Jeff closes his eyes briefly and gives a subvocated command through the small wrist transmitter: "Kassi, show yourself. Gently."

The air between them begins to hum. Romi watches in awe as the torchlight bends. Small, dancing sparks condense into a human form. She tenses, her body coiling for an unfamiliar threat, but she holds her ground beside Jeff. Her trust in him suppresses the urge to draw her blades.

Before her, a woman materializes out of blue-white, pulsing light. She wears a garment that flows over her body like liquid mercury, in constant, subtle motion. Her face holds flawless symmetry, her features fine and noble as if carved from marble. Her hair seems woven from threads of light, drifting slowly around her shoulders.

Romi stares, unable to blink. In her world, light is something that burns or glows—it has no shape and no face. This apparition defies every rule she knows.

Is this the magic he always warned me about? she wonders. But because Jeff remains calm, she allows the wonder to take over without fear.

"This is Cassandra," Jeff says. "I call her Kassi. She's my advisor, and the voice that has guided me since I arrived on this world."

Romi stares at the being of light, her eyes wide. "Is she... a spirit? A figure from legend?"

Kassi tilts her head slightly. Her voice rings clearer than crystal, filled with a warmth that feels strangely familiar to Romi. "I'm not a spirit, Romi," Kassi says softly. "Think of a lantern whose light is clever enough to remember images. I am a likeness made of that light. My core rests inside the great metal ship deep beneath this fortress, and I only project an image of myself here into this room. I see through Jeff's eyes and hear through his ears to help him."

Romi steps forward cautiously, curiosity overriding her fear. She reaches out a hand, determined to touch the impossibility before her. When her fingers pass through the light, feeling only the cool mountain air of the fortress, her eyes widen.

Metal that thinks? Light that speaks?

Romi suddenly feels small. Next to this apparition, her victories over the lords feel like a child playing in the dust. Jeff's world isn't just a distant continent—it is a plane of existence beyond her boldest dreams.

"Kassi is the one who told me where to find you," Jeff explains simply. "And she knows why your green eyes are the key to something far greater than this planet."

Romi turns her gaze from the projection to Jeff. An unforgiving, absolute clarity takes hold of her mind. She processes the distance from her origin. She belongs to this ship. Jeff stands beside her.

Kassi steps forward. The blue light of the hologram illuminates Romi's face. Her emerald-green irises catch the signal, reflecting it with intense clarity.

“Jeff,” Kassi says. “The biometric data is conclusive. Romi belongs to the Navigator lineage. Her classification rests on a distinct biological and neurological mutation.”

Cassandra aligns the sensor matrix directly with Romi.

“Navigators form a specialized lineage,” Kassi continues. “Their neurological architecture registers the currents of space and time. The emerald pigmentation of the iris is the physical expression of this altered synaptic density. It serves as a biological key for restricted systems.”

Kassi projects the structural diagrams of Romi’s visual cortex onto the wall.

“Neural pathways within the motor and visual cortices process stimuli at a rate that varies with the degree of the mutation,” Kassi states. “The exact threshold remains unmeasured. The brain calculates trajectories, pressure differentials, and vectors of movement prior to conscious cognition. The training at the mountain fortress merely exposed this biological architecture.”

Jeff tracks the sensor streams on the main console. He gives a single nod. “That accounts for the precision in combat,” Jeff says. “The biology provides the foundation. The execution remains yours.”

Romi closes her eyes for the span of a heartbeat. The streams of numbers remain fixed on the projection. Her doubts about her nature give way to the hard mathematics of the data.

Romi feels her knees tremble. "If I belong to these people... then who left me in that burning village? Was I thrown away because I was different?"

"No, Romi. Quite the opposite," Jeff says gravely. "Someone was trying to hide you. Someone wanted to erase your existence so you would never be found by those who hunt your gift. You were hidden in the dust of Hager—a jewel in the dirt, invisible to enemies until the time was ripe."

A sudden warmth spreads through Romi's chest. For years she felt like discarded refuse, forgotten by the world. Now the truth settles in. Someone loved me, she realizes, her heart pounding. Someone cared enough to erase my trail to save me. I wasn't abandoned.