrifies them both. When they part, Mairen is breathless, Veyra stunned. The taste of rye and salt and need hangs between them.

“I shouldn’t have,” Veyra whispers, but doesn’t move to leave.

Mairen grins, too sharp, hiding the tremor in her hands. “If we’re keeping score, I’m pretty sure I’m losing.”

Their laughter is quiet, but it’s the first real thing either of them has felt in days. For a while, they sit in the hush of the storm, their fingers intertwined, faces lit by the lighthouse beam.

Down at the Marrow Point station, Ivo is pacing, anxiety crackling off him in waves. Lyev’s threats echo in his head, as poisonous as the cheap gin staining his breath. He finds Solan in the darkened lounge, slouched in a diner booth, eyes reddened from crying. Ivo’s desperation sharpens his charm into something dangerous.

“Solan. I need you to do something for me.” His tone is softer than usual, almost fatherly, and Solan—craving approval, any approval—looks up, wary but hopeful. Ivo spins a story about unity, about saving the station, about loyalty. The truth is simpler: he needs someone gullible, and Solan is always yearning to be wanted.

Solan agrees, his gut twisting. He lies, for Ivo, without understanding that he’s trading his own last piece of innocence for a place at a table that never really set for him.

Broken by the night, Solan wanders to the lighthouse, shivering. He finds Telin, the lighthouse keeper, sitting with legs slung over the railing, smoking into the wind, eyes reflecting nothing but the cold light of the beam. Solan collapses beside Telin, tears streaming from the effort of holding together too many shattered hopes.

Telin regards him with amused distance, but their voice is gentle. “You waiting for a shipwreck, or just planning to jump?” The joke cracks something open. Solan laughs, then sobs, then crumples against Telin’s shoulder.

The first touch is tentative, Telin’s hand on Solan’s back slow and warm. Solan’s pain is raw, and in the shelter of the fog, the ache turns to hunger. His kisses are desperate, lips tasting of salt and regret. Telin lets him lead, anchoring his trembling hands, pressing their mouth to Solan’s, slow and sure, until the spiral of fear burns into something quieter. They move together awkwardly, clothes half-off, knees bumping metal; the sex is messy, needy, bodies clinging as if drowning. Under the lighthouse’s spinning eye, Solan finally lets go, panting in the safety of someone who doesn’t ask for anything but the truth of him right now.

The dawn creeps in, pale and accusing. Everyone’s world has shifted.

In the hush before sunrise, Lyev emerges from the shadows of the empty station, confronting Ivo. His words are soft, but his eyes glitter. “One more lie, and I won’t just take your job. I’ll take everything.”

To be continued...