Page 133 of The Alien in the Archive

She looks back at Thorne.

“This man is an invaluable asset to our research,” she says. “And yes, I suppose he could provide that information from captivity…but he was a dissenter. A scholar, like us. I ask you to consider his concealment in the Obscuary not as a transgression, but an opportunity for understanding.”

With that, she steps back and returns to her seat.

The room goes silent.

But people’s thoughts don’t.

They whirl with possibility, with research questions, with opinions and condemnations. I try to get a read on the room by listening, but it’s no use; the voices are too loud and too many.

Kaelion Rhyss rises next, his tendrils flicking around his neck. His eyes seem to brighten as he surveys the room, and when he speaks, his voice is smooth and deliberate.

“My fellow esteemed scholars,” he says. “While Professor Ferhalda has presented some fascinating information about this man’s role in the crimes of the Borean Empire, I am here to remind you of reality.”

I feel myself tense, bracing for what’s coming. Thorne bows his head, closing his eyes.

“No…” I whisper. “Don’t do that. It makes you look guilty.”

“The Borean Empire acted with impunity when it came to their enemies…and their subjects,” Rhyss says. “The domination of Kanin, the Nyeri’i Cataclysm, the Celestial Convergence…they were not accidents. Not some inevitability of history. Those atrocities were the result of choices made by the Borean Empire—by its leaders, its soldiers, itsscholars.”

He looks at Thorne, eyes narrowed.

“The same Magisterium this man belonged to, if Davina’s report is correct, produced numerous bigoted creeds against Pact species. They argued that the Skoll were nothing but barbarians, that Nyeri’i mysticism proved we were weak-minded. The academic establishment on Borealis provided the theoretical foundation for their people’s dominion over the cosmos, and the loudest voices of dissent were quashed. Those who were quiet, subtle…what was their purpose in the end?”

A familiar mind suddenly brushes against mine, and I look across the lecture hall to see Lyn in the audience, sitting alone. She’s biting her lip hard, eyes sparkling as she stares atThorne. I think she feels…conflicted. Not entirely vindicated, but still so, so angry.

“When one’s people are committing crimes against the rest of the universe—especially when you’re someone like Thorne Valtheris, who was in a position of power—are you not complicit in your silence? Your acceptance?” He grimaces, closing his eyes for a moment. “Thorne left before the Convergence…but where was he when the Skoll were enslaved and sent to be slaughtered? And where was he when the Boreans mined the Nyeri’i Trinity planets until they were torn asunder?”

Rhyss’s voice echoes through the room, rippling outward. I feel the impact in my chest, the air squeezed from my lungs as though he’s asking those questions ofme. Of course, I knew all of those things from books, but hearing it from the lips of someone who lived it…

…it always hits different.

And that guilt Thorne feels? It’s over the pain of someone like Rhyss.

He pauses, letting the weight of his argument hang heavy in the air. “We Nyeri’i,” he continues, his voice lower now, almost reverent, “know too well the cost of silence. The destruction of the Trinity was not a singular catastrophe—it was the death of an entire way of life. Of art, of culture, of identity. It was annihilation. Our planets were destroyed, and we have now been a spacefaring species for hundreds of years. We were left without a home. And now we are asked to trust someone whohidwhile others died.”

His glowing gaze settles fully on Thorne then, sharp and unyielding. “Do not mistake survival for heroism.”

I look back at Lyn, finding her face in the crowd…and God, she’s looking right at me. In that moment, I get it, when I never did before.

I understand why Thorne felt so very guilty. I understandwhy some people want him put in prison until he wastes away.

And yet…I still want him.

Thorne is still. Silent. But I see the tension in him, the way his shoulders have drawn just slightly tighter, like every word has hit exactly where Rhyss aimed. The Nyeri’i doesn’t need to say anything else; he takes his seat with slow deliberation, clearly shaken.

But there are two more people who have been given permission to speak today.

Thalara rises next.

She hesitates for only a breath, her datapad clasped tightly in her hands as she makes her way toward the podium. I see the nerves in the way her shoulders bunch, the way her steps are cautious and small. She tosses her long blue-black braid behind her back and clears her throat, looking down at the datapad.

“I am sympathetic to Dr. Rhyss’s grief,” she says softly, her voice shaking slightly at first but strengthening with each word. “I understand it because the Borean Empire nearly erased my own history too. The Merati homeworld was nearly mined to extinction. But…” She stops, visibly steadying herself, then lifts her chin higher. “The Merati may not have been as blameless as our history likes to suggest.”

That draws another murmur from the crowd, angry and growing. But Thalara clears her throat once again, and she somehow holds her ground.

“During my research on interspecies marriage in the Turitella,” she says, holding up the datapad and raising her voice, “I found evidence that some Merati royal lines intermingled with Borean. They collaborated…and some dowries even included the spoils of war.”

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