"Now," she says, "I know exactly what to do with it."
The kiss that follows is slow and sweet and tastes like mineral water and a promise that might be forever. I don't rush it. We've got nowhere to be and nothing to prove, and there's an intimacy that borders on sacred about kissing someone in a place where people have been pledging themselves to each other for thousands of years.
When we part, I rest my forehead against hers.
"My mom's going to love you," I tell her. "She's going to take one look at you and adopt you on the spot. She'll try to feed you. She'll ask you a hundred questions about architecture. She'll probably cry. Fair warning."
A'Vanti makes a sound that's half laugh, half something more fragile. "I would like very much to meet your mother."
"Then you will. I promise."
We stay in the water until our fingers have gone wrinkly. Or mine have, anyway; A'Vanti's scales seem immune to the effect. Then we climb out and dry off and get dressed in our rumpledclothes. A'Vanti wrinkles her nose at her sandy outfit but pulls it on without complaint.
I try the comm again while A'Vanti sorts through our remaining rations. This time, I get through. Barely. L'Zaen's voice crackles through the static like he's broadcasting from inside a washing machine, but the message is clear enough.
"…storm tracking shows at least…through tomorrow morning…unprecedented…stay in shelter…all teams accounted for…repeat…"
"Copy that," I say. "We're safe. Plenty of supplies. Will maintain comm schedule."
"…careful…the wind speeds…"
Then static swallows him whole.
"Tomorrow morning at the earliest," I relay to A'Vanti, trying and failing to look disappointed.
She raises one golden brow. "Tragic."
"Devastating."
"However will we pass the time?"
I cross to where she's crouched beside our rations and pull her to her feet. "I've got a few ideas."
"I thought you might." She leans up and presses a kiss to my jaw. "But first… dinner."
We eat sitting at the edge of the main pool, feet dangling in the water, and the simplicity of it fills me with a contentment so deep it almost hurts. This is what I want. Not grand gestures or dramatic declarations. Just this. Eating a meal with the person I love, watching light move across water, feeling the certainty that we are exactly where we're supposed to be.
CHAPTER 15
Cody
Night falls, or what passes for night in a cave. The fissures in the ceiling go dark as the suns set above the storm, and our world shrinks to the circle of lantern light around our shelter. The temperature drops noticeably. Not dangerously, the geothermal heat from the springs keeps the cavern at a comfortable baseline, but enough that burrowing into our nest of blankets feels necessary rather than indulgent.
We settle in together with the ease of people who've been doing this for years rather than days. A'Vanti molds herself into me, her back to my chest, my arm around her waist, and I pull the blankets up over both of us.
"Comfortable?" I ask.
"Mmm." She traces idle patterns on my forearm with her fingertip. "Tell me more. About Cedar Hollow."
So I do. I tell her about the creek behind our house where I used to catch crawdads with my bare hands, much to mymother's horror. About the giant oak tree in the town square that was supposedly older than the country itself. About Friday night football games where the whole town turned out, and the diner on Main Street that served the best blueberry pie in the known universe, and the way the mountains looked in October when the leaves turned – a riot of red and gold and orange that lasted maybe three weeks before the wind stripped everything bare.
"It sounds like a different world," A'Vanti murmurs, her voice drowsy. "Green and wet and full of… trees."
"It is a different world. About as different from Ceraste as you can get." I press my lips to the back of her neck. "But I want to show it to you. All of it. I want to take you to the creek and the diner and the old oak tree. I want you to see the mountains in autumn. I want my mom to make you her 'world-famous' pancakes."
"I would like that." Her voice is fading, sleep pulling her under. "I would like all of that."
"Then it's a date." I tighten my arm around her, feeling her body slow and soften against me. "The second we're back on Earth, I'm taking you to Cedar Hollow."
