Page 115 of The Viking in the Vault
When she reaches me, breathless, I take her into my arms. “What?”
She smiles. “Dr. Kallisto just wanted to tell me something about what they found in that buried archive,” she says. “It’s…it’s big. Huge, actually.”
I raise a brow. “Is it a beast?”
She laughs. “No, Ragnar—it’s a discovery.”
It takes her a moment to realize I was being sarcastic. She shoves my shoulder gently.
“Now…come here, smartypants.”
She takes my hand and tugs me toward one of the quieter corners of the facility, just far enough that the noise fades to a hum.
“You remember the archive tech we were looking at before we kept going to find the crew?” she asks. “It was recording stabilization patterns…atmospheric regulation, oceanic filtering protocols. Stuff that was meant to preserve life, not just sustain it. Ragnar…it’s terraforming tech that the Borean Empire buried, and it’sfunctioning. Kallisto thinks that with the right calibrations, we might even be able to scale it.”
I stare at her. “You mean…”
Her voice goes quiet and awestruck. “I mean Earth, Ragnar,” she says. “My home. The coast I grew up on, the town…if we canadapt this, we could stop the hurricanes. We could stabilize sea levels. Maybe not right away…but this could change harm that was done way before the Convergence even happened.”
She blinks rapidly, like she’s trying not to cry. Her voice wavers.
“This is what I’ve been working toward for years. Not the fantasy of saving the world, but just…making it possible for people to stay. To rebuild. To not have to leave the places they love.”
I take her hands in mine, feeling the tremor in her fingers.
“And you found it in the wreckage of a ship older than your planet’s current maps,” I say, soft with wonder.
She lets out a shaky laugh. “Yeah. We found each other, and we found this.”
I pull her into my arms and press a kiss to the crown of her head before releasing her only to entwine my fingers with hers.
“So what happens next?” I ask.
She blushes. “Well…I guess it’s probably time to introduce you to my family, huh?”
I squeeze her hand.
“Do they know about me?” I ask.
She nods, then hesitates. “Sort of? I told my sister we were kind of having a thing. I may have also said you were, um…a little overprotective.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “Accurate.”
“And Idefinitelymentioned your antlers.”
“Also accurate.”
She exhales, leaning her forehead against my shoulder. “They’ve been through a lot. My hometown—Santa Rosa—it’s barely holding on. Every year, another storm. Another evacuation. My family’s been trying to help keep it standing, but…”
She trails off, then lifts her gaze to mine.
“If this tech works—if we can adapt it—it’s not just theory anymore, Ragnar. I could bring it home. I could help stabilize the coastline, give them a future there again. I know it’s a long shot, I know there’ll be red tape and politics and a million obstacles, but I want to try. And…”
She takes a breath, her voice small but steady.
“I want you to come with me.”
It takes a moment for the words to register. “To Earth?”
