“They won’t.”
“But why risk it?”
Adria closes one hand over mine, locking the shimmering gemfruit between our palms. “When these are secured in their vessels, on either side of the Diakópsei,” she says, “they’re endlessly renewed and refueled by it. But if you take one with you, it’ll only work once.” Her violet eyespin me in place as she withdraws her hand. “Then you have to come back to me.”
I turn the gemfruit over and over in my palm, feeling out its strange shape, admiring it like a talisman. A ward against forces of dark and light alike.
“I’ll always come back to you,” I breathe, pressing my lips to the fruit’s surface.
I feel its primeval power glint briefly, impossibly blue on my lips, electric, before I press them back to Adria’s. I don’t know how long we stay like that, my fingers threaded in her overlong hair, her hands holding me steady at the hips, her mouth eclipsing every fear that haunts the edges of my mind, but it’s not nearly long enough.
I don’t think any length of time would be enough.
All things considered, Adria’s technicians did an impressive job salvaging my starship. Cracks spider throughout the central dome, and the wings aren’t quite at their intended angles, with additional trusses of support added between the upper and lower pairs, as well. It’s easy to tell which pieces had broken off and were soldered back on, often with bits and bobs missing.
It looks likeCharonif I had tried to sketch it from memory, with my left hand, while blindfolded across one eye. But it’s stillCharon.It’s still my ticket home.
Home.I want to curl up beneath Adria’s wings and simply tell stories back and forth until we can’t keep our eyes open. I want to wake up to Russ unnecessarily slobbering all over Aspect’s scratched-in smile with three enthusiastic tongues. The Shadowlands were never meant for me, but I can’t shake the persistent sense that Adria was. Despite all that logic would dictate, I could build a home here. Instead, I’m being called back to the ever-shifting sands, then diving beneath them, back to thesettlement. A downward spiral into a potential conspiracy I’m only just beginning to understand.
For all the impressive cobbling together that the nightfolk did,Charon’s boarding ramp was apparently beyond saving. Adria lifts me on her shoulders to reach the cockpit. Aspect is already waiting inside, eyes brightly beaming cherry red, both arms waving at different speeds. Not unlikeCharon, their limbs bear new patches of foreign metal, with the occasional gear or cog sticking unnecessarily out, but they hardly seem to mind.
“Aspect—fixed ship. Aspect is still—useful—at the end of the world.”
“Not the end of the world yet.” I laugh, taking their outstretched hand and sliding off Adria’s shoulders. Immediately, I keenly feel the absence of her body on mine. “Adria.”
She looks at me, though the tension in her jaw and her furrowed brows tell me it’s taking all her strength not to look away and spare herself the pain of watching me leave.
“Be the queen I know you are. Hold the line.” I slip one hand into my pocket, feeling the unearthly shape and pulse of the gemfruit I’ll carry with me. “And when I come back, I expect you’ll be waiting.”
“You’re making demands now? On my side of the planet?” She laughs, but it’s dry, humorless. “Be safe, Kori.”
“I’ll try.” It’s the best promise I can offer. Not enough, but something, at least.
I reach to tap my armor’s trigger points, triggering the extension of a helmet around my face, then a cascade of protection across the rest of my body. I don’t really need any of it until I’m home, where it will be necessary again: both to preserve any remaining anonymity and to avoid alarming anyone at my ability to withstand Pagonian radiation. But my eyes burn something fierce, my throat closing up.
If, stars forbid, I don’t come back—if I collapse somewhere on my quest for answers and never know the sweet assurance of her lips on mine again—I don’t want Adria to remember me crying as I said goodbye.
“You better,” Adria says, but I hardly hear her over the struggling engine’s roar. What I do hear, unbelievably loud, is three canine heads howling headlong at the sky, watching their robotic companion slowly shrink smaller and smaller as we ascend.
The tears I’ve been fighting back rally hard, my eyes burning.
Aspect leans out the ship’s still-open entrance like the lead in a romance film, holding onto the side of the doorway with one hand. “Aspect—will miss—” But the wind around us is picking up something fierce, a stirring whirlwind. Unsteady, they nearly pitch forward, and I catch them hard by their other arm, pulling them back intoCharon’s interior proper. “TRIPLE DOG!” Aspect concludes, waving their free arm wildly farewell as the cockpit seals shut around us.
Distantly, the dog’s wails carry over the wind. Aspect produces a strange series of low, nearly musical beeps that I’ve never heard before. First words, of a sort? Why did they have to be born of tragedy?
Is this really what it is to be a person, then? An understanding, first, of hope, of dreams … only to have those chased by inescapable pain?
Charon’s battered husk rises, defiant as ever, into the sunless sky. Through muffled sobs of my own, I take the pilot’s seat and set our course for home.
I struggle almost as much asCharonwith our trip across the Passage.
Every cough and sputter of the half-wrecked shell and practically zombified engine threatens to shake a little sob out of me. My clammy hands struggle to grip the remaining controls at all—very few left working, save for the essential directional lever and an on/off trigger for the engine—and when I do get a decent hold, it’s a death grip, sending shooting pain through my arms. It doesn’t help that the autopilot was dead on arrival, so I have to make every flight decision manually, even when I want to curl into a fetal position.
Compared to the Shadowlands, the heat wave of entering the Passage should feel like rebirth. Instead it feels like I’ve gone from cold, solid safety to formless, blazing torment, the sands below us ever shifting and swirling with violent winds. I thought I missed warmth, especially when I tried to sleep, but now my eyes sting, my skin prickling with it.
I itch all over inside my entirely unnecessary protective suit. But, at the very least, the armor keeps Aspect from seeing me cry, and that’s enough. I imagine their first few charge cycles as a sentient being are pretty formative. Seeing their maker promptly have an emotional breakdown could only bode badly. So I stay in the suit.
Where the Passage’s wind currents pushed us easily toward the Shadowlands, now we’re fighting Pagomènos itself to reverse course. Disturbed sand trickles throughCharon’s cracks, blurring my view from the cockpit, even half jamming some of the controls, filling every crack and crevice. I need to constantly brush the control panel clean, even blowing out the biggest breaths I can muster to keep the levers fully mobile. I pitchCharonhard away from the Passage’s center, despite such a move extending the miles of our trip. There are lesser wind currents on the fringe that travel in the opposite direction. A longer trip, without fighting the wind, will be a shorter trip in the end. And should help keep us off the settlement’s radar detection, while we’re at it.
