"Cody. You are safe. It is A'Vanti. You are in the caves at Brishar."
I come back in pieces. The dream breaks apart, and the tent reassembles around me. My sight is filled with warm lantern light, and A'Vanti's face above mine, her amber eyes steady and near. Her palm rests against my cheek.
My heart is slamming. I'm covered in a sheen of sweat. And my hands, when I look down at them, are shaking.
"You are on Ceraste," she says, her voice low and calm. "You are in the springs at Brishar. It is just us. You are safe."
She says exactly what I said to her. The irony nearly makes me laugh.
"Well," I manage, and my voice sounds like gravel. "That's embarrassing."
"It is not."
"It's a little embarrassing."
"Cody, you called out a name." Her thumb traces the line of my cheekbone. "Who is Danny?"
She shifts so she's lying beside me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of her, but not so close that I feel pinned. She rests her hand on my chest, over my racing heart.
I swallow, trying to find the right words to say. "He was my friend. His name was Danny Reeves. He was a fellow soldier. We called him Books."
"Tell me about him," she says.
So I do. Not the death, just the man.
"He was always reading. Didn't matter where we were – middle of a briefing, back of a transport, waiting in line for chow. He had a paperback on him at all times." The memory surfaces with an ache that's almost sweet. "He used to make notes in the margins. Then lend you the book after, so you'd get his commentary with the story." A breath of laughter escapes me. "It sometimes felt like peeking into his brain."
A'Vanti listens. Her hand stays on my chest.
"He should've been a writer. That's what I always told him. He had this way of seeing things." I stare at the shelter ceiling. "He died. It was before the Cerastean alliance. Before any of this. Just a regular deployment, the kind of op we'd done a hundred times. Nothing about it felt different going in."
A'Vanti doesn't interrupt. She gives me the silence to find my way.
"Danny was ground team. I was the pilot." I let out a slow breath. "Danny always took point on breaches. He said he liked being first through the door, knowing everyone else was behindhim. And I was two hundred yards away in the cockpit, listening, and waiting for them to come out."
I close my eyes.
"It was hot that day. Brutally hot. I was annoyed and just wanted to get back to base." My voice goes flat. "That's the thing I remember most clearly. Being annoyed. And then Danny called in the all-clear. Said the package was secure, they were coming to me."
I have to force the rest of the story past reluctant lips.
"And then something went wrong. There was noise on the comms, shouting and shots fired, and then Danny's voice again, but wrong this time. He said my name, and then he said he was hit, and then there was nothing." My hands tighten on the blanket. "I sat there with the engines running and that goddamn fly buzzing around my head, and I listened to dead air where my friend's voice had been three seconds earlier. And there was nothing I could do. My job was to stay in that seat and be ready, and I did my job, and Danny didn't come back."
I open my eyes and stare unseeing at the tent above me.
The cave is quiet. The mineral springs murmur somewhere in the distance, and the lantern flickers, and A'Vanti's hand rises and falls with my breathing.
"When the assignment to the Cerastean alliance came up, I volunteered the same day," I say. "Everyone thought I was excited about the opportunity. And I was… I mean, who wouldn't be? To have the opportunity to fly alien ships and be a part of something bigger than myself? But the truth is, I needed to get away."
A'Vanti is silent for a long time.
"You came to the stars to outrun a ghost," she says. Not a question.
"Yeah." I swallow.
"Cody." Her voice is gentle but unflinching. "You cannot outrun grief. It is patient."
"I'm starting to figure that out."
