With the mission running long and no exfil in sight, there’s little for Valerian and Roman to do besides purchase too many groceries, hole up in the safehouse, and settle old bets.

Val stands over the cracked electric stove, carefully stirring a pot of ukha. The delicate scent of herbs, spices, and freshwater fish spirals off the surface of the broth. It smells of home, and Val knows without looking that Roman is sprawled on the couch behind him.

“Just be careful not to let the salmon overcook,” Roman calls out. What would be genuine advice from anyone else, Val knows is actually a gentle rib.

He scoffs, though he doesn’t take his eyes off the pot. “I’ll win this time. You’ll see.”

“Sure,” Roman says generously. “Except you’re still missing something.”

Val inhales, letting the well-rounded scent settle around him. “You can bullshit about your ‘secret ingredient’ all you like—I know when you’re bluffing.”

Roman is grinning; Val can hear it in his tone. “Your gambling money in my pocket says otherwise. Fish about done?”

Delicately poking at one cube of salmon, Val is pleased to find it flaky, tender, and cooked all the way through. “Yeah. Come get it while it’s hot.”

He nudges the pot off the heat and dishes out two bowls. Roman plucks one from his hands and takes a preliminary sip.

“Hmm. You’re definitely close. But not quite. Still missing that all-important piece to bring it together.”

Val eats a spoonful as well, deflating as he realizes the truth. Roman is right. It’s good soup—but not as good as Roman’s. The flavors that had seemed so balanced in theory are lacking something crucial. His head dips with weary resignation. “Fine...you win. What’s the secret?”

“Not sure I should be telling just anyone,” Roman says in his loftiest tone. “How about this: a secret for a secret. You answer my question, and I’ll tell you what you’re missing.”

Val laughs and shakes his head, grinning down at his imperfect soup. “Fine, fine. Ask away.”

He turns to face Roman, and the dream becomes a nightmare.

The safehouse is broken and charred. Darkness seeps from the corners, a viscous black liquid that gathers higher and higher on the floor. And Roman—

Roman is in uniform, drenched in blood. Valerian knows it isn’t his own. Those bright eyes bore into Valerian’s, feverish, and when Roman speaks, more darkness oozes from between his teeth.

“Why didn’t you stop me, Val?”

Val jolts awake, nearly falling from his bunk as he flails against his sheets. His eyes take in details with trained expedience—rough white walls, a footlocker, a window looking out over the grey tinge of pre-morning light.

Val’s head falls against the pillow with a groan. He knows he won’t be getting back to sleep.

* * *

“Valerian.”

Val sights down his scope, not bothering to hide his scowl. “I’m busy.”

“It’s about Roman.”

Val feels his muscles tense, though the reticle over his target doesn’t so much as twitch. “What do I have to say to make you understand? I don’t need leave, I don’t need another psych eval, and I sure as hell don’t need your pity. Bastard got what was coming to him.”

Behind him, Lena crosses her arms. Val can’t see her, but he knows the sound.

“Lie to yourself all you like, but don’t you dare start lying to me.”

Valerian takes his eye off the scope to turn his head, looking up and over his shoulder at where Lena stands. Arms crossed, hips canted, exactly as he’d pictured her. “Did you come out just to bother me, or are you going to do anything useful to the Front?” he snaps. 

Lena rolls her eyes and takes out a scouter. “Wind from 31 degrees northeast. Target at 1572.8 meters out.”

Val presses his eye back to the scope of the long, lean Sovereign rifle, breathing out the frustration lingering in his muscles. The reticle settles perfectly in place, and the trigger pulls smooth as silk.

The air splits with the thunder of the Sovereign’s discharge, and Val feels the weapon kick hard against his shoulder. He doesn’t bother to check whether the shot landed as he sits up and glances back at Lena.

Her scouter is still held over her eyes, though she lowers it as Val turns toward her. “You always were the best,” she says with a touch of wryness. “Now, would you please listen?”

Val scoffs and slings the Sovereign over his shoulder. He gets to his feet, dusting some of the dirt and grit from the front of his uniform. “It’s cute when you imply I have a choice.”

Their boots crunch over rain-parched earth as they start the trek back to base. Valerian shields his eyes against the bloody sunset, content to let his brisk pace speak to his disinterest in what Lena has to say. Still, he doesn’t try to stop her when she brings up Roman again.

“The brass finally made their ruling,” she starts. Her voice is shaped cautiously, neither accusing nor exonerating. “The cave-in was officially labeled an accident. You’re off the hook, not that there ever was much doubt. Honestly, after everything Roman did, I’m a little surprised they never offered you a medal.”

Val’s pace doesn’t falter, but he can tell Lena sees the tension in his shoulders when she softens her voice.

“I don’t want to dredge it all up again; believe me, I don’t. But I thought you should know, there have been...troubling reports, from Old England. Someone who looks like him. Out in the forests.”

This time Valerian does pause. He whips around to search Lena’s face, even though he knows she’d never lie to him (or at least, never lie about Roman). “What are you saying? That he survived? I dropped fifty tons of rock on him, Lena.”

