Chapter 184| Someone Else’s Six Years
Priya’s call came nearly a month after the first briefing, her voice carrying a careful, deliberate gentleness that told Allen immediately this update carried weight beyond routine procedure.
"One of the survivors is ready to meet you," she said. "Subject Group Nine. A man named Corvin Adair, formerly registered as an A-rank Hunter out of the Pacific Northwest. His incident predates your wives’ by roughly two years. He’s spent the past several weeks working with a counselor to process what we’ve told him, and he’s asked, specifically, whether he could speak with your family."
Allen felt old, familiar nerves settle alongside genuine, considerable purpose. "Of course. Whatever helps."
They met Corvin three days later at a modest, neutral WHRIB facility roughly two hours from Hegeville, and Allen found himself, watching the man enter the meeting room, struck immediately by the particular, guarded exhaustion he recognized from his own wives’ earliest, most uncertain days together — someone who had learned, through hard experience, not to trust easily, and was clearly forcing himself past that instinct for the sake of answers he desperately needed.
"Thank you for coming," Corvin said, settling stiffly into his seat. "I’ve read about your family. The tournament, Hegeville, everything. I wanted to meet the people who actually found this thing, before anyone else did."
"We’re glad to," Vivian said gently. "I understand a little of what you’re facing right now. More than a little, honestly."
Corvin studied her carefully. "Your file mentioned that," he said. "The dragon. The memory alteration. I keep trying to imagine what that must have felt like, learning your whole shared history was partially constructed."
"Devastating," Vivian said honestly. "And also, strangely, clarifying. I think I understand now why certain things never quite made sense before we knew the truth."
"That’s exactly it," Corvin said, something raw and relieved breaking through his careful composure. "I’ve had these — flashes, I guess. Since I was a kid, actually, long before anyone told me anything was wrong. I always thought I was just forgetful. Turns out I was fighting against something someone else put there deliberately."
"What happened to you?" Allen asked gently, aware of how carefully the question needed handling.
Corvin’s jaw tightened, old pain visible beneath his composed exterior. "A joint operation, they told me. Considerable prestige attached to it. I was twenty-three, hungry to prove myself. I don’t remember most of what actually happened during the operation itself. Just after — waking up in a hospital, told I’d suffered a training accident. Believed it for fifteen years."
"How did you find out?" Vivian asked.
"WHRIB contacted me directly," Corvin said. "After your raid turned up my file. I’ll be honest — part of me wishes they hadn’t. The other part is grateful beyond words. I don’t know how to hold both of those feelings at once."
"You don’t have to choose between them," Vivian said softly. "I still hold both, most days. I don’t think that ever fully resolves. It just becomes something you learn to carry."
Corvin absorbed that with visible, considerable relief, some of his guarded tension finally easing at the shared, genuine understanding. "Nobody else has said that to me quite that plainly," he admitted. "Everyone else keeps promising it gets easier. You’re the first person who’s told me it just gets carryable instead."
"Carryable is the honest promise," Vivian said. "Easier would be a kind lie. I’d rather give you something true."
Irene leaned forward, her own fierce, protective instincts clearly engaged despite having only just met him. "Do you have people?" she asked. "Family, friends, anyone actually standing with you through this?"
Corvin’s expression flickered, something lonelier settling beneath his careful composure. "Not really," he admitted. "My family drifted after the supposed accident. I’ve spent fifteen years mostly on my own, working odd jobs, never quite trusting anyone enough to let them close."
"That changes today," Irene said firmly. "Not because you need saving. Because nobody should carry something this considerable entirely alone, and now you don’t have to."
"I appreciate that," Corvin said, something cautiously moved entering his tired expression. "I don’t know how to properly accept it yet. But I appreciate it."
"You don’t have to know how yet," Myria said gently. "Just let us stay in your corner. The rest can come at whatever pace actually works for you."
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They spent nearly two hours with him, Irene sharing her own fierce, hard-won journey toward trusting her own memory again, Myria offering practical, considerable guidance on navigating WHRIB’s own institutional processes, Everlyn simply sitting close, offering the same quiet, steady presence that had carried her own sister-wives through their darkest moments.
When they finally parted, Corvin extended his hand to Allen with something that looked, for the first time since he’d entered the room, genuinely like hope.
"Thank you," he said. "For finding this. For coming today. I don’t think I properly understood how much I needed to talk to people who actually knew what this felt like, rather than simply reading it in a file."
"Anytime," Allen said, meaning it completely. "You’re not alone in this anymore."
They drove home in quiet, considered reflection, and Allen found himself, watching his family process the weight of the day’s difficult, necessary work, grateful all over again for exactly how much genuine good could grow from even the darkest, most painful truths, once someone finally, patiently chose to carry them forward together.
"I keep thinking about what he said," Everlyn wrote, once they’d settled into the transport for the drive home. "About nobody promising it just becomes carryable instead of easier. I think that’s the truest thing anyone’s said to me about all this, and I didn’t even say it myself."
"Vivian’s good at that," Allen said, glancing toward her with quiet, genuine warmth. "Finding the honest thing instead of the comfortable one."
"I’ve had considerable practice," Vivian said, managing a tired smile. "Ten years without sight taught me people usually prefer honest discomfort to a kind lie, once they’ve had enough of both to compare."
"He seemed lighter, by the end," Irene said. "Not fixed. Just lighter. Like some of the weight finally had somewhere to go besides just sitting on him alone."
"That’s the whole point," Myria said. "We’re not trying to fix anyone today. We’re just trying to make sure nobody has to carry this particular weight in total isolation, the way we very nearly did ourselves."
Allen let the observation settle, watching Hegeville’s familiar hills gradually rise on the horizon as the transport carried them home, and felt a fresh, quiet measure of purpose settle alongside the day’s considerable, difficult work — proof, however small, that the truth they’d fought so hard to uncover could still be turned toward genuine, healing good, one careful conversation at a time.