CHAPTER 20
A’Vanti
The last morning on Ceraste begins the way all desert mornings do – with light.
The larger sun crests the horizon first, spilling gold across the empty streets of Najara like honey poured from an enormous jar. I stand at the window of our quarters in the military base and watch it happen, the way I have watched it almost every morning since we arrived. The familiar alchemy of dawn on my homeworld. The gradual warming of stone, the way the shadows retreat and the sand begins to shimmer, the smaller sun rising an hour behind its companion to add its own softer glow.
I will never tire of this. No matter how many mornings I am granted.
Behind me, Cody sleeps. He is sprawled across the narrow bunk in a configuration that defies both comfort and anatomy, one arm flung across the space where I was lying, as if he reached for me even in sleep and found only empty sheets. Hisface is relaxed and boyish in sleep. A lock of brown hair has fallen across his forehead.
I watch him for a moment, this human who crossed an ocean of stars to find me and claim my heart.
Then I turn back to the window and let the dawn finish its work.
Later,I find Sator in the medical bay.
He is sitting with Drev and Joln and the other recovered Ostium survivors. The search teams found three more facilities along the ridgeline. All of them were long abandoned, but the teams swept the desert in search of survivors. There were eleven in total. It is a smaller number than anyone had hoped, but Ceraste is a brutal world even for those who grew up on it. For city-dwelling Ostium, stranded without power, water, or food, the desert had been merciless.
Sator speaks to the survivors in low, steady Ostium. He has spent every available hour at their bedsides since arriving. I am not surprised. This is who he is. This is who he has always been – the man who sits on the floor beside you and reminds you that hope exists.
He looks up when I enter, and his expression gentles.
"You are leaving today," he says.
"Yes." I pull a chair beside him and sit. For a moment, we are quiet together. The way we used to be quiet in my cell, when words had been exhausted, and only companionship remained.
"They will recover," he says, nodding toward the survivors. "The queen has arranged transport to bring them home. Their families have been notified."
"Joln?"
"Joln spoke this morning." Sator’s luxen brighten. "Just one word. But it was a word."
I close my eyes and feel a knot loosen in my chest.
"Sator." I open my eyes and face him fully. There are words I have carried since the day I was freed, and I have never been able to find the right moment or the right way to say them. Perhaps there is no right way. Perhaps you simply have to open your mouth and let the imperfect ones fall out. "In the cell, when I told you no one was coming – when I told you to stop hoping – you refused. You sat with me day after day, and you refused to let me disappear. Thank you for your faith."
His silver eyes are bright. His luxen pulse with deep, luminous violet. A color I have learned means love, in the Ostium spectrum.
"I could not let you go," he states. "You reminded me too much of Ameela. Fierce and stubborn and so full of light, even when you could not see it in yourself."
I take his hands. His fingers are solid and steady in mine.
"I am here now," I tell him. "Because of you."
He squeezes my hands once, firmly, and then releases them.
"Go," he says. "Go build your world, A’Vanti. And bring that human of yours back to visit me. I want to learn more about this creature who makes you smile like he does."
I laugh, and the sound surprises me with its fullness. "I will. I promise."
I stand, and I look at this man. This quiet, brave, impossibly kind male. I incline my head with the deepest respect I know how to show.
He inclines his back.
I turn and walk out of the medical bay, and I do not look back, because if I do, I will cry.
Cody is waitingat the transport.
