“Ouch.” He laughed, rubbing his chest.
“Sorry.” She drew her hand away and tucked it behind her back.
“Commander,” he said, opening the door wider. “Did you wantto come in?”
Did she?
No.
Of course not.
“It’s our turn on deck,” she said. Simple. To the point. Stone nodded, slipping on his worn, leather flight jacket and joined her in the hall. “I meant to thank you earlier,” Aesira said.
Stone’s gaze shifted to her as they made their way above deck. He pulled his goggles from his back pocket and slipped them around his neck.
“For what?”
Aesira wasn’t one to admit she was wrong. In fact, it was her biggest vice according to her siblings. Pride, she argued it was. Ego, more likely. “I wanted to thank you for letting me join you with Vic, and for getting the maps verified.” It was a detail she hadn’t thought of and as much as it ate her up, she was grateful for Stone’s quick thinking.
Stone shrugged. “Han owed me a favor, so really it was nothing.”
She puffed her cheeks then let out a long breath. “Are you always so nice? It makes not liking you very difficult.”
Stone flashed her a quick grin which made his scar tighten. He gripped the wheel, turning them slightly left as she found an empty crate to sit on. “Would you prefer I be mean?” He shot her a look before focusing again on the horizon. “I thought we were friends, Commander.”
She could feel his grin without looking at him, feel how his eyes watched her, burning an outline of her face. “I’m not as gracious as you, but I’m trying.”
Stone laughed, steering them to the left. “Maybe don’t try so hard.” She turned to him then, because he had no idea what he’d said to her.
Don’t try sohard.
As if she had any other way of existing.
Try harder.
Work faster.
Be better.
Words of her childhood etched into her like they were carved in stone.
Permanent.
When she arrived at the Order, she was twelve years old. Her father had had enough of her animated spirit. Her sharp tongue and restless limbs.
“Sit still, Aesira.”
“Try harder.”
“Why aren’t you more like your sister? A princess should be poised on a chair, not dirty and perched in a tree.”
They sent her away to break her spirit, to eliminate all the untamed energy that was constantly bubbling up inside of her. They cut the wildness out of her chest, where it grew like thorny vines, and replaced it with heavy rock. Something to hold her steady. Keep her still. Keep her theirs. So she couldn’t do anythingbuttry hard, because anything less than perfection was met with punishment.
Under the light of the moon, Stone’s eyes glistened. Like water from Piscis Spring. Blue and endless. “How long until the next outpost?”
Stone rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Two days if we don’t stop.”
“And Dire will haveastrareservoirs?” Aesira pulled the small blade from Kamari from her pocket and used the edge to pick sand from under her nails. The ship sailed smoothly above the desert, the light from the moon and stars guiding their way. She ignoredthe distant screeching. The faint sound of her name being called. If the crawlers wanted to come back for her, this time she’d be more than ready.