Lena spreads her hands in a gesture devoid of certainty. “They’re not substantiated claims. Just rumors. But you and I both know how potent his genmod was. A healing factor like that...”

The blistering heat of the desert fades from Val’s perception. For just a moment, he’s back in the chill of Old England’s forests, the thunder of falling stone still ringing in his ears. He’d cried, after. Sobbed like a baby, for the man Roman was and the thing he became and all the senseless loss of life he’d caused. Long after the tears ran dry, Val had stayed by the cave, too numb to leave and too scared to sift through the debris.

He feels the exact same, now. Terrified to dig further, not even knowing which alternative he’s scared of.

Eventually, he turns back towards base. He needs, suddenly and unequivocally, to sleep. A long, quiet nap curled up in his bunk sounds like exactly the thing.

“Will you go?” Lena calls after him. “Back to Old England?”

Val shakes his head without looking back. “They’d never assign me there.”

“Didn’t stop you the first time, as I recall.”

Val pretends not to hear her.

* * *

He dreams about Roman again, of course. It’s always been Roman.

Before the disastrous Operation: Crimson Thread, it was Roman’s laugh, his crooked smile, his dancing eyes. That unshakeable confidence. Arrogance, some would say. Roman’s genmod, the genetic alteration that allowed him to heal so rapidly and cleanly, was a powerful one, and he treated it like immortality. His attitude was infectious, intoxicating. Everything about the man lit Val like a fuse.

After Crimson Thread, Roman changed. His fire became feverish, secretive. He smiled less, isolated more, trained harder. He pushed his friends away. He pushed Val away.

Val fooled himself into thinking it was a temporary change, a grief response. Maybe Lena did, too. No one could have truly anticipated what Roman became.

There’s a new age dawning, Val. Can you hear the cries?

Val couldn’t. Not back then. But every night since, he’s heard them: the wails of friends, family, innocents—every life cut short by Roman’s hands, until the chorus of the damned numbers hundreds strong, every last one of them screaming inside Val’s head.

Why didn’t you stop him, Val?

* * *

Old England is cold, damp, and crawling with hostile mutations. Some are intelligent enough to form loose bands or packs; others eat each other on sight. Valerian hates the whole island with a passion.

He starts his investigation at the Lodge—one of the few bastions of sanity on this rock. It’s large as frontier settlements go, with a population somewhere in the triple digits. It also happens to host a small base for the Front, but the other Frontsmen turn out to be of little help. None of them have seen this supposed specter of Roman.

“If we did, we’d put him back in the ground, eh?” The Captain smirks. “Wish I’d been there to kill the bastard myself, but apparently some off-duty sergeant got the honors. Happened here, you know, just 20 klicks to the west.”

Valerian knows.

“Look, kid, I’ll level with you,” another officer tells him. “The locals like to report a sighting now and then, just to keep the Front’s interest. This place wouldn’t last a week without our patrols.”

“Roman Tovhana?” This soldier just shakes his head with a grin. “You’re about four months too late, my friend. Better luck next time.”

The townspeople are hardly more forthcoming. Most of them scowl and spit at Roman’s name. Some of them recall hearing a rumor about the man haunting the site of his death, but no one can remember who reported such a thing.

Val was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. But like the genmod that keeps his hands rock-steady on his weapons, he isn’t easily shaken. With a pack of supplies, his sidearm, and plenty of ammo, he heads out west towards the last place he saw Roman alive.

It takes him almost three days of unrelenting rain to find the cave again. When he does, it’s because he nearly trips over the entryway.

Loose stone shifts and skitters beneath his boots as he stumbles back. Squinting through the downpour, he can just make out the shadowy mouth of the cave behind its shroud of overgrown vegetation.

He approaches cautiously, taking in details. Trampled grass and underbrush. Small, muddy puddles about the right shape for bootprints. Someone’s been here, and recently. Maybe several someones.

That’s when he hears it, a muted echo of a voice he never thought he’d hear again.

“No! No, please, just let me go—”

Val’s lungs lock down. Like getting the wind knocked out of him in training, he can’t seem to find his breath.

Roman.

But Roman has never sounded like this. He never begged, not even staring down the barrel of a gun.

((Knew you’d be the one to find me.))

Val takes a step forward. Another. He stumbles down the uneven, natural steps of the cave, reeling as the smell of damp earth and rotting leaves brings back the memory, as clear as the rain on his skin.

((Roman’s smile. His easy posture. Val could almost convince himself, could almost believe this was his Roman, risen from the depths of madness.))

He falls against the slick stone wall of the cave, drinking deep gulps of air. He has rain in his eyes.

((But Roman’s eyes...his eyes were alight, gleaming in the beam of Val’s flashlight. Feverish.))

A new voice echoes from floor to ceiling. Laughing. “Still haven’t figured it out, have you?”

“No, wait—PLEASE!”

Roman’s scream shakes Val back to reality. That he recognizes, from a hundred reckless missions. From a terrible, thunderous rockslide.

Val’s steps quicken as he scrambles over fallen stone. Someone, he registers distantly, must have shifted enough of the wreckage to make a path.

He plunges deeper into the cave, Roman’s scream still lingering in his ears like the cutting edge of a knife. Finally, Val sees the flicker of light up ahead.

