NEVA POV
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The compound needed good news, and it arrived on an ordinary morning weeks after the hearing, delivered by two people who had spent months building something quiet and certain while everything else burned around them.
Duke found me first, alone, before breakfast, his expression carrying a specific nervous energy I rarely saw from him.
"We're getting married," he said. "Wren and I. We decided last night."
I felt genuine joy rise through the accumulated weariness of the last several weeks.
"Duke, that's wonderful," I said, pulling him into a hug.
"I wanted you to know before the announcement," he said. "You and Ryke started all of this, in a way. Everything this compound became — Silo finding Vael, Mitch finding Brinne, me finding Wren. It started with you getting on a mo
