Mira ended the call with a smile still lingering on her lips—the kind that didn't fade the moment the screen went dark, the kind that stayed quietly, warmly, as the silence returned around her.
She didn't move right away.
For a few seconds, she simply stood there, phone still warm in her palm, her fingers loosely curled around it as if letting go too soon might break the feeling. Relief came first, washing through her in a gentle wave. Then pride—soft, steady. And beneath it all, something calmer and deeper. A quiet certainty that things, for once, were aligning instead of slipping out of her grasp.
She slipped her phone back into her pocket and exhaled slowly.
Whatever had weighed on her earlier—the faint tension she hadn't fully acknowledged—felt lighter now. Not gone. Just eased. As if talking to Livia hadn't fixed everything, but had anchored her enough to breathe again.
Without overthinking it, Mira turned and walked down the quiet hallway toward Cassian's home office.