Nothing, not a single one of his fears (hopes?) prepares him for what he finds.

Roman Tovhana is alive. There’s no mistaking that proud nose, those dark eyes, the scar through his upper lip. And there’s certainly no mistaking the desperate, thrashing motions of something clawing for safety, for life.

Two strangers, a man and a woman, hold him down on his back. The man sits astride him, pinning his legs. In one hand he bears a bloody knife. Roman's clothes—long ago, a uniform—are weathered and torn, displaying the fresh, oozing wound down his chest and stomach.

“That one’s for my sister,” the man with the knife says. “This one’s for my wife—”

Valerian’s sidearm is in his hands before he’s fully pieced things together. As Roman screams again, Val levels the gun.

“Put the knife down.”

Three pairs of eyes snap towards him.

“And who the hell are you?” the woman barks.

Val’s never been so glad for his genmod, never been so fervently thankful that his gun remains steady, regardless of the storm lashing against his insides. “I’m with the Adamant Front. Care to explain what the hell you’re doing here?”

With Val serving as a distraction, Roman thrashes again, almost slipping free before the man with the knife snarls and jams the blade into Roman’s gut.

For once in his life, Val doesn’t hesitate.

The shot rings out over and over, echoing down the tunnel with the force of a cannon blast. The man formerly holding the knife howls in pain as the blade and two of his fingers spin away into darkness.

“Next one goes between your eyes,” Val hisses. “Get up. Both of you. Walk away, and never come back.”

“You bastard,” the nameless man gasps. He’s clutching the bloody remains of his right hand, trembling. “You crazy son of a— Don’t you know who this is?”

“I gave you a fucking order.” His voice doesn’t waver, even with doubt screaming in his ear like a hundred damned souls—

He doesn’t know if he’s prepared to kill these people. He doesn’t know if he could bring himself to cross that line—especially with the scenes of Roman’s murders so vivid in his mind.

Fortunately, his resolve isn’t put to the test. The man and the woman scramble upright and flee, hurrying past Val towards the mouth of the cave. Their footsteps have barely begun to fade when Val holsters his side arm and crouches down at Roman’s side.

This close, he can see the man’s a wreck. Hazy brown eyes squint up at him from a face sunken with hunger and creased from sleepless nights. His body is all angles, his torn clothing now drenched in blood.

“Hey,” Val says, and his voice comes out softer than he intends. “I need you to stay with me. There’s— I have so many questions.”

Roman’s eyes focus slowly, still narrow with pain and confusion. But clear. Lucid.

“Wh-who...who are you?”

* * *

“Here. Eat it while it’s hot.”

Val slides a bowl of ukha across the table, then settles in the other chair with his own. The delicate, complex aroma reminds him of home.

The man once named Roman Tovhana picks up his spoon and digs in. His eagerness to eat anything he doesn’t have to hunt and kill himself hasn’t waned, despite the month he’s spent in the safety of this rickety apartment.

He calls himself Rowan now, after the badly dented name he’d found on the dog tags he woke up with. It’s taken some getting used to, but Val rarely slips up. Rowan is very different from the man he once knew.

Instead of the military buzz of his predecessor, Rowan’s dark hair is long enough to flop in his eyes. He has dozens of new scars, most of which are twisted, knotted things or else deep gouges that never completely filled back in. And, of course, he no longer wears a uniform.

Neither does Valerian. The brass hadn’t known what to do with either of them, and so Val found himself quietly shuffled out of the fold. He misses it, some days—the hard work, the adrenaline, the camaraderie. But he doesn’t linger on the things he’s lost, not when the pieces he does have need so much work. Lena has been after him to try an old world remedy called therapy, which, from what Val can gather, involves a lot of talking and a lot of patience. Well, at least he’s good at one of those.

“This is amazing.” Rowan’s quiet voice breaks through Val’s reverie.

He looks up to see Rowan smiling—no longer a rare sight, but still just as valuable. Valerian smiles back and eats another spoonful. “It’s called ukha. I’m glad you like it. Took me years to get the recipe right, and it was never as good as Roman’s.” His smile fades. “I suppose I’m still missing something.”

Rowan considers for a moment. He takes a slow, exploratory sip. “...Huh. Have you tried a splash of—what’s the stuff called, from Lena—”

“Vodka?” A tiny thrill runs through Val’s stomach as he considers. “Hold on.”

He returns with a half-full bottle. A dash for his bowl, and one for Rowan’s. Val finds himself oddly nervous as he stirs the broth and raises a spoonful to his lips.

The vodka does complement well. It’s exactly what Val’s recipe was lacking—yet it still tastes nothing like Roman’s.

“I think it’s perfect,” Rowan declares. “Seriously, Val, you should write this down.”

Val eats another spoonful, savoring and analyzing. It is perfect. Distinct from Roman’s, but just as good.

Rowan brushes his long hair from his face and happily polishes off his bowl. Val watches him eat with an old, complicated twist in his heart. There will always be a part of him that longs for answers he’ll never receive. But he does know three things.

I loved him. I killed him. I saved him.

His dreams are quiet tonight.