“Yes.”
“Rhyx no human.”
Her fingers tightened around his, and he felt the rapid flutter of her pulse against his palm. Not fear. Curiosity, perhaps.
“No,” she said quietly. “You’re not.”
He was something else, something older, something that remembered a different sky and a different world and a grief so vast it threatened to swallow him whole.
But he was also something new. Something that had Alina’s hand in his and her scent in his lungs and her voice in his ear.
“What?” he asked, pointing at himself.
Her small white teeth clasped her lower lip again, a gesture he found unexpectedly appealing. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anyone like you before. You’re impossible…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “You shouldn’t exist.”
Impossible.Something that could not be. And yet here he was, solid and breathing and holding her hand like it was the only thing making him possible. Perhaps it was.
“I live,” he said.
“You do.” Her voice softened as she looked up at him, and then she reached up with her free hand, her fingers hovering near his face. “Can I…?”
He didn’t know what she was asking, but he leaned into her touch anyway. Her fingertips brushed his cheekbone and traced the ridge of scales along his jaw before brushing softly across his mouth. The simple pleasure of her hand on his skin threatened to overwhelm him.
“You’re so warm,” she whispered. “So alive.”
“Warm,” he agreed. “Alive.”
Her hand dropped away, and he mourned the loss of it. He wanted to demand she put it back, but at least she was still close and her other hand was still tucked in his.
They talked more. Or rather, she talked and he listened, absorbing words with a speed that made no sense. Scientist. Research. Mars…
His whole body went rigid.
“Mars?” The word triggered an unexpected wave of pain, although he couldn’t explain why.
“Yes. We’re on the planet Mars. Humans are trying to make it habitable again.”
Habitable. He suddenly remembered flying over land that was no longer habitable, towards a sun that was smaller and colder than it should have been.
But that was wrong too. He had never flown. He had no wings. And yet the memory was there, vivid and aching, full of both freedom and sorrow.
“Mars,” he said again, tasting the word. It felt like grief. It felt like home.
“Does that mean something to you?” She was watching him, those brown eyes sharp with curiosity. Scientific interest? Or something more personal? “Do you have memories of it?”
Memories. Yes. Too many and not enough, tangled together in ways that made his head throb. He remembered red dust and thin air and a sky that had once been blue. He remembered the feeling of belonging to something vast and ancient and dying.
“I remember,” he said slowly. “But it is… different. Wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
He struggled to find the words. The ones he had learned from her were not enough for the vastness of what he was trying to express. “Before… More air. More water. More… life.”
“Are you saying you remember Mars before… before it died?”
Died.Yes. That was the word. Mars had died, slowly and terribly, over eons he had somehow witnessed. The memories couldn’t be his, and yet they lived in him nonetheless, bleeding their grief into his bones.
“I remember,” he said again.
