Page 47 of Stars in Umbra
Just like that, he was gone, his long stride carrying him into the sea of delegates.
Rina sat there, blinking, his words settling somewhere uncomfortable in her chest.
Praise from Kainan was rare.
The soldier in her who fought tooth and nail to be taken seriously, soaked it in and tucked it away like armor.
However, the rest of her? The tired, battle-worn woman who hadn’t slept in two days and was now expected to salvage a civil war and babysit the egos of an entire planet?
That part of her wanted to throw her water glass against the wall and scream.
Instead, she lifted her device, sighed, and forced herself to start typing with one hand, while the other picked up her fork and stabbed it into a piece of steak.
Damn, he was right.She would need her everlovin’ strength and extreme fortitude to make it through the day.
10
Skies Above Eden
RINA
The rest of Rina’s day blurred into a relentless grind of diplomacy and exhaustion.
She bounced between tense, back-channel meetings with grim-faced Allorian ministers and military top brass.
Each negotiation grew more defensive and exhausted than the last.
Add to that, uptight back-to-back holo calls with Gaelil Tovarr, the rebel leader who had replaced Vesk Tyran.
Tovarr, young and righteous, wore the ragged grace of a battlefield commander thrust into leadership too soon.
His voice was clipped, his demands clear: recognition of his people’s suffering, freedom for political prisoners, and a guarantee of government accountability.
Rina danced the thin wire between them, offering concessions, holding the line, bending but never breaking.
By the evening’s end, she had something close to a deal.
A shaky agreement for a cessation of hostilities, fragile as spun glass but enough to buy everyone some peace.
She hammered out a draft joint statement calling for a ceasefire, worded with care to keep both sides from losing face.
She transmitted the preliminary version to Kainan, the Allorian regime envoy, and the rebel elders via a secure channel, requesting feedback for release at dawn.
Her hands shook as she sent it off, even as her head split into one of the worst migraines in recent months.
She got them often, but this one took the prize this year.
Darkness edged her vision. Pressure clamped her skull like a vice. Light stabbed behind her eyes.
She pressed her palms to her temples, her body crumpling into the chair in the venue’s co-working space office she was using.
Her stomach growled, her mouth was dry, and her limbs were too weak to trust.
She needed fast-acting painkillers, then food and water to get over the hump, suspecting her sugar levels were depleted.
However, the thought of making it to a pharmacy alone in this state was laughable.
Sheba was off-world on a medical ship tour. Selene was back on Dunia.
