Six for the Crossing

Some doors open both ways.

Two Spans after Rian walked down the ramp, the Feralis Junior has a clean hull and an empty seat at the nav station. Kaelen says he's fine. Nobody aboard believes him.

Then Wren finds an old crossing in Axiom's records, marked with the same word Axiom put against whatever it found in Rian. Kaelen takes it as a job, and only a job.

Waking the Cenotaph Gate takes a recluse who won't leave his shard, a fallen house too frightened to open its door, and a way into the black market. The woman who sells that way wants one thing in return: Zeus, the crew's dog-fox.

Kaelen agrees, and means none of it. Then he sees who is standing at her shoulder.

Rian.

Found family, a slow-burn queer romance, and a crew deciding who they will cross for.