“Good morning.” Birdie tossed her one of the ration packs. “We only have a few left each which means our stay here can’t be long. If we're going to make it back Aquila, we have to save some." She rolled her eyes. "Can thank Vic for that.”
“We haven’t explored much.” Aesira ripped open the bag, wincing at the smell of dried meat. “There's water which means there could be food here.”
“I don’t trust anything in this place, especially to eat,” Bee said.
“It seems to be a pattern,” Birdie said, “you, not trusting things.” Her eyes narrowed at Birdie as she sipped from her canteen.
“I’m just saying, nothing about it feels natural.” Birdie scoffed and Aesira couldn’t help but feel there was a large piece of the conversation she was missing. She took her ration pack and found somewhere quiet, under a large tree with thin green leaves and cracked white bark. The wind twisted through her hair, kissing her cheeks. In the distance she could hear the faint bubble of water, from a spring they found.
Aesira couldn’t disagree with Bee more. Everything about Ravki felt natural, wonderful. The trees and the green and the abundance of water. Foreign, yes, but not unnatural. Like this was how life was supposed to be and somewhere along the way, they’d messed it all up.
She tore into a piece of the dried meat and rested her back against the tree trunk. The field across from her appeared plain, just as it had yesterday afternoon when they arrived. But last night she and Stone had seen with their own eyes how Ravki transformed under the moonlight, with the Lunaris moths.
They were barely noticeable, balled up so small they looked like seeds, but theastraflowers covered every inch of the field. Easily mistaken for grass at first glance.
She couldn’t wrap her head around the color though. In Vargah theastrareservoirs were purple. She knew she was rememberingcorrectly because she told Kamari they matched her dress perfectly.
“Can I sit here?” The deep timbre of Stone’s voice startled her, but she made room for him to sit. “It’s amazing how different it looks in the daylight.” He gestured to the field but she wondered if anything else looked different under the sun instead of the faint light of the moon.
Her, for example. Their choices last night.
“Birdie and Bee said we can’t stay long.” She forced her mind in a different, safer direction. “I don’t know where to start looking for Desmond.” She glanced over her shoulder, to the looming ruins behind them. “I certainly don’t want to go in there again.”
Stone chewed his food in silence, his eyes fixated on the field ofastra. “We split up. Look for any tracks or traces of someone being here. If we find nothing by nightfall…” He took another bite so she finished the thought for him.
“If we find nothing by nightfall, we leave, with or without Desmond.”
He nodded and swallowed down the last bites of his food. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Unless we find a reliable food source, we can’t burn much time waiting.”
Vic and his crew had plundered most of their supplies, including their ration packs, leaving them with the bare minimum. She knew they wouldn’t have much time to explore Ravki but it still left a disappointed taste in her mouth.
“And what do we do about that?” She nodded to the field ofastra.
Stone licked his lips. “We take what we need to get the Aquila back to Vargah without stopping, as planned.”
“And nothing else?” It was a cheap, baited question, but she wanted to know the answer.
Stone’s very reason for coming on this mission was to see if Ravki was real. See ifastragrew here, and it did, in abundance, straight from the earth just like he thought. Would he take it, she wondered, and fly out of Vargah for good? With the pardon from Kamari, it would be easy to leave and never look back. To find his way here again and pillage the flower for himself.
“Nothing else.” His eyes were still on theastra.
A more forceful breeze kicked up, sending a pile of fallen leaves swirling through the air. “What do I tell Kamari?” Stone glanced at her. “About theastra, I mean. About Ravki?”
A muscle clenched in Stone’s jaw. “What do you want to tell her?”
The golden buds were closed tight, tucked away until they would open under the moon, but the image of them glowing in the field last night hadn’t left her mind. How beautiful they were. How much power they held. The last thing she wanted was to risk this place being attacked by the kingdoms–both Vargah and Novaria–which is exactly what would happen. They were two kingdoms starved for power and a discovery like this would bring another war. Peace treaty or not.
“We don’t tell her everything,” she said, “at least, not right away. Until we can figure out what’s best.”
Stone bumped her side. “We?” He smiled.
“Yeah.” She bumped him back. “We. Unless you don’t plan on staying in Vargah.” Another cheap question, it burned the tips of her ears, making her feel like a fool.
Stone studied her face, eyes dipping to her mouth.
“If you two are done confessing your love, can we get the hell on with it?”
“Coming, Bird.” Stone’s eyes stayed glued to Aesira’s, that small smile still slashed across his mouth. He leaned in and kissed her temple. “Ready?”
