I'm moving before I consciously decide to, weaving through the crowd with a single-minded focus. Someone says my name,but I don't stop. I can't. Not when she's looking at me like that. Not when I can see the hairline fractures in her carefully constructed walls.
"Hey," I say as I reach her, and the word feels entirely inadequate.
"Cody." My name in her mouth, wrapped in that precise Cerastean accent, never fails to knock me sideways. "You're here."
"Wouldn't miss it."
I reach for her hands without thinking, and she lets me take them. Her fingers are cold, despite the regulated temperature of the bridge, and I can feel a faint tremor running through her. I fold her hands between both of mine and start chafing gently, trying to work some warmth into her chilled skin.
"You're freezing," I murmur. "How long have you been standing here?"
"A while." She doesn't pull away. If anything, she leans slightly into my touch. "I couldn't sleep."
"Yeah." I keep rubbing her hands, watching her face. "Me neither. Well… I slept, but not enough." I pause, searching her eyes. "How are you doing?"
A'Vanti opens her mouth, and I can see the automatic response forming. 'I'm fine', the words she's probably said a hundred times to a hundred different people. But then she stops. Her jaw tightens, and her expression shifts.
"I don't know," she admits, and the honesty in her voice makes my heart clench. "I thought I was prepared. I've had weeks to prepare. But now that we're here…" She shakes her head slightly, her gaze drifting toward the viewing screen. "I don't know… I guess I'm feeling a little lost and nervous."
I want to pull her into my arms. I want to tell her that she doesn't have to be anything. She doesn't have to be strong, or composed, or the example she expects herself to be. I want topromise that whatever she's feeling is okay, that she's allowed to fall apart, that I'll be here to help put the pieces back together.
But before I can say any of that, L'Tarne's voice cuts through the murmur of the crowd.
"Ceraste approaching visual range. Adjusting heading for optimal view."
A ripple of movement goes through the bridge as everyone shifts toward the viewing screens. A'Vanti's fingers tighten around mine, her grip fierce.
The ship shifts. Stars wheel across the viewport, sliding past like scattered diamonds on black velvet.
Then Ceraste fills the screen. Even though I've seen the images, even though I studied every scan and photograph during mission prep, nothing could have prepared me for this.
It's beautiful.
The dominant color is a rich, baked gold. Tans and ambers and deep ochres swirl across the surface in patterns that look almost like a watercolor painting. The land stretches vast and unbroken, interrupted only by the dark shimmer of oceans that cluster at the poles. The water there is a dark blue, almost black in the shadows, but catching glints of light where the suns touch it, like pools of liquid obsidian.
And the suns. Two of them. The larger one is cresting the horizon, spilling light across the planet's curve in a wash of copper and gold, while its smaller companion hangs higher in the sky, a pale-yellow disc that casts a second, softer glow across the planet's surface. It catches the sandy plains on the daylight side, painting them in shades of tan and ochre while the rest of the surface waits in darkness. A thin halo of atmosphere glows at the planet's edge. The polar ice caps gleam like crowns at either end of the world, brilliant white against all that earthen color.
Beside me, A'Vanti makes a small sound. A noise caught somewhere between a gasp and a sob. Her hand pulls free frommine and presses flat to the viewing screen, palm wide on the glass as if she could reach through and touch her world.
I don't think. I just move.
I step up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her back into my chest. It's not something I planned. I wouldn't have dared under normal circumstances. But after last night, the walls between us have thinned. And there is nothing normal about this moment.
A'Vanti stiffens for an instant. I feel the surprise ripple through her body, the automatic tension of someone unused to being touched. But then she softens, melting back into me, and her hand drops from the glass to grip my forearm. Her fingers clutch my sleeve like she's afraid I'll let go.
"I've got you," I murmur into her hair, low enough that only she can hear. "I've got you."
She doesn't respond. Just tightens her grip on my arm.
L'Tarne's voice breaks through. "Beginning atmospheric entry. D'Rett, are you prepared to launch the safety drones?"
"Launching now."
We stand like that as the ship draws closer, the planet growing larger in the viewport until it fills our entire field of vision. Around us, I'm vaguely aware of others reacting, gasps and murmurs and voices thick with emotion. But my focus stays on A'Vanti, on the trembling in her frame, on the way she's clutching my arm like I'm the only thing keeping her upright.
"There," she says suddenly, her voice rough. Her free hand lifts to point at a distant mountain range, jagged peaks that rise from the desert like ancient teeth. "The Spire Mountains. My mother took me climbing there as part of my pilgrimage to Brishar to pick my caste. From the tallest peak, you can see the whole of the capital city of Najara."
I follow her gesture, trying to commit the sight to memory. "It's beautiful."
